As Day 2 of Appian World 2012 drew to a close, it started to sink in just how much had been accomplished in a short 48 hours span!  Apparently, the adrenaline had been keeping me going (and the endless stream of caffeine may have played a small part).  We were all pretty exhausted after some 30 odd sessions, but the enthusiasm about Appian’s tool and all the potential partnerships involved was extremely contagious.

Day 1 of Appian World 2012 is in the books, and what day it was!  From a CapTech perspective, sponsoring this year made all the difference.  Last year, our first at Appian World, was mainly about learning: both about Appian the company and about their BPM application as well.  This year, we were privileged enough to have a table in the Sponsor Pavilion, which led to many more valuable conversations regarding CapTech’s potential to partner with many current and would-be Appian customers.  A few days ago, I previewed the conference with my “Coming Soon: Appian World 2012” blog, and promised to provide a write-up following both days giving a small glimpse into some of our takeaways from the many talks and panel discussions packed into the agenda, so here you go!  My notes from the day are much more long-winded, so I’ve tried to cut back and keep it fairly high-level! If interested, I just may have additi

Appian World 2012 is an annual BPM conference, taking place once again in Reston, VA, aimed not only at Appian’s customers and partners, but the overall BPM community as a whole. BPM has long since been proven to drive business value, but Appian takes it a step further with both their BPM technology platform and this big-time BPM event.

As the Appian World 2012 website suggests, there are a multitude of reasons to attend this year:

Compliance Lifecycle

Reform, Comply, Report. STOP!!!!

Implementing some form of Regulatory Reform & Compliance Management in an organization could be as simple as the title indicates but rarely is, nor should it be. Quite the opposite, in recent years governing bodies and shareholders have been demanding increased accountability and management transparency resulting in a progressively more complex regulatory environment.

In the last 10 years, there has been a widely known shift to using technology in business transformations.   With all the positives that have come from this shift, there is still the importance of following the right process when initiating business changes.   

I am a proponent of BPM (Business Process Management) and certainly technology in general as an accelerator for business transformation.   Today, you hear a good bit about technology, advanced modeling, and monitoring tools to provide a pulse on your business processes.   This is an excellent addition to traditional improvement philosophies.   However, it takes time to get there and you certainly cannot start there. 

Too often, organizations start with automation and advanced technical solutions to fix a broken process.   In these scenarios, a non-optimized process becomes emulated through technology.  The result of this is not always total failure.  Through trial and error and system modifications, the process can be optimized after technical implementations but this is the long and expensive road.  Sometimes, an implemented system on top of unstructured processes will remain in place for years with only minor fixes.  All along end users are frustrated and process owners claim they are not receiving the stated benefits promised by the vendor.   We have seen this with significant application upgrades, workflow, content management, and portal tools, and Business Process Management Suites (BPMS). 

The right way to start is to fix the process before using technology.   Here are the fundamentals I have followed to properly establish a best in-class process prior to using technology:    

1) Have the right team

2) Prepare the organization

3) Capture baseline metrics

4) Spend time in current state

5) Use process improvement tools