BPM Centre of Excellence – Strategic & Tactical Value Explained

Foreword: Having recently completed the design and implementation of an operational BPM Competency Centre for a Global Insurance company, I thought I would share a bit of my recent experience on the subject. The Competency Centre initiative formed part of the extremely ambitious IT and Business Transformation programme that is fundamental in redefining the organisation and laying the foundation for its expansion strategy across Europe.

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Over the decades, the search for IT and/or Business ‘Excellence’ has led to a concept that is often misunderstood and can be very amorphous in definition and execution – Business/IT Transformation.

A term also commonly used in the same context is that of a Centre of Excellence or ‘CoE’ aka ‘Competency Centre.’  In this post, I will not attempt to redefine either, but rather explain a bit more about how the various constituent parts of a CoE can support Transformation projects and more specifically Business Process Management (BPM) initiatives.

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The purpose of a CoE is to act as a nucleus for promoting and managing the collaboration of people, processes and technologies around key organisational objectives by ensuring the application of best practices, education and training, support services and technology awareness.

In most organisations, this is an extremely complex challenge, especially if the level of organisational maturity is low and their existing operational model is disjointed. That said, more mature and integrated organisations find the exigency and necessary focus for adopting a CoE a challenge.

“Cutting EA to the Bone” – The Pragmatic Enterprise Architecture Framework (PeaF)

Not having posted something for a while I thought it would be a good start to the New Year and share a free Christmas gift with those of you are Enterprise Architects or involved with/in delivering Business/IT transformation and/or alignment.

The PeaF website positions it in the following way:

PeaF has been formulated over a large number of years by understanding what works and what does not work in a pragmatic sense.

PeaF provides a quick start toolkit necessary to begin and sustain an Enterprise Architecture programme of work for organisations seeking to infuse and reap the benefits EA can bring.

Where TOGAF is huge and Zachman is chiefly a taxonomy, PeaF cuts to the heart of what is needed to begin reaping the benefits of Enterprise Architecture. More than just a classification scheme or descriptive content, it provides a toolkit consisting of the vision, communication materials, maturity matrix, risks, plans, Metamodel, principles, processes and metrics required to hit the ground running.

Have a look at the look at the following site: http://www.pragmaticea.com

Please give feedback so that as the author puts it “The more people that are aware of it, and critique it, the better it will be for everyone.”

 This post is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence. PeaF is under Copyright © 2008 Notley IT Ltd