Business Process Management Posts

A recent article by Questetra about its free workflow samples prompted me to look deeper into what the BPM Suite has to offer.

My initial findings about Questetra is that its BPM Suite is available in both self hosted downloadable edition as well as web based SAAS edition.

Depending on your organization’s IT policy and direction, both editions allow you to define and model your very own business processes and actually implement or enforce your predefined processes without the need for any programming work effort at all.

Although the term “without the need for any programming work” entices many non technical business users, it is still important for the business process analyst to understand some of the following business process modelling key terms such as:

• Activity
• Tasks
• Allocation
• Workflow pattern
• Gateway
• etc

But in layman terms, the BPM Suite allows you to: Continue Reading »
Web based BPM Suite with free sample workflows

The other day, a friend of mine told me about his intention to acquire an IT web design and development company which provides mainly multimedia, web design and programming services. Image by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino.

The reason why he wanted to acquire the company is to complement his existing business as he feel’s that an IT arm within his group of companies would help automate some of his business processes as well as to assist the marketing team develop a new brand for their existing products and services.

So he asked me what are the various aspects in within an IT organization which he should assess prior to acquiring the IT company. He is particularly worried about acquiring an organization which has:

• Internal problems
• Many old and unusable IT equipments
• Not been renewing their maintenance contracts

I told him that he needs to conduct due diligence on the IT organization in order to further investigate the organization’s IT environment, processes and staffs.

He could either hire an external consultant to help with the IT due diligence process or conduct one himself, with the help of his internal IT team.

What are some key questions that he should try to find out in order to help him make a decision on whether to acquire the company? Continue Reading »
Free IT Due Diligence Template / Request List

Does each department within your organization follow a strict procurement process every time products and services need to be purchased?

Or are contracts and projects for goods and services simply awarded to just any supplier based on gut feeling? Photo by mr.throk

When it comes to purchasing something for the organization, are there any rules to govern the entire purchasing flow within your company such as:

• Which suppliers to request a quotation from?
• Request for quotations (RFQ) are requested from how many suppliers?
• What criterias are contracts awarded based on?

It is important for all organizations to have a procurement process in place so that:

• Products and services can be obtained at the best possible price.
• The administrative cost for procurement is low and predictable.
• Award of contracts based on direct negotiations can be eliminated if possible.
• There is transparency when it comes to how projects and contracts are awarded.

If currently your organization doesn’t have a strategic sourcing procurement process in place, then it’s good to begin creating one now.

If there is already one, then you can try to automate the processes to the next level by utilizing software applications which streamlines the procurement workflow and processes.

One open source sofware which you can utilize to manage tenders online is: Continue Reading »
Open source online tender management software

Are you directly or indirectly involved in the development of a web or system application? Whether you’re an application user, a software developer, QA tester or the system architect, your organization can benefit from implementing application support processes. Image by jamiefreaky.

If your team is in charged of managing and supporting all applications within the office environment, what do you all do when there is a problem or bug with the application?

Is there a predefined process in place whereby everyone knows exactly what they need to do in order to solve the problem?

Without a proper application support process, the following issues might occur:

• Two or more people are working on the same application problem.
• Even worse, no one is working on the problem.
• Problems have been fixed but users are not notified.
• Application problems pile up as solving one creates another.

It’s very likely that the CTO or IT Head of your organization will ask for someone to come up with an application support process quickly so that everyone in within the IT team knows who needs to work on what. Continue Reading »
Create an application support process via Creately template