1©2010 BP3 Global, Inc

What we Learned @ bpmCamp

bpmCamp 2010 @ Stanford University

Scott Francis, CTO, bp3

@sfrancisatx

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What we Learned at bpmCamp

What is bpmCamp?

What does bp3 have to do with it?

Key emerging themes from bpmCamp

Plans for the future

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What is bpmCamp? According to Attendees:

One sign that we were on to something: one attendee told me they were surprised how much

project management and process improvement content there was. Another told me they were

surprised how technical it was.

Notable Feedback:

“way more fun than 8th grade gymnastics camp”

“THANK YOU! Really stellar experience all the way around and well worth the $

and the travel.”

“I think the real benefit was that there was the right balance of structure and flexibility -

group was able to roll with real time changes to both timing and content/topics as

needed.  Also having the content driven by the attendees differentiated this from

other conferences I have been to.”

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What is bpmCamp? (organizer’s perspective)

Get real BPM practitioners together

Run a low-cost event

Discuss what’s working and what isn’t.

Get into technical and product realities, as

well as real cultural and management

challenges.

Modest Goals: target attendance 25, max

40. We sold out at 41.

Partnered with Stanford University’s Lee

Merrick and Minh Nguyen, who run a BPM

initiative within the Stanford Electronic

Research Administration group.

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Crowdsourcing Topics were crowdsourced, mostly in advance.

Organized on a wiki and on a mailing list

Speakers volunteered to present or moderate

Topic ideas required speakers/moderators to

volunteer (or be drafted)

We literally took straw polls to determine the sort-

order of sessions

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What does bp3 have to do with it?

We’re a BPM services firm founded by former Lombardi employees

We have deep connections to the Lombardi BPM ecosystem and product line.

We wanted to foster a crowd-sourced conversation among BPM practitioners

Frankly, we missed having Driven 2009 in Austin (it was virtual in 2009).

7©2010 BP3 Global, Inc

We Noticed Emerging Themes

The planned themes:

Project Managing BPM

Process Improvement

Sharing Technical Best Practices

The Emerging Themes:

BPM Culture

Process Data wants to be Free

Hidden Costs of Inaction

Working with Distributed Teams

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Developing the Culture of BPM

It isn’t about developing ad infinitum requirements specifications, and validating

everything against those specifications a year to 18 months later.

Moving from plan-driven (waterfall) to value-driven (BPM) delivery and culture

Navin Kekane kicked off the event with a keynote describing the journey of Stubhub

with BPM from 2007 to 2010: from initial process, to 3 processes, to 8 processes

– This won’t happen overnight - Navin calls it a 2 year journey to become a process-

focused operation, and they’re still investing, improving, and adapting.

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Plan Driven vs Value Driven?

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BPM Culture

Following a Following a planplan

Following a Following a planplan

Responding to Responding to changechange

Responding to Responding to changechange

over

Comprehensive Comprehensive documentationdocumentationComprehensive Comprehensive documentationdocumentation

Working Working softwaresoftwareWorking Working softwaresoftware

over

Contract Contract negotiationnegotiationContract Contract

negotiationnegotiationCustomer Customer

collaborationcollaborationCustomer Customer

collaborationcollaborationover

IQIQIQIQEQEQEQEQ over

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Process Data Wants to be Free

“BPM generates a lot of valuable data.”

We want to expose process data to the enterprise

– Reports, Aggregate Data, User Activity– Tasks, Processes, – Internal Status of both the process and of business entities (orders, etc).

...And we want to publish that data to more mediums:

– Google Visualization, Fusion, twitter, RSS, SMS, SalesForce, email, smart phones

...And we want to build rich UIs in more technologies

– Standard Coach UI, Flex, Ajax frameworks (ExtJS, GWT, YUI), .NET, smart phones

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Describing the Real Costs: Process Debt

Implementation cost is a narrow view of the cost of BPM

The cost of doing nothing is immense: Unintended Process Debt

– Process Shift over time • your process is likely not performing to your needs

– Changing Requirements of your business and your market• exceptions and workarounds start to dominate the happy path of your business

Work off that unintentional Process Debt through Process Improvement

Take on short-term intentional debt in BPM projects to:

– decrease time to market • increase agility, start achieving ROI sooner)

– test a change before implementing it fully • don’t spend money gold-plating an A/B test - run the test!

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Managing Distributed Teams

Couched as a discussion on offshoring, we quickly turned to examining why

offshoring yields different results than remote workers.

Generally people focus on logistics (time, connectivity), and culture.

Three more dimensions:

– Personal connections and communication with remote teams – Working with teams that do BPM in their local market, not just for companies far away. – Experience (life, career, BPM) really matter in BPM in a way that participants didn’t feel

was as critical in many other disciplines within IT.

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What Did We Learn?

BPM practitioners need to recharge!

We need a reasonably priced way to network with their colleagues and peers -

outside the four walls of their own firm.

Location near a hub of BPM activity matters

Donated meeting space is critical

Crowdsourcing topics is a great way to organize, but it requires an instigator.

We’re going to do it again. Lee Merrick and I are already hatching plans for an

improved bpmCamp 2011 @ Stanford.

We’re currently considering putting on a bpmCamp in Austin this fall. Stay tuned to

#bpmCamp on twitter for news / updates. Or send me a message and I’ll add you

to our mailing list.

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Contact us

BP3 Global, Inc.

Plaza 70007000 N Mopac ExpySuite #345Austin, TX, 78731

Phone: +1 512.300.3239Fax: +1 512.428.8126

http://www.bp-3.comhttp://www.bp-3.com/blogs

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