I’m trying to decipher Cordys chief strategist Jon Pyke’s post today on the case management proposal at OMG. It’s hard to tell what he’s saying, but I gather things did not go well in Costa Rica. I could have told him that, based on the bmi thread beforehand. He casts as the villain “analysts and consultants
I hope he’s not talking about me, but I don’t know of any other analysts who are even thinking about case management or discussing any OMG efforts in that area. If so, I think the blame is misplaced, since if anything I am a supporter of standardizing a notation for case management and integrating it with BPMN. Probably one of the few friends Cordys has in that regard…
I do think the OMG process is an unlikely one for case management. But just because I’ve given up on it before it starts doesn’t mean I am trying to “scupper” it (whatever that is… sounds bad). Anyway, BPM analysts are hardly the ones driving the boat at OMG. I wish! My BPMN 2.0 experience has taught me that the real battle there is between the “architects,” UML/metamodel people stuck in the 20th-century paradigm of models that can be compiled into any programming language, and the “engine vendors,” who want models that roundtrip with metadata-driven (code-less) implementation design. Preferably consistent with their existing engine architecture. I have more sympathy with the latter, but I have to say that neither one is especially concerned with notation per se, i.e., diagrams that are expressive but lack executable detail.
I wish the Cordys guys well in their quixotic OMG adventure, but I think an informal process in which participants share the basic objective and ground rules – notation-centric, non-executable, xsd-not-UML, linked to BPMN 2.0 – is more likely to achieve something than a formal process in which half the participants never liked BPMN in the first place. If Henk and Jon get tired of spinning their wheels in OMG, I would welcome their ideas in another forum.
Hear, hear! How about dis-intermediating standards groups altogether by using, um, The Web! I recently started a community of interest around BPM Governance using wikiversity (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Topic:Business_process_management_program_governance). Your point that the process itself is so tainted by special interests that it gets in the way of real progress is spot on. LET’S SCUPPER THEM! The internet was built on standards that were created as a result of interested individuals, primarily. Today’s so-called “standards” are all a creation of companies with vested interests… companies that gained control of the open internet and then began specifying “standards” that stifled instead of promoted openness and progress. Let’s take back control of what we do and how we do it.
So how about a “case management forum”, available free of charge and right through your favorite browser?
BPM Democracy Now!
Phil
Phil,
I love it! Power to the Process!!
–Bruce
I’d love to be part of a “case management forum” that will drive the “evolution” of standards based on user and business requirements rather than to wait for prescriptive standards that lag the real world process of innovation.
Count me in.
Pieter
[…] the class of processes known as case management. It arose in response to comments on various posts on my BPMS Watch blog concerning Henk de Man’s Case Management RFP in OMG. This effort is […]
In a private communication, Derek Miers reveals he is Jon Pyke’s analyst/consultant villain. That’s a relief. He probably knows what scupper means, too.