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BPM Blog

BPM made simpler

Monthly Archive for May, 2011

Active listening for Project Managers

Posted in Change Management, Process Discovery, Process Mapping, Project Management on May 31st, 2011

So what is Active Listening anyway? Active listening is hearing and digesting information so that you prove to the speaker or deliverer of that information you heard and understood what was said. It is important because: Proves that your message is getting across Team members can only act on information if they understand what it [...]

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Project Management: The value of renewal and a day off

Posted in Project Management, Uncategorized on May 30th, 2011

Early today, I happened to watch a great current affairs program on CSPAN (a US current affairs program that has no ads, real reporters and direct interviews on a daily basis). Several topics began with the one of mandatory holidays and vacations. The call in program that resulted brought some balanced comments, several crazy ones [...]

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BPM Blog summary for week ending 27 May 2011

Posted in Process Discovery, Process Mapping on May 27th, 2011

This weeks summary covers all of the Creating a Task Library, plus more details on TaskMap 4. Thanks for all the comments and traffic on this topic. I will be considering making a webinar on this topic for the coming weeks. Have a great Memorial Day weekend if you are in the USA, and if [...]

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TaskMap 4: A new standard for Process Mapping

Posted in Process Mapping on May 26th, 2011

While it’s obvious that vendors are biased (or proud) about products they invent themselves, we do think we should toot our horn on this one. Simple is beautiful Since Christmas Eve of last year, the day the software was released, we have had thousands of customers convert to the next version. The challenge we had [...]

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Building a Task Library: Part Three continued: Release, revision control of the Task Library

Posted in Change Management, Process Discovery, Process Mapping on May 25th, 2011

While it is obvious why we should have a release and revision control system for processes and procedures, its worth some discussion why this is even more important for a task library. As a Task library is in effect a Master Library for important tasks in the organization it has to be accurate and the [...]

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Building a Task Library: Part Three continued-The metadata for each task

Posted in Process Discovery, Process Mapping on May 24th, 2011

Depending on your choice of tool you may decide to select different metadata for your task library. What is metadata anyway? The best description I heard was many years ago, and it’s simply the data about the data.  So that does sound a little like a riddle. What it means for a task is the [...]

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BPM Summary for week ending 21 May 2011

Posted in Change Management, Process Discovery, Process Mapping on May 23rd, 2011

This week has five articles to learn how to justify and build a task library. Hope you enjoy the summary posts. Mike Cunningham   Building a Task Library: Part Three continued: Selecting tools to capture, publish and maintain the library Posted in Process Discovery, Process Mapping on May 20th, 2011 If you have been following [...]

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Building a Task Library: Part Three continued: Selecting tools to capture, publish and maintain the library

Posted in Process Discovery, Process Mapping on May 20th, 2011

If you have been following this series on building a Task Library, there is a lot more to this than meets the eye. We believe that a visual and electronic delivery of the processes provides the simplest and easiest way to communicate information. Given that many electronic devices have easy to read screens and are [...]

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Building a Task Library: Part Three–Documenting the Tasks

Posted in Change Management, Process Discovery, Process Mapping on May 19th, 2011

This post is part of a four part series for what it takes to build a Task library. Documenting the tasks, once identified is the next logical stage. There are several key steps to consider before actually starting the documentation process. These include: Designing and cataloging your Task library labeling system Determining what tools and [...]

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Building a Task Library: Part Two – Selecting the Tasks

Posted in Process Discovery, Process Mapping, Project Management on May 18th, 2011

Once you have management support for your project, as the British might say, we get down to brass tacks and into the details of how to build this library. There are three steps to focus on for this activity. Selecting the tasks Documenting the tasks Reviewing and approving the tasks 1. Selecting the tasks Determining [...]

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Blueprint for building a Task Library: Part One – Getting Management support

Posted in Change Management, Process Discovery, Process Improvement, Process Mapping, Project Management on May 17th, 2011

So you have decided to build a task library for your process and project work. Ten good reasons Let’s start with the reasons for doing this in the first place, as this may not be an insignificant endeavor, requiring a lot of thought and resources. Ten good reasons which can justify creating a task library [...]

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Where is the “hidden treasure” in your tasks?

Posted in Process Analysis, Process Discovery, Process Mapping on May 16th, 2011

We are coming up to the next release in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, so perhaps a time to look for some BPM hidden treasure.  Much time is spent in documenting tasks and then linking them to make up our processes. It represents the core of almost everything we do in the world. Tasks [...]

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BPM Weekly Blog summary week 13 May 2011

Posted in Change Management, Project Management on May 13th, 2011

Some very interesting posts this week, including a “direction setting for life” one from Christina J. Valenzuela on Wednesday. Have a great weekend … Mike Cunningham   Summary Dealing with deviousness and dishonesty in projects Posted in Change Management, Project Management on May 12th, 2011 Sooner or later, and it’s usually sooner, we all have [...]

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Dealing with deviousness and dishonesty in projects

Posted in Change Management, Project Management on May 12th, 2011

Sooner or later, and it’s usually sooner, we all have to deal with someone who is dishonest or dishonorable. There is a reason that many military and other societies put honor so highly on the list of virtues. It’s because of its absence in many other aspects of life. While we may all be looking [...]

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Nobody speaks from nowhere

Posted in Change Management, Uncategorized on May 11th, 2011

This speech was written by Christina J. Valenzuela a recent MTS graduate of the School of Divinity at Harvard University. It made it to the last 3 final selections for the 2011 Harvard University commencement address competition and she has kindly given permission to share it on this blog. For more of her writings see [...]

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Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists

Posted in Process Discovery, Process Mapping on May 10th, 2011

Free Visio webinar featuring Harvard Computing’s Scott Helmers In many types of Microsoft Visio diagrams, it’s helpful to create visual or logical relationships among sets of shapes. Although you could accomplish this with previous versions of Visio, the results often left a lot to be desired. One of the most intriguing features in Visio 2010 [...]

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When the time comes to call it quits

Posted in Change Management, Project Management on May 9th, 2011

A some point in your life you will become involved in a project that doesn’t work out. While mostly in this blog, I try and keep an upbeat atmosphere, with a combination of best practices that will help us have success or “save” a project. However, there are times when you just have to call [...]

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BPM Weekly summary 6th May 2011

Posted in Change Management, Process Discovery, Project Management on May 6th, 2011

Here is a summary of posts for this week. Version and Revision Control defined Posted in Change Management, Process Discovery, Project Management on May 5th, 2011 Seems like an obvious question but which version should I use? There has been few areas since the introduction of record and document management systems, where so many mistakes [...]

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Version and Revision Control defined

Posted in Change Management, Process Discovery, Project Management on May 5th, 2011

Seems like an obvious question but which version should I use? There has been few areas since the introduction of record and document management systems, where so many mistakes can be made. Ensuring that someone has the right information at the right time can save time, money and reduce risk dramatically. If someone has the [...]

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The Authentic Project Manager

Posted in Change Management, Project Management on May 4th, 2011

Recently, I have been studying the works of a writer called Parker Palmer. Parker is a teacher who has become world famous communicating some “truths” of how to teach effectively. As much of what we do as project managers falls into an educational category, I am learning a lot from him. A great read for [...]

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