Process for the Enterprise » bpmCamp

SXSWi 2011. Day 1. BPM @ SXSW

Scott Francis — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 06:28:54 +0000

Day 1 is over. For me. For many people at SXSW interactive, 11:30pm is just midway through the evening. But Day zero was interesting too. We attended a tech happy hour on Thursday night. Surprisingly, I ran into an ex-IBM consultant who is starting a BPM practice at an IBM partner. Small world! You don’t often run into people you don’t know, who are doing BPM, I’ve found. Especially unusual at a non-BPM related event…

Day 1 started frenetically. Wake up early, teacher’s conference for our daughter, coffee, get the office and get contracts, paperwork, bills, emails, and a dozen other things done as soon as possible … to make sure I could get down to the first SXSW session at 2pm.

(Update: Photo Gallery by Austin360)

Things started off right. I found parking in the convention center garage, no crazy antics required. $9 for all-day parking. Cost of business. As I exited, I realized I was only one block away from Hashable‘s sponsored free taco stand. Coincidentally, my wife‘s company, Red Velvet Events, is helping them out with a few planning/logistics items during SXSW, and we had the good fortune of having met a few folks at Hashable at a happy hour earlier in the week. Trusting that they wouldn’t have a crummy taco truck, I walked over. GREAAAT taco. And Jane Kim (VP Business Development, Hashable), and Elliot Loh were there. Elliot and I went to school together at Stanford and both worked at the same company out of school. It was a nice reunion to run into him. The three of us wandered over to the convention hall and then split up to three different sessions. That worked pretty well because Elliot tweets the goings-on in his sessions like a mad man so I could follow his session, and at the same time follow my own.

First session: Conference Startups. The format was a “core conversation” where the room and chair arrangement is concentric and intimate to foster spontaneous, but still centralized, conversation. The moderators were great, and the conversation moved smoothly from one topic to another, almost as if the audience was in on the script. I was interested in this session, despite other strong sessions in this slot, because we have previously hosted the bpmCamp unconference and have intentions to do it again in the near future. With that in mind, I hoped to get some new ideas from the conversations.

A shotgun sampling of advice I heard:

Get a clear yes or no from sponsors. If you don’t get one, you haven’t asked clearly enough for what you want. “You haven’t really asked if you don’t get a no”
Find the experts, and then find out who you could bring to your conference that would blow their minds.
Market the conference. Presumption is that it takes 7 times before someone acts on hearing about a conference.
(At this point, I noticed this session was standing room only … unreal )
Mizzou School of Journalism was represented – looking for ways to foster more participation in the community in Columbia, Missouri.
Discussion of Ignite and TedX – you can lend your brand to other regions, cities, and venues… you don’t have to own every one of them.
People like great speakers, and conversations – but they don’t often like panels. People want to be engaged in the conference, not just talked to.
Food and coffee are more important than you think. No really. They’re more important than you think.
Some discussion of tools – lanyrd, eventBrite, etc.

Ultimately, people still want a live connection, face-to-face.

Session 2: Time for comic relief. I headed back to a VERY crowded Austin Convention Center (they set up a book signing right across from an info center booth, right in front of the entrance to one of the main Ballrooms. Suffice to say, TRAFFIC JAM and poor positioning of obstacles go hand-in-hand. Made it to Battle Decks. Got a coveted seat at the end of the row (making it easy to bail on the session if it sucked). It was a huge room, big projection screen of slides. The presenters don’t know the slides in advance. They just have to adlib their presentation based on what comes up. This comedy is not for the politically correct or faint of heart. The very first word out of the emcee’s mouth might have been an F-bomb. The presenters were judged on coherence, comedy, and sexual innuendo. Enough said. Sadly, the slides were funnier than the presenters. I gave up after 2.5 presenters weren’t making me laugh enough.

Decided to check out the pop-up Apple store – and get coffee at one of the dozens of coffee stands on the way out of the convention center (pro tip: no line, because everyone was still in session). Checked in on foursquare, and won tickets to the Big Boi concert on Monday night. If you don’t know who that is, then you’re probably in my demographic and so now I have to figure out if we’re going to go or not!

Ok. Stopped at 4th and Trinity to meet Elliot for the walk to the Apple store. Ran into fellow entrepreneur Aruni. Also, ran into two guys dressed as super heros to promote their website. Yes, we’re at SXSW. Elliot pings me: he’s at 6th and Trinity. All right. We meet at the Apple store. Pretty amazing mini-story. They lease the place on Monday. An empty store front at 6th and Congress – a very important intersection in Austin. Wednesday morning the black drapes go up and the construction begins. Friday at 5pm, the drapes come down and an apple store nearly as nice as any I have seen opens up – wood floors, wood tables, ipad2′s EVERYWHERE. But also a healthy supply of demo machines and phones.

Ok. The line was around the block, around two corners. We walked back to the Convention Center to listen to Clay Shirky talk about the various online events surrounding the events in Egypt, and other countries in the Middle East. He really went in depth about the history of the movement to oust Mubarak. There was more to it than a spontaneous rally a few weeks ago. Years of groundswell support led up to that moment. It hit especially close to home because one of our very good business partners is based in Cairo, Egypt, as well as one of my close friends from school (who lives there with his family). Incredibly informative talk, and the Q&A session brought China and other countries into the conversation in really interesting ways.

During the session, I realized that none other than Clay Richardson of Forrester is here, tweeting about the talk. Or rather, he realized I was sitting in the room making snarky comments on twitter. We met up in person for the first time. A second BPM connection at SXSW. Two more than I made when I came last year. We had a great mini-meetup and then split up to find our various dinner commitments. Met a fellow entrepreneur, Tony Chen, for dinner at a good sushi restaurant downtown.

After dinner, we thought, “hey, surely the line at the Apple Store has died down by now!” and walked back over there (quite a few blocks). Sure enough. The line looked reasonable. Ten minutes later, chatting amiably with Apple store staffers, we were buying iPads. The staff were brought in from all over Texas – Texas all-stars. It showed too – all the good things about Apple retail employees were even more apparent with these folks. Happy Happy Happy. Helpful. Interested in what business I was in and how we use iPads (um, figuring that one out!) Painless process. Unlike phone activation.

Hint: Apple, stop activating phones on opening day. The lines would move SO much faster and you could actually blow out your opening day sales numbers.

We then walked down the street back to the parking garage like rock stars, constantly being asked if we had just bought an iPad2 at the pop-up Apple store. (One wonders what else we would be carrying in Apple bags and Apple boxes of that size. Still, it was a nice conversation starter). On the way back to the garage, we passed a cross-dressing band (playing good music…), and a group of people changing costume (not sure from what or into what – they were in a slight state of undress) – ooops! And then passed a fleet of pedi-cabs offering to give us rides to wherever. Tony headed out to some of the night time party activities, I headed home to rest up, and write this blog post!

(Well, I might have had an interest in setting up my new iPad2 as well… )

bpmCamp Austin 2010 Cancellation

Scott Francis — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:05:51 +0000

To our BPM/bpmCamp community:

We sincerely apologize, but we’re going to have to cancel this fall’s bpmCamp event in Austin (or, if you prefer, postpone to 2011). Notification has already been sent to all registered attendees last week, including refunded registration fees. This blog post is the last step in making sure that anyone interested in attending will know about it.

The bad news: we scheduled this mini-conference at a bad time for people who are “in the field” working on BPM deployments about to go live. While we had significant interest from all over the country, we had 3/4 of our respondents decline their invitations because of impending process roll-outs in the fall and despite keen interest on attending – and we were starting to see cancellations from previously registered attendees as roll-out schedules interfered with their ability to attend.

The good news: there are a lot of IBM Lombardi BPM roll-outs in the later part of 2010! The unfortunate side-effect is that our target audience just isn’t free to make it to a 2-day conference as a result!

In particular I want to thank Intel, Stanford, and IBM for their ongoing support for bpmCamp – with space, people, know-how, and even sponsorship. We were really looking forward to hosting everyone down here in Austin and showing off our great city, and it pains me to cancel an event like this. But we also couldn’t ask our fellow practitioners to travel all the way to Austin if we couldn’t get the right size and mix of people to make for the kind of compelling event we had at Stanford last time! So we’re going to refocus on making the next Stanford event (June/July 2011) even better, and return to the Austin bpmCamp idea next year, perhaps targeting January 2012- but this time, we’ll poll for good dates, and interest, before we set anything in stone – and perhaps set expectations accordingly as to the target audience.

I also want to thank everyone who responded for your continued support of our efforts to spur a BPM community with the kind of practical know-how that can really help individual practitioners get their job done. All registration fees have been refunded, please let us know if we have introduced any other complications for you, if you were planning on attending.

We’re going to take this opportunity to make bpmCamp even better next time around. We’re new to running conferences of any sort, and we’re still learning – especially with respect to what works in terms of lead time, and timing within the year. We *do* know what we like to see as attendees at a conference, and part of our goal is to build a conference that our own team is excited about attending (as the Stanford bpmCamp was last year). The feedback from the Stanford bpmCamp was so overwhelmingly positive that we’ll definitely do it again in 2011. We’re going to work with the Stanford folks on timing, and try to get everyone 6-months lead time on the event.

As always, I welcome your advice and input for how to get the word out and communicate the value proposition in the future, so that we can plan the best event we can possibly have, and include input from as many of our practitioners as possible.

thank you again,
the BP3 team!

bpmCamp Topics Coming In

Scott Francis — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:48:17 +0000

Topics at bpmCamp are taking shape based on feedback from attendees and prospective attendees.

A few highlights:

A look inside the black box that is Websphere Lombardi Edition (v7) and Teamworks v6.
Fronting Teamworks with FLEX – who says good process can’t be pretty? Greg Harley, a BP3 and Lombardi Alumn, and currently product architect at IBM, shows off some techniques for getting the most out of your BPM platform.
Using Ajax to spruce up more common Coach interfaces in Lombardi BPM.
Agile Development with BPM: Revisiting Value-based delivery
How to dig your way out of process debt. Revisiting the process debt topic, how do we address debt and pay it down?

bpmCamp is only 3 weeks away – time is short (register here!) – and we still have room for registrants. If you can’t make it, make sure someone on your team *does* make it to bpmCamp. I can guarantee that they’ll take home some really interesting learning and experience.

IBM Lombardi folks – you’re invited. Come on down.

I’ve got one word for you…”BPM”

Scott Francis — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:27:00 +0000

I’m reminded of The Graduate:

I want to say one word to you. Just one word… Plastics.

BPM is apparently going mainstream. And now we’re seeing analysts (Connie Moore) and the industry note that there’s a career in BPM:

All of this background points out one major trend: A new career field is emerging for business process professionals, fueled by the growth of business transformation, business improvement, and business optimization projects.

What do the individuals in this new field need most? Process architecture skills, process analysis skills, process modeling skills, change management skills, Lean and Six Sigma skills — the list goes on. More than anything, the skills gap or skills shortage keeps BPM projects from scaling throughout the organization.

This comes as no surprise to me – as it seems, looking back, that most of my career has been focused on process technology of one sort or another (initially, supporting sales processes for complex products, and later, actually working for a BPM vendor… and now, working with our own practice realizing business processes in production software).

Those of us at BP3 have already made a career out of BPM as business process professionals. It looks as though most of us on our team fit most closely to the “Prodigy” cohort, as defined by Connie. An appropriate place to start for a boutique consulting firm – though we have our Gurus and Change Agents.

Connie Moore has specific advice for picking up the necessary skills. She advocates “two in a box” for training new process professionals. This is something I’ve advocated for a long time. BPM is more craft than anything else – you learn from others, and give it your own spin based on what you bring to the table.

Connie also advocates employees attending training, and leveraging external resources. Couldn’t agree more (hello, bpmCamp!)

IBM Agrees to Sponsor bpmCamp

Scott Francis — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 00:30:15 +0000

We’d like to extend our thanks to our colleagues at IBM and specifically the folks in the BPM group, who have agreed to sponsor bpmCamp 2010 @ Austin. Running a small, break-even event like bpmCamp requires everyone to contribute a little bit, and we really appreciate IBM’s willingness to contribute by sponsoring Thursday night’s dinner, which has been a great time for networking, following up on the day’s topics, and arguing about the next day’s agenda.

Dinner also happens to be at the Austin landmark restaurant, Lambert’s Downtown Barbecue. Those from Austin will be familiar with it, and those visiting will have a chance to try some Austin-style BBQ (and other dining selections of course).

Leadership: It’s not just for BPM Anymore

Scott Francis — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 12:15:48 +0000

On this blog, we typically discuss leadership in the context of BPM projects, initiatives, and programs. Because BPM efforts typically cut across departmental and organizational boundaries, they also typically require an extra measure of leadership to convince people to something when they don’t report in through the chain of command.

A recent article on TechCrunch by Vivek Wadhwa points out that leadership is often lacking in Silicon Valley firms as well. This isn’t the popular refrain about startups (outside of the startup community itself) – mostly the popular coverage of startups is about swashbuckling risk-takers who conquer new ideas and disrupt industries. And then there are the stories about the unique management approaches of startups (queue the last 8 years of articles about Google).

But the picture Vivek paints is one of managers who aren’t prepared for the responsibility they have on multiple fronts. This is essentially an argument about the Peter Principle writ large: because most managers in Silicon Valley startups don’t receive any management training, they’re unlikely to be good managers. Worse, they’re unlikely to be good leaders. They’re getting promoted into these positions because there isn’t anyone else to do it.

Vivek advocates for explicit management training. But it is easy to get caught up in the idea that you have to get a Masters degree to learn something new. I think the real point of management or leadership training is to get potential leaders OUT of the day-to-day grind, and IN to a setting that facilitates free thought. When listening to leadership and management training material that has real context for a leader’s current management situation, the recipients are more likely to assimilate that knowledge into the way they think and operate. Vivek reports on research at Duke University:

The conclusion of the researchers wasn’t surprising: many high-tech companies are young, so their systems and procedures for grooming leaders aren’t well developed or firmly established.

Maybe this is why so many tech companies suffer from morale problems, missed deadlines, customer-support disasters, and high turnover. And this may be one of the reasons why so many tech startups who succeed in selling their vision and raising millions in financing are just a flash in the pan.

But lest readers in bigger firms take comfort in this, there is a lesson to learn here about how we approach developing leaders within larger organizations as well. The first thing I’d say, for BPM leads, is read this previous post on our blog. Secondly, realize that you can foster leadership development on your team without a formal, executive-sponsored, program. It isn’t as easy, of course, because you have to take responsibility for it at a more local, personal level. But on the other hand, your star pupil can’t be rejected from your own leadership program, but might not be included in the corporate program.

Vivek appears to recommend several kinds of educational opportunities (MBAs, Executive MBA’s, and more creative programs). We recommend something a bit simpler for many of our BPM colleagues – attend a small conference (like bpmCamp), and take time to invest in sharpening the saw.

#bpmCamp Austin Updates

Scott Francis — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 14:37:55 +0000

Quick updates on bpmCamp 2010 @ Austin:

1. Early bird registration ends Friday at midnight – $150 early bird, $200 regular registration price.

2. I’ve updated the home page of the bpmCamp wiki to show what some of the topics and descriptions were at our last bpmCamp @ Stanford. This should give you a good idea of the kinds of quality topics we can discuss at bpmCamp.

3. We’re in final strokes to line up a sponsor for Thursday night’s dinner at Lamberts, an excellent Austin eatery.

Unconferences and BPM?

Scott Francis — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 06:00:07 +0000

I’m not aware of a conference labeling itself an “un”conference prior to bpmCamp 2010 @ Stanford, in january of this year, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t one that I’m unaware of. Our first attempt was a big success, based on feedback from attendees at the event. I was asked recently by one customer if we could have the next conference focus on more “customer-oriented topics” – to which I responded “of course! which ones?!” because after all, it is a crowdsourced agenda. I should have also asked him if the big industry conferences are more “customer focused” on agenda than bpmCamp? I find it doubtful.

At any rate, Forrester has announced their own “unconference”. This has caused some criticism from those who’ve been to unconferences (and from those who simply don’t think an analyst firm can do this). Although I’m a little skeptical of Forrester’s particular approach, I’m glad that they’re trying to incorporate more attendee-input into their conferences. I’ve previously advocated for conferences to do a better job of this. It feels like Forrester is dipping a toe in. I’d encourage them to jump in further.

I’m also just not a purist. So I try not to attack restaurants for not being “authentic” rather than just for not being “good”. I try not to attack conferences for not being “pure” – but I will criticize if I don’t think they’re valuable or effective (there is something odd about testing the pureness of the un- in unconference). I do think that in-person communication and being able to step away from the daily grind is critical to how people synthesize new information and recharge the batteries. And I think crowdsourcing topics and presenters can greatly increase the value of a conference.

Typically, unconferences seem to be free, and have very little agenda planned up front (one coming up in Austin has a featured speaker and a panel discussion to kick off and end the conference, but the middle is unplanned so far as I know)- the idea being that you want to let the wisdom of crowds shape the event. Being free, and local, makes this a palatable approach. But for conferences with people traveling from all over the country (or the world), some kind of agenda is necessary to help them make value decisions. And for conferences that aren’t free – typically some agenda is necessary to help justify the event to the boss, or to the education division.

While I wouldn’t describe SXSW-interactive as an “unconference”, the organizers work harder than any conference I’ve attended before to shape the agenda around what attendees want. Topics are proposed by the hundreds, if not thousands, and then voted up or down by all the possible attendees. It seems like barely controlled anarchy at the conference – topics are all over the map. But there’s a certain beauty to the organization – because the conference shapes itself over time, and renews itself. It has grown from a conference largely focused on blogging, to one that includes a distinct mobile agenda, and a distinct startup agenda. This year, looking at topic ideas, geolocation is high on the list. By allowing the agenda to change, SXSWi stays relevant to a changing technical and business landscape. And it stays relevant to Austin.

While I can’t hope for bpmCamp to compete with SXSW-interactive, or the broader interest ‘camps like ProductCamp, I did feel that bpmCamp needed an identity a bit different from the typical conference in the BPM space, to make it clear that attendees can drive the agenda. It isn’t perfect, but we’ll keep iterating on the concept and try to develop it. That’s why we adopted some of the techniques of unconferences, while charging a modest fee to cover costs, and allowing some of the topics to be prepared before-hand by some of the experts in our field. Let’s face it, some topics deserve preparation time. As BPM goes more mainstream, the kind of events that can be supported by reasonable populations of people will increase, and we can broaden the focus.

Camps in Austin Still Going Strong

Scott Francis — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:56:04 +0000

An article in the Austin-American Statesman, not long ago, posited that there was, in 2010, a dearth of ‘camps, after a flurry of them in 2008 and 2009. However, a quick followup was penned by Omar Gallaga, about the fact that ProductCamp was still going strong. Mostly, Camps are free events sponsored in someone’s corporate offices or other “free” space, and generally only target local attendees. But these events are hard work to put on:

Paul Young, who founded ProductCamp Austin, said many events modeled after the same concept simply petered out for lack of interest or organization. “They show up, run their cycles, then die out,” Young said. “I think the reason that happens is that people are surprised for an ‘unconference’ how much coordination it actually takes to put an event on.

I think people are also surprised how difficult it is to pull off a free event!

We’re proud to be having bpmCamp in Austin as well. While we couldn’t pull it off as a free event, we are keeping it as affordable as possible, while still making the event attractive enough for people to travel to Austin to attend. We also freely admit that we need to produce some of the content up front for similar reasons, rather than doing it all on the fly – but we’ll also keep time (and rooms) available for impromptu sessions that weren’t thought of ahead of time.

If you are interested, the registration page is right here. You just need to be a Lombardi BPM practitioner to attend.

bpmCamp is Back!

Scott Francis — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:56:30 +0000

bpmCamp is back, and it is coming to Austin, Texas! We’re very proud to announce that we’re holding the second bpmCamp here in Austin. Time is short – only 52 days until the event starts! It is an aggressive time frame but with urgency comes creativity. Following is the F.A.Q. with all the most important questions addressed.

F.A.Q.

Why bpmCamp?

We really think the BPM community/ecosystem needs events like this to foster growth, success, and maturity. We believe maturity requires:

technical breadth and depth
project methodologies to support the roll-out of processes and improvements to those processes
process improvement techniques and strategies that can actually be implemented and maintained in BPM suites

Also, we actually want to learn something new. When we get the right practitioners in a room, we’re going to learn from them, and help propagate those best practices into the BPM ecosystem. We’re also going to share what we know from prior experience directly with the conference. This cross-pollination is good for everyone.

Finally, we decided to put action behind our words. We’ve long agitated politely for more tactical, focused topics at BPM conferences, but we’ve reached the point where it is time for us to contribute back to the community by creating an intimate event that fosters that kind of discussion.

When is bpmCamp?

We’ve selected a date for the Austin bpmCamp: October 14-15, 2010. Mark your calendars.

We hope to host additional bpmCamp events in the future. The first was at Stanford. This one, in Austin, should be special because of its proximity to ground zero of the Lombardi ecosystem (Lombardi’s headquarters was Austin, and IBM has a very large operation in Austin, including the Lombardi team). It is also the headquarters of BP3.

If you have any questions in the meantime, contact us at:
bpmCamp at bp-3.com

How Much Does it Cost to Attend?

bpmCamp Austin does not benefit from the free space that Stanford provided to the inaugural event. Still, we’ve managed to find an affordable venue with great food, and therefore the impact on event costs was reasonable. We’re charging $150 to attend the two-day conference (early-bird) from now until September 17, 2010. Regular pricing will be $200 - and the last day to register is October 7, 2010.

How Do I Register for bpmCamp?

Please go to: http://bpmcampaustin.eventbrite.com/ to register! ( Early Bird Rates apply until January 1, 2010).

Where is bpmCamp Austin? Who is hosting?

Having the right host for any activity is a plus. And having the right setting can really frame an event and set a backdrop for a good collaborative and rejuvenating experience. BP3 will be the hosts for the event. We’ve been working with BPM and Lombardi’s products for more than 7 years, and we’re looking forward to hosting the kind of informal conferences we always wanted to attend, right here in our home town.

We’re having our bpmCamp 2010 @ Austin event at III Forks Austin – one of Austin’s finest restaurants, but also a space that has a great historical Austin vibe to it, even while housed inside one of the more modern “Austin Architecture” buildings in town. Importantly there is a lot of informal gathering space available, as well as a main room and at least two break-out rooms. III forks has been great collaborating menu options and space with us. We’ll be a stone’s throw from Town Lake (aka Lake Lady Bird), right across the street from City Hall, and within walking distance of many restaurants and other venues. Austin itself is home to Lombardi, and the base of operations for Lombardi as a part of the larger IBM campus here.

Travel Logistics

Please refer back to this page for travel logistics.

Where is the Landing Page?

UPDATED: www.bpmCamp.org

Who’s Invited to bpmCamp?

The goal is to have a high-quality gathering of people who know the products well and are looking to collaborate and exchange ideas with peers and colleagues. We’re inviting customer / users of Lombardi products (Teamworks/Lombardi Edition and Blueprint) who participate in deployments to attend, and we’re extending an invitation to IBM/Lombardi to participate as well. If you’re a Lombardi or bp3 partner interested in attending/sponsoring the unconference / bpmCamp, please reach out to us at the email address below (there are limited sponsorship slots). If you’re an analyst or blogger and you think bpmCamp would benefit from your attendance, contact us. If you don’t fit any of the above descriptions but still want to attend, drop us a line with your thoughts. All attendees will need to register, once the registration site goes live. If you’re interested in receiving an invitation to register, send us email at the bpmCamp email address.

How do I Contact the Organizers?

The best way is via the bpmCamp email address:

bpmcamp at bp-3.com

I want to Sponsor bpmCamp – how can I help?

If you think your organization would be interested in being a sponsor for bpmCamp, please contact us at the above email address and let us know you’re interested. Please respect that we are keeping sponsorships limited to prevent over-commercializing and to make sure the sponsorship is worth something.

What will bpmCamp Cover?

We will beat the drum for topics and themes that we think will resonate. However, we want this conference to cover topics that YOU care about. In particular, we want to crowd-source topics for the event so that we can make sure we cover topics that attendees really care about. The expectation is that the setting will be ripe for interaction among attendees during the sessions – that very few of the sessions will be presentation form rather than a loosely-moderated-discussion format. However, we think it likely that attendees will be interested in a keynote address or two with Q&A to follow. What kinds of things are fair game, you may be asking? How about:

Building Teamworks Coaches with YUI or GWT?
Actual use of Optimizer in the wild?
How to make Teamworks scale Really Big?
Design reviews of actual Teamworks Processes?
Making my Waterfall organization more Agile/Iterative?
Tools for managing BPM projects (something better than MS Project??)
Incorporating A/B testing into my process
How much requirements gathering is too much?

We’ll have room for breakout sessions to accommodate more than one interest at a time.

Go HERE to add your ideas to the Agenda Wiki.

Who is Coming?

We’ll release information about attendees and speakers as we get closer to the event date. Expect the bp3 team to be there!

Why focus on a single vendor? Why not another BPM product? Is this a Lombardi- or IBM-sponsored Event?

In short, we want the specificity and detail that we can get from a single-vendor conference, but the independence of a crowdsourced event. bpmCamp isn’t sponsored nor endorsed by Lombardi. We chose Lombardi Edition and BPM Blueprint because it is the BPM suite, and community, that we have the most extensive contacts with (and because we had already decided that a single-vendor conference could be interesting).

While we’ve worked with other tools and vendors, our network is not as deep in those communities. If you work with another software vendor or geographic location and you’d like our help to run a similar event with you, get in touch with us, perhaps we can help.