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Archives for December 2010

Process Knowledge Initiative: Navigating the field of process management

December 21, 2010 By brenda michelson

As I mentioned in September, I’ve been engaged by the stewards of the Process Knowledge Initiative (PKI) to expedite the boring, yet critical, start-up activities to create the foundation for the development of an open source body of knowledge focused on business process management.

Over the last month, we’ve progressed on the “more interesting” aspects, including defining the technical (really content) team structure and announcing the technical (again, content) experts and advisors.

This morning, in the BPTrends Advisor, Paul Harmon, co-chair of the technical integration team, published an update on the PKI (PDF), which included his perspective on the value of the to-be-delivered body of knowledge (PKBoK).

“As I have watched the PKI initiative gather momentum, I have become more excited about the potential of this effort. When I first began to talk about the PKI effort I emphasized that it would support the creation of a common understanding of process and process work. One hardly needs to edit a website like BPTrends.com to be aware of the variety of definitions that are in widespread use and the belief that anything that standardizes usage will make it easier to communicate the process perspective to business managers.

As I have worked with the PKI during the last few months I have begun to evolve a slightly different understanding of the value of the effort. I continue to believe that standard definitions are important, but I begin to see where PKI can contribute even more to the process field. The PKI is focused on defining a high level overview of the field and specifying high level tasks and techniques. We do not plan on defining the tasks and techniques in great detail since most of the tasks and techniques have already been defined by other groups. What I now envision is a circular target with a process definition in the center. Surrounding that, there are knowledge areas where process concepts are used. In the next circle, there are the tasks that describe the work process people undertake. In the next circle out, each task is associated with techniques. And, beyond techniques there are pointers to organizations and books that define specific techniques. Figure 1 below, represents a pie shaped slice from such an imaginary target.”

 

 

I think Paul’s pie slice is a great depiction of our intent.  We don’t want to reinvent the process field.  We want to help navigate it. Think of the PKBoK as ‘the Wikipedia of BPM’.

Want to help?  Visit the Process Knowledge Initiative website for more information.

 

[Disclosure: The Process Knowledge Initiative is a client of Elemental Links.]

Filed Under: bpm, process knowledge

We’re Back: Top 3 Cloud Computing Stories for November

December 7, 2010 By brenda michelson

Yesterday, Dave Linthicum, Bill Russell and I exchanged our top 3 cloud computing stories for November.  Yes, we discussed WikiLeaks, which in my opinion is definitely a top story, but not necessarily a “cloud story”.  But, that was just me. 

Check out the podcast to hear Dave and Bill’s rebuttals, our other picks, and why I had to pick up my “challenge flag”. 

Filed Under: cloud computing, podcasts

The Beauty of Data: Hans Rosling’s The Joy of Stats

December 1, 2010 By brenda michelson

Floating on twitter today is this tremendous clip of Hans Rosling using an unique data visualization technique to tell a story.  The clip is an excerpt from an upcoming BBC special, The Joy of Stats.

“Hans Rosling’s famous lectures combine enormous quantities of public data with a sport’s commentator’s style to reveal the story of the world’s past, present and future development. Now he explores stats in a way he has never done before – using augmented reality animation.

In this spectacular section of ‘The Joy of Stats’ he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers – in just four minutes.

Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Hans shows how the world we live in is radically different from the world most of us imagine.”

Check it out. It’s amazing.

Filed Under: active information, data science, data visualization Tagged With: BBC, Hans Rosling

Brenda M. Michelson

Brenda Michelson

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