I think most people would agree that BPM is bigger than SOA, in fact, SOA is simply the technology architecture that defines how any technology is designed and deployed. BPM, on the other hand, represents how you link business strategy to business implementation… with [SOA-based] technology being a part of that implementation.

Well, now there’s independent confirmation that BPM is, indeed, bigger than SOA – or at least twice as much BPM information is being searched. Google’s Keyword Tool shows that in May, the phrase “business process management” was used almost twice as many times as “service oriented architecture”, with a higher Adword value. (Too bad we don’t compete in the “consolidate student loan” space…)

I doubt if IBM or any of the other SOA stackers are in jeopardy of being bought by Lombardi any time soon, but at least with Lombardi you know you’re getting more bang for the buck. Twice as much value, in fact…

Editor’s note: The above is excerpted from Phil’s personal blog.

Next week at the BPMInstitute.org BPM Conference in San Francisco, three Lombardi customers will be on hand to share their BPM success stories. The conference is being held downtown at the Parc 55 Hotel.

Details about their presentations are below. Also, stop by to see me and the rest of the Lombardi team in the Solution Showcase.

• Paul Tazbaz, Enterprise Architect at Wells Fargo, will present the best practices keynote session entitled “Architecting BPM through a Center of Excellence at Wells Fargo Bank”

Time: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 9:40 – 10:25 a.m. (all times are PT)

• Cheryl Mascaro, Enterprise Architect at Intel, will present a case study discussing “BPM vs. BPM – The Discipline and the Technology.”

Time: Tuesday, June 30, 11:20 a.m. – 12:05 p.m.

• Sean Perry, CIO, and Steve Nimmo, senior manager of business process and performance improvement, from Robert Half International (RHI), will share their BPM experiences in an end-user case study – “How Robert Half International is Delivering Results with BPM.”

Time: Tuesday, June 30, 2:10 – 2:55 p.m.

Also, Brandon Baxter, Lombardi’s senior product marketing manager, will present “Clear Directions for BPM Success.” Brandon will talk about how comapnies can ensure long-term BPM success by using proven project development and deployment capabilities. He will also be on the BPM vendor panel discussing “Tips for Starting and Maintaining a Successful BPM Initiative.” Those are always fun.

Time: Tuesday, June 30, 3:50 – 4:35 p.m., and the panel runs immediately afterward.

We hope to see you there!

Dave Angelow, adjunct professor at Texas State University just finished teaching a semester long course in Production and Operations Management.  The course, which focuses on the supply chain and value chain as well as some production methods, is a core requirement in the school of management.

I talked with Dave to hear how the course went and how BPM fit into the syllabus.

>>My talk with Dave (5:12): Take a Listen

Prof. Dave Angelow of Texas State in action.

Some of the topics Dave tackles:

• How a fair number of students also have day jobs (the course is taught at night) and how this allows them to directly apply what they’ve learned.
• How BPM, both Business Process Management and Modeling, fit under the quality management section
• BPM as a means of compressing cycle time and extracting more value for customers.
• Using Blueprint for a hands on modeling exercise and value the students saw in the tool.

Blueprint Educational Program

Lombardi provides free Blueprint subscriptions for educational use.  If you are teaching or taking a course where you think Blueprint would be appropriate, please contact us at blueprint@lombardi.com to learn more.

Last week, eWeek Magazine recorded a podcast with Lombardi’s President, Phil Gilbert. The interview discusses our strategy for the next decade of BPM, as well as explains why the next generation of enterprise application software is going to be defined by business process integration and management.

eWeek Logo

The twenty minute podcast, hosted by eWeek executive editor Michael Vizard, is entitled “Tying IT to the Business Process.” As always, it is filled with great anecdotes from Phil. I encourage each of you to listen in!

Michael’s interview with Phil (19:41) Listen (Mp3)

Last week we held our Driven Online virtual conference. It was the first time we hosted our user conference online. The conference ran three days with a mix of speakers from Lombardi, our customers and partners. We worked with eBizQ to leverage the Unisfair virtual conference environment. They both did a great job for us – but more on that in another post.

Here are a couple of interesting thoughts/takeaways that came up during the conference.

The BPM Talent Gap

As companies really try to ramp up their BPM initiatives, they often encounter a “BPM talent gap” in their own organizations as well as in the partners they typically use for solution delivery. Phil Gilbert, Lombardi’s President, talked about how this talent gap is found in multiple roles – from Business Analysis to Program Management to Business Leadership. The good news is that this gap can be readily addressed – often with the team you have at hand. Its just a matter of recognizing the gaps and developing a known set of skills. In fact, Toby Redshaw, CIO at Aviva, talked about the fact that anyone who wants to work in IT over the next few years must be focused on gaining the skills and capabilities required to succeed with BPM. This talent gap issue was also discussed at Gartner’s BPM Show in San Diego this Spring as well as in a great research article called “IT’s Unmet Potential” in the McKinsey Quarterly. Definitely recommended reading.

The Importance of Success Stories

The best way to launch a BPM Center of Excellence (COE) is with success stories. Sometimes the inclination is to focus only on defining standard templates, governance bodies, org structures and the like. In his session, Paul Tazbaz, Enterprise Architect from Wells Fargo talked about how they focused on documenting a set of BPM success stories at the beginning of their COE initiative. These success stories formed the basis of their early conversations with lines of business and corporate IT as they championed BPM across the company. Note that these success stories were about BPM – and many of the success stories predated the formation of the COE. No matter – Paul’s group is focused on getting business units to take advantage of BPM. No better way to do that than to tell them 10 stories about groups in Wells Fargo benefiting from BPM today. Sure makes for a more interesting first meeting with your lines of business than “This is BPMN and you WILL use it.”

Stay tuned for more tales from Lombardi Driven Online. Note that the conference is still available on-demand. If you are a customer or partner and missed the live event, you can still register for access here.

Yesterday, ebizQ.net posted a podcast interview that they recorded with our very own Jim Rudden during the Gartner BPM Summit in San Diego last week.

The five minute podcast, hosted by Peter Schooff, ebizQ’s editor, is entitled “BPM Now More Than Ever: Live Podcast With Lombardi,” and summarizes Jim’s presentation from the conference. 

We especially enjoyed seeing the comment Peter made that he “always enjoys the opportunity to record a live podcast with one of the big speakers at the event.”

Jim’s session was definitely one of the top draws during the conference, with nearly 200 people attending.

Peter’s interview with Jim (5:23) Listen (Mp3) 

Lombardi is a Premier Sponsor of the upcoming Gartner Business Process Management Summit next week in San Diego. As us usually the case, we have several of our customers that are speaking during the conference. We especially enjoy the opportunity to talk with attendees at the Lombardi Booth, and we host a night of entertainment at the “Lombardi Price Is Right” Hospitality Suite.  Before we go, however, I wanted to recap our experiences from Gartner’s EMEA BPM Summit that was held in February  in London.

In London we talked with several companies from across Europe. All of them were looking for immediate solutions to their process problems. As a leader in the BPM space, Lombardi was able to draw upon past customer successes to explain how we can help meet the needs of the different industries represented at the show, such as energy, financial services, government, and healthcare. In talking with delegates, we learned that most companies already see the need for BPM, and they say that process improvement is an important priority now. This is definitely a change from previous conferences we have participated in. Companies are starting to move forward with BPM initiatives in order to thrive, despite the surrounding economical uncertainties.

Last week, Gartner released the latest update to their BPMS Magic Quadrant. I am happy to tell you that Lombardi has been positioned in the “Leaders” quadrant in the report titled:  ”2009 Magic Quadrant for Business Process Management Suites.”

Gartner positions vendors in the magic quadrant based on their completeness of vision and ability to execute. Delivering on both of these axes is the big challenge. Good quote from Rod Favaron – our CEO – on exactly this point: “From my perspective, leaders in this analysis must not only have a vision for BPM – they need to demonstrate success in executing that vision.”

2008 was the best year in Lombardi’s history.  In 2009, execution is going to be more important than ever – not just for us. Our customers and partners need BPM now more than ever. We are looking forward to the challenge.

I and several of my colleagues will be in London next week (Feb. 23 – 25) for the Gartner Business Process Management Summit. We are an event sponsor of the three-day event that is themed “BPM: Thrive, Survive, Capitalize.”

We are excited that two of our customers have been scheduled to present at the summit.  If you’re there as well, please stop by see their presentations.

Toby Redshaw, CIO at Aviva plc, will provide a BPM end-user case study entitled “Aviva End-User Case Study: Modern BPM – Doing More for Less.” Toby will share his insight on how companies can get started and grow fast with BPM, and offer lessons from what he’s learned from four years in the trenches with modern BPM.

Raju Oak, Head of Process Services at Kleinwort Benson Private Bank, will present his company’s BPM experiences in a case study entitled “How Kleinwort Benson Delivered Clear Results with BPM,” Raju will review how Kleinwort Benson improved the efficiency of their deal settlement processes by 60 percent while at the same time reducing its complexity by nearly 30 percent.

Come out and see us, if you’re at the conference.

At the end of last year, Blueprint Product Manager Dave Marquard and I had a call with Forrester analyst Clay Richardson to brief him on Lombardi Blueprint.  The result of that call and a considerable amount of further research was a 6-page report that debuted last Friday — “Vendor Snapshot: Lombardi Blueprint Bridges Gap Between Process Discovery And Execution.”

Here is the Executive Summary from the Forrester site:

Austin-based Lombardi Software’s latest offering, Blueprint, positions the vendor to extend its leadership in human-centric business process management (BPM) and takes direct aim at Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Visio as the tools of choice for process analysts. Blueprint provides a process modeling and discovery platform that blends collaboration and documentation capabilities into an easy-to-use, low cost, software-as-a-service offering that can be used by beginner to expert process analysts. To stay ahead of the pack, the platform needs to continue extending its collaborative Web 2.0 functionality as other BPM suite vendors play catch-up by introducing similar offerings. Consider Lombardi Blueprint if you need a collaborative and lightweight process discovery tool that is tailored to support geographically dispersed process discovery teams.

We are in the process of licensing this report and as soon as we do, we will be making it available on the lombardi.com site.  If you are already a Forrester client, you can log in access the report here.

If the above has piqued your interest, you might be interested in signing up for a 30-day free trial of Blueprint and seeing for yourself. :-)