This true incident happened to me. A few weeks ago, I was hanging out in our local music store, waiting for my daughter to finish her guitar lesson, when I spotted this young man at the repair desk with what looked like a violin case. Inscribed on its cover was the magical word ‘Stradivarius.’ I went into a fit and started quivering like a jellyfish in a tropical storm.

Now, if you are a classical music buff (or especially a violinist) like me, that sight is guaranteed to make you stand up (or stand taller if you were already standing) and salute smartly. To those of you who never paid attention in music ed classes (or worse, never had any to begin with), Antonius Stradivarius of Cremona, Italy, was the most famous violinmaker ever. His violins are the most expensive musical instruments of any kind; his Hammer Stradivarius, for example, is valued at over $3.5 million. I have two copies of the Strad myself (focus on the word ‘copies’), with labels inside the belly near the sound post, charmingly inscribed ‘Antonius Stradivariuus Cremonensis, 1796.’ I am hanging on to them in the fond hope that some day they’ll be “discovered,” perhaps on the Antiques Roadshow (a bit unlikely, since Antonio went to the Big Violin Shop in 1737).

Owning a Strad is a big deal, to put it mildly. A 15-year old owning a Strad (or at least cradling it nonchalantly) is inexplicable (unless he were Yehudi Menuhin). Such a young man, unaccompanied by an adult, casually discussing its repair in a general music store, is bafflement confounded by mystification.

Now you know why I was quivering like a j. in a t.s. I approached this young man to find out more. What ensued is a conversation worthy of a classical Wodehousian dialog.

Me: “Excuse me, is that a real Strad you have there?”

Young Man: “Oh yes, I got it off of eBay, like real cheap. I was, like, real lucky to, like, find it.”

Me: “eBay! They sell Strads on eBay?”

Y.M.: “Of course. Lots of people, like, put them up for sale. This one was, like, a little chipped in the corner. I brought it in to, like, get it fixed.”

My incredulous eye noticed, in the other corner of the instrument case, the word “Bach.”

Me: “What’s Bach got to do with a Strad?”

Y.M., looking perplexed: “Bach sells Strads, didn’t you know?”

(If, by this time, you don’t think you have, like, wandered into a twilight zone, then your musical education is, like, either non-existent or completely wasted; if the latter, ask for your money back.)

I was dying to ask the kid to open the case so I could ogle at a real Strad. Perhaps touch it. Perhaps even draw the bow across the strings! But before I could screw up the courage to ask that question, I popped him with another that immediately restored sanity.

Me: “That’s a violin we are talking about, yes?”

Y.M., with a smile that teens reserve for senior citizens who live in the 18^th century: “Oh no! It’s a trumpet. Made by Bach, you know, the company.”

Aha!

Now, I ask you, would you ever imagine a company named Bach manufacturing trumpets called Strads? Would that be an unmitigated chutzpah, musical dyslexia, or what? (It turns out that a fellow called Vincent Bach, [1890-1976], no apparent relation to good old J.S., built high quality brass instruments that people called the Strad of brass.)

See how semantics can trip you up? Similar conversations are going on in corporate America about the meanings assigned to business data. Granted that the debaters don’t sound like a bunch of grammarians discussing the etymology of words, or that these conversations aren’t so Wodehousian in nature. However, lack of semantics does cause confusion; people, being naturally polite, assume they know what others are saying, but assign their own interpretation to business language. There were at least a handful of projects that I recall where the team spent an unconscionable amount of time debating the exact meaning of business terms. To those who tell me they don’t understand the ROI of semantics, I suggest that they sit in on a requirements gathering session, monitor all conversations that deal with imprecise semantics, and do the math (multiply unit resource cost by amount of time, and add it all up; then multiply that by the number of projects). The last time I tried that on a single $150,000 project, the cost of semantic debate tipped the scales at $10,000. Not exactly chump change.

No conversation about the business (including business process management and technology projects) is efficient without an underlying foundation of business semantics.

I just got back from a hectic tour in France and Germany, where we held BPM MasterClasses in Frankfurt and Paris. This is the second time I have been in both cities; the first time I stayed at Sofitel within a stone’s throw from Versailles and did not get a chance to visit it! This time, I did not have the time to look around Frankfurt, but Paris offered a respite. We did a quick tour of Notre Dame (awesome!), swung by the Eiffel Tower (both during day and night), and did plenty of walking through the streets. webMethods has an office next to the Arc de Triomphe. Paris in April – one cannot complain! Frankfurt ist auch eine schöne Stadt (Frankfurt is also a lovely city). 90 mph in a Mercedes Benz cab on the autobahn in Frankfurt is an experience!

There were a couple of interesting differences between audiences in Europe vs. the United States. For one, over 90% of those who registered showed up for the class; we had to scramble around to find extra chairs! Second, they all spoke at least two languages, more often three and even four. We English speakers were cautioned to stay away from idiomatic expressions and jokes based on the American context; apart from that, their fluency in English is astonishing. I wrongly assumed that the language barrier would prevent participation, but there was plenty of dialog; just as much as in a US class (and perhaps a tad more than the interaction we got at a couple of US locations).

The European attendees seemed less exposed to Six Sigma and Lean compared to their US counterparts; however, they showed greater appreciation for the concept of discipline. One favorite question I pose to attendees is, “Does your company have a Project Management Office, and if so, what is the attitude of the rest of the company towards the PMO?” I get the classic roll of the eyes: PMO is viewed as unnecessary bureaucracy (except by the PMO folks, of course). In an environment that demands agility and rapid execution, any hint of oversight, process, or tollgates is viewed negatively.

Not so in Europe. They seemed to appreciate the need for discipline. They do not make the mistake of confusing discipline for bureaucracy. Discipline means being responsible, having a plan, and sticking to it. Good financial traders know this. It turns out that the key to superior financial performance is to pick a decent trading strategy and stick to it without second-guessing it. Research shows that changing horses midstream is a sure way to get wet and miserable.

The best companies speak of “responsible growth,” meaning, how to grow shareholder value without compromising on ethics or taking on irresponsible risk. For public companies, governance has additional regulatory implications. But the concern remains, how do we take the concept of discipline and make it an enabler of agility and execution? How do we take out bureaucracy? One, by making discipline an integral part of what we do, so we make the time to do it. For example, no one complains about having to brush teeth every day. Two, by making space for it. Traditional project methodologies waste a lot of time discovering the current state of the business and by documenting requirements in different formats to suit different audiences.

When process governance is an integral part of BPM, it enforces this discipline. Governance becomes a seamless part of how projects are done and business operations are conducted. By eliminating the need for endless documentation and translation between various models of requirements, BPM also makes space for responsible behaviors in project execution and business operations.

Does lack of a formal Six Sigma or Lean methodology seriously hamper the quest for continuous process improvement? Hardly. While the formal methodologies are extremely useful, we are now seeing a move away from overly relying on the heavy frameworks towards a lighter approach. The caveat here is to adhere to the spirit of Six Sigma and Lean and not to slide into bad techniques. Richard Douglass, webMethods’ VP of Global Industry Solutions, and an expert on Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and Six Sigma, spoke of continuous process improvement by using the principles of the formal methodologies even when not using the whole toolkit. The specific ‘get started’ strategy we advocate is to measure the state of your business first, and use real data and metrics to drive the discussion around process improvement.

These are some of the key messages that we will be delivering in Toronto next Tuesday. Joining us will be Yvon Berube, President of Logimethods, Inc., our systems integration partner in Canada. Neale Partington of SaskTel, our joint customer, will be sharing his company’s experience implementing webMethods’ BPM. If you are in the general area of Toronto, we’d love to see you at this event.

The "M" of BPM is an unfortunate understatement in a discipline that is supposed to address all aspects of business processes. It can stand for "monitoring," "management," "modeling," and even "measuring." While no lexical distortion can make "M" stand for "Quality," our minds need not be tongue-tied. We have the mental freedom to incorporate the domain of Quality into BPM.

There are truly three major aspects to business processes. One is the notion of managing them: keeping business processes in running condition, pumping business transactions through them, adapting to changing conditions, etc. Second is the notion of measuring: collecting data about how processes are performing, how business transactions are flowing, etc. These two are well-appreciated aspects of BPM. The third aspect is that of improvement: business processes must be continually improved. This last aspect of BPM is underserved by most of the BPM market. Only one phase of process improvement is given some attention, and that is "modeling."

The logical approach is to offer full support to all phases of process improvement. But this begs the question, what are the phases of PI? Here, we are lucky, because two of the most successful PI methodologies exist: Six Sigma and Lean. Their benefits are recognized and non-debatable.

From this perspective of rounding out BPM capabilities by including support for formal PI methodologies, the actions of webMethods in hiring well-known CPI expert, Bruce Williams, makes sense. A long-time consultant in the CPI space, Bruce is the author of Six Sigma for Dummies, Six Sigma Workbook for Dummies, and Lean for Dummies. He was a co-founder of the Six Sigma Management Institute. He is an active speaker, with keynote presentations at Gartner conferences to his credit.

Having seen first hand how BPM, Six Sigma, and Lean can work together, I’ve explored the synergies between them in my book, The Power of Process: Unleashing the Source of Competitive Advantage. Having Bruce Williams on board as VP and GM of BPM Solutions is fully congruent with this vision of offering to customers a full set of capabilities that manage, monitor, measure, model, and improve business processes.

It is the Quality in BPM that determines the quality of BPM.

"Understanding Business Process Management & the 'People' Factor of Process Change"

This is the first of three e-seminars on business process management sponsored by Talisen Technologies. I have been invited to join Howard Webb (Principal, the BPM Group) in this first e-seminar to discuss the “people aspect” of BPM and how change leaders are enabled by BPM adoption. The next two sessions will feature a discussion of process and technology aspects of BPM.

Change management and people issues are a neglected aspect of BPM adoption. In the BPM Master Classes that webMethods conducts, I frequently quiz the audience on their change management practices. Most technologists don't realize the importance of this. They assume that the cool technology of the day will win the hearts and minds of the business folks. In reality, business executives are besieged by change: from customers, competitors, and economic conditions. Many of them are barely coping with it. Asking them to deal with another change—a pretty radical one at that—is rather risky without employing some change management techniques.

While Howard will cover how to get support for BPM and link it with other process improvement efforts, I'll focus on the implications on an organization of implementing BPM.

Register here to attend this webinar on March 16, 2007, at 10:00 am CST.

Readers of my book, The Power of Process: Unleashing the Source of Competitive Advantage, will recognize Dr. Jeffrey Sterllings as the main character in the book. But everyone is curious about his looks. He is in reality a very camera shy and private person, inspite of being flamboyantly eccentric in the book. He has received a number of requests to appear in person (one to speak at a BPM conference, no less!) To entice him, conference coordinators have even said they'd allow him to bring his pipe on stage.

He is now going to participate publicly, for the first time, on a panel discussion hosted by ebizQ as part of their BPM in Action virtual conference, on March 7, 2007, 2:00-2:45 EST. See a sketch of him on the web page (and yes, his jacket does have leather elbow patches, though they aren't visible in this sketch). Hear his views on "Automated, Human Centric and Collaborative Processes." Of course, being mildly eccentric (in ebizQ's own words), he may venture other unsolicited opinions! Here's your chance to engage in a dialog with him and the other panelists.

I will be in Washington, D.C., and New York city this week offering BPM Master Classes. Joining me will be Bruce Williams, author of three 'For Dummies' books on Six Sigma and Lean.