Tags / Keith Swenson

Keith Swenson is probably the foremost proponent of ACM.  He has a new series of blog posts and talks that touch on Nicholas Taleb’s book “Antifragile,” a new wrinkle on his theme of knowledge work and ACM.  His presentation at … Continue reading →

I hope someone writes about this that knows more about RunMyProcess and Fujitsu’s offerings than I do.  But today I saw in the news that Fujitsu has acquired the French startup (details remain private): The acquisition will also allow Fujitsu … Continue reading →

bpmNEXT is coming March 19-21, at Asilomar Conference Center on the Monterey Peninsula.  I’m excited to be attending, but also honored to be presenting.  I like that Bruce and company have taken a different approach to this conference: No how-tos, … Continue reading →

Keith Swenson makes an (unnecessary but) persuasive argument that Doctors shouldn’t have to code or use BPMN (a two-dimensional graphing) approach to their processes. He presents the straw man of: Graphical-only language, e.g. BPMN – and why he doesn’t think … Continue reading →

There’s nothing like putting up a straw man to win an argument.  First, you can propose arguments taken out of context, and secondly, there’s really no one on the other end arguing, you’re just arguing with yourself. Still, Keith Swenson’s … Continue reading →

Well this looks interesting.  Keith Swenson has a good writeup on his blog – The BPM Next conference is being organized by two luminaries in the field as a chance to meet the other gurus.  It is shaping up to … Continue reading →

When I read this post “Nothing New in Case Management” I felt like I can relate to what Keith is feeling.  Not that I’m defending every word of the article, but how many times have we heard that there’s “nothing … Continue reading →

Bruce Silver’s post could be interpreted as calling for a cease-fire in the BPM-ACM debate: It boggles my mind that we are still having this debate, but there it is: Is BPMN compatible with ACM?  The latest round started with … Continue reading →

Keith Swenson has a pretty interesting post on the possible use of declarative language to describe process, based on what he heard at BPM2012. Technically, BPMN is a hybrid of declarative and imperative (much like make or ant)- because you … Continue reading →

Well.  This was a pleasant surprise.  At the end of one of Keith Swenson’s posts on ACM, he wrote this: ClarificationSome have thought that what I mean here is about underlying technology “under the covers”.   As if this was a … Continue reading →

Keith Swenson had a great writeup of a session entitled “Managing & Tracing the Traversals of Process Clouds with Templates, Agendas and Artifacts”: The concept “Open Process Clouds” has nothing to do with cloud computing, but rather parts of a … Continue reading →

I haven’t spent as much time this year as in previous years discussing ACM because for the most part, ACM advocates have stopped spending all their time trying to prove that BPM “can’t do” ACM. Sandy Kemsley, however, attended the … Continue reading →

I love reading Keith Swenson’s blog, not least because he just has a different point of view and it is always good to read something that will challenge the way you see the world.  We continue to agree on a … Continue reading →

Keith Swenson covered the AIIM2012 Ted Schadler Keynote in his blog, and a few passages jumped out at me: He presented a slide showing how dramatically the world has changed since 2007, only 5 years ago.  At that time there … Continue reading →

Peter Schooff once again asks the provocative question: “Will case management eclipse BPM in importance this year?” The answers were pretty interesting.  I guess I should first own up to my own: Short answer : no. More thoughtful answer : … Continue reading →

It isn’t easy to fill in the white space.  It is harder to design a good software solution from scratch than to fix a bug in an otherwise working solution, or to design a small addition to a working piece … Continue reading →

In a flurry of posts recently there’s another attempt to sever ACM and BPM.  It’s a strange urgency among some ACM advocates to separate it from the idea of managing business processes. Keith misinterpreted my recent post on ACM/BPM – … Continue reading →

Keith has posted a summary of his notes from Forrester’s BPM Forum – great read and good insights into several topics – in particular he has a great writeup of Derek Miers’ session on designing your BPM engagement program around … Continue reading →

Keith Swenson just put out an interesting blog post on Self-Organizing Business Networks- there’s a focus on what makes for enterprise social software, and what the “social” part really means.  But this particular bit caught my attention: Most current systems … Continue reading →

There’s an argument that says the world is too complex for humans to understand.  Further, that by thinking we understand cause-and-effect, we’re doomed to act in ways that have unforeseen (usually negative) consequences.  It is a really interesting debate, and … Continue reading →

Not that long ago, one of the prime examples given by Keith Swenson in support of the “ACM approach” was a medical example (picture Dr. House examining the really-out-there cases) – check out the comment stream from this post for … Continue reading →

I missed this post from Keith Swenson the other day, as he responds to Anatoly’s post on ACM. Keith cuts to the chase: Anatoly Belychook asks the question: “is ACM a Paradigm or a Feature?” I could not resist responding … Continue reading →

The argument over what a process is continues.  As well, the argument over what is BPM and what is ACM.  Two articles recently on the subject.  First, Michael Poulin argues that all process is structured, and that ACM is not … Continue reading →

Keith Swenson’s article on the fallacy of flexibility makes a good case for lean software development and the Lean Startup: This article is about software design, and makes the case that flexibility for flexibility sake should never be your goal.  … Continue reading →

Great blog from Keith on his Q&A on being a Software Architect.  In particular I liked his answers to the last two questions, but I’ll just quote the second-to-last: 3. What advice can you share with others in or entering … Continue reading →

Adam Deane’s recent post about Keith Swenson’s blog was quite interesting to me. Keith has been blogging on BPM for the last 4 years. The first couple of years were mainly around notations, standards and development. The next year had … Continue reading →

Keith Swenson says BPM makes the workplace more stressful: It is really quite simple: in the workplace there is a mix of routine work and knowledge work.  Routine work is repeatable and predictable in pattern.  Knowledge work, however, is different … Continue reading →

Phil gave the keynote at BPM 2010 yesterday, and Keith Swenson had the early coverage ready before EOD yesterday.  In this talk, it sounds like Phil has continued his main themes (since I can remember) of making BPM more and … Continue reading →

So I couldn’t attend the recent ACM tweet jam live, as I was, well, working. But there were quite a few people participating, and reading the summaries after the fact, I can’t help but feeling a bit underwhelmed.  So much … Continue reading →

So Jim Sinur really opened a can of worms the other day with his missive on BPMN, literally calling for it to burn baby burn – nothing like a gentle start like that to initiate a moderate discussion of the … Continue reading →

The merger of two airlines has been used as an example of something BPM is not well-suited for, that ACM would be well-suited for.  I gave this argument a bit too literal a reading, based on Keith Swenson’s response (thought … Continue reading →

Keith Swenson has announced a case management mentor meeting (or ACM Mentor Camp) following the BPM 2010 conference, at the same venue: The “Adaptive Case Management Mentor Camp” has just been announced.  This will be a meeting of minds for … Continue reading →

The Death of Google Wave is interesting.  We’ve written about Wave before, several times, but in particular when SAP put out its “Gravity” demonstration. The official Google Blog blames the closure of Wave on a lack of user adoption: But … Continue reading →

Recently Bern Ruecker’s article on “A Collaborative Approach for Real-World BPM” appeared in InfoQ. It is a good read, with much I agree with and just a few things I don’t. We have been working in the business process management … Continue reading →

Keith Swenson has another post where he compares Case Management to BPM: “The two approaches are very different: Sherlock Holmes will use a case management approach, not a BPM approach, when solving a case. Bank of America will use a … Continue reading →

Keith has an excellent post in the form of a Q&A session, as a followup to an ebizQ recorded session that didn’t have time to address all the questions that came in. Some choice quotes: The knowledge worker supporting “planning … Continue reading →

Keith Swenson makes the case for simpler run-time editing of a process in the comments on one of his blog posts.  This might even be a small insight into where his conversion to the Case Management fold comes from: “The … Continue reading →

Keith Swenson plays “Go Fish” with BPM Definitions: This was not a scientific study — just a couple of hours of google searches to try and get a feeling for the deviant definitions.  The collection above is not representative — … Continue reading →

I’d been looking forward to hearing what Appian would say about their “Technical Case for Case Management”.  Part 1 was just a teaser, and Part 2 promised to get into more details. But when I read part 2, I could … Continue reading →

Keith Swenson weighs in on Social and BPM: Similarly, proper use of social software will be about individuals producing, publishing and running their own processes. Not collaboration on the design phase, but designing individually, and collaborating with a completed process.  … Continue reading →

(As an aside, this article from Keith is a good read, but I disagree with his conclusions) Keith Swenson on Airline Mergers not using BPM, making the case for ACM: Usually when I talk to BPM experts, they say something … Continue reading →

One of the more entertaining comments in the whole BPM, “you’re not my father” (Star Wars reference, sorry folks) debate: Using an object model and letting actors express processes in terms of assembling (and continuously changing) those objects in the … Continue reading →

Jim Sinur coined the phrase, and because it has a ring to it, people have picked up on it (perhaps behind Jim’s intent): Doing by Design is the pre-planned definition of a predictable, routine process as traditional BPM suggests.  It … Continue reading →

Dave Duggal attempts a take-down of BPMN in a comment on Keith Swenson’s blog, concluding with: “There is a reason why business leaders are suddenly have wandering eyes, they don’t think BPMN is the vehicle for the component-based distributed future.” … Continue reading →

Great article by Keith Swenson explaining why large and complex organizations are difficult to model using “scientific management”. I think Keith makes a couple of great points that are worth letting soak in: Complex systems are unpredictable Organizations that “Learn” … Continue reading →

Keith put together a pretty interesting chart reflecting business process technologies over the last few decades, showing how they relate on a spectrum from predictable to unpredictable, as well as how firm the consensus about how to use the technology … Continue reading →

Keith Swenson has a few posts on the frustrations of email these days – and after some time experimenting and a friendly nudge from me, he’s come around and tried OtherInbox. The problem?  Too much spam, which makes email nearly … Continue reading →

Keith is consistently writing the clearest thoughts on the subject of “Process Reification” vs. “Model Preservation”. In this particular article on the subject, Keith focuses on a very common misconception in the BPM community (even by some well known names … Continue reading →

Having just referenced Connie Moore’s thoughts on collaborative BPM, it seems a propos to then turn our attention to “the process wiki” – which I learned about through Keith Swenson’s blog post (“Rise of the Process Wiki”) on the subject … Continue reading →

“Window Dressing” can kill your project.  It can even kill your BPM project.  Keith Swenson wrote a humorous but educational piece on an in-house BPM project gone awry.  Anyone who has deployed an internal application can relate to his story, … Continue reading →