@ IBM Impact: Opening Session, Tuesday April 12, 2011 : Elemental Links

It’s Day 2 of Impact, back in the “main tent” for the opening sessions. Opening today’s session is Katie Linendoll. Katie is telling us how she was slaughtered by Watson in Jeopardy. Her take: $2. Watson’s: significantly more.

Yesterday, was focused on the Transformation. Today, is focused on the How. Katie promises the How will come across in real customer stories.

First IBM speaker up is Steve Mills. Slide accompanying Steve “Does your IT Architecture Enable Business Agility?” [I'm guessing a lot of folks are thinking, "some, but not enough".]

Steve begins with service-oriented architecture. [Still not dead]. Steve is focusing on SOA’s power to provide agility by unlocking data and functionality trapped in existing systems and datastores. This liberated data and business capability is then consumed by business processes.

SOA, the architectural style, underlies the Cloud.

“Business Agility requires a robust SOA infrastructure”. Foundation for BPM, Process Integrity, Information Integrity and the Cloud.

Agility isn’t just about speed. Agility requires flawless execution. Even more difficult with distributed processes. Steve is emphasizing the importance of process integrity, transaction integrity. Unlike our past CICS days (I remember those), we need to think past vertical integrity to horizontal integrity. Recovery and compensation are critical capabilities.

Not just learning from the past, architecture must look forward to new delivery models, such as mobility,

Steve is reeling off some customer examples. Unlike past SOA case examples, these are all examples of the “-ilities”. High volumes, low latency and big dollars.

Bit of a shift now to Smarter Planet. Smarter SOA needs Smarter Planet principles, such as instrumentation.

Katie is introducing a video on the City of Madrid and the terrorist attack of 2004 that impacted transportation and communication systems. In the aftermath, the city created a central emergency response city. Not just response, but real-time monitoring of the city, including transportation and responders. More than a systems solution, there was significant business process change. You can check out a related video here.

Next up is Phil Gilbert, VP for the IBM Business Process Manager product line. Phil comes to IBM via the Lombardi acquisition.

Phil is talking about the increasing level of complexity in organizations compared with the static level of resources to combat that complexity.

Phil credits Alfred P. Sloan as being the father of business process management. Sloan emphasized visibility and governance.

The cadence of IT improvement doesn’t match the cadence of complexity in our enterprises. We can’t scale out of this problem. Phil is not talking about turning business people into coders. He equates business people & BPM is like attorneys and word processing. We have a tremendous amount of productivity by removing the typist layer.

Phil states you can’t start business process improvement projects without considering technology up-front. He is challenging Six Sigma type efforts.

One of IBM’s big announcements at Impact is the new IBM Business Process Manager. This is a combination of WebSphere Process Server and Lombardi. We are seeing a demo now. There’s been a mixed reaction to this product by the analyst, influencer community. This isn’t my area of specialization. I’m curious to hear what Sandy Kemsley thinks.

Phil has just introduced Kerrie Holley, IBM Distinguished Engineer. Kerrie is going to speak on the methodology behind (in-front of) the new BPM offering. IBM’s method for business process optimization. Method has 3 principles: Focus on Outcomes, Innovation over Incrementation and something I missed.

Phil is back. IBM has a broad portfolio of BPM capabilities, such as business monitoring, decision management, advanced case management, process discovery and compliance and process automation and integration. Phil is saying this variety is a positive. Apparently, his indoctrination into IBM is now complete.

Next customer example, Banco Espirito Santo. Short video. BPM story.

Finally, real-live customers. A two company, four person panel, “business and IT better together”, moderated by Frank Kern, IBM SVP. Customers are from Nationwide Insurance and Verizon. Each company is represented by a business and IT person.

Verizon told a speed story — 3 months to 3 days — for an application to support the NFL draft. Nationwide, being a good sport, is talking about “accounting transactions”. Pulled rules from 387 systems into iLog, now business maintains those rules centrally. Reducing ledgers from 17 to 1.

Getting on top of information explosion, what are challenges? Nationwide: Transformed data thinking, no longer checking the data checkers. Now using data more strategically. Made 80% improvement in performance and throughput across back office. Data is now trusted information.

Key lessons: Focus on end customers; systems performance is absolutely critical (design performance in, not test it in); need to consider new delivery models (mobility); strong executive sponsorship and shared strategic vision (business and technology).

Katie is back, introducing another customer story: WorkSafe Victoria. This is a process automation story. iLog Rules Engine plays a big role in the solution. 84-85% straight through processing achieving. End-users can now focus on higher value work.