For the sixth consecutive year, the Metastorm Enterprise software portfolio has been named by KMWorld as one of the Trend Setting Products of 2010. KMWorld recognizes Metastorm for demonstrating clearly identifiable technology breakthroughs that service a full spectrum of constituencies, especially customers, while seamlessly integrating into enterprise wide environments.

Additionally, today Metastorm announced that Inc. magazine named Metastorm to its Inc. 5000 list, representing the fastest-growing, privately held companies in the United States. Inc. ranks the organizations based on overall revenue growth over a three year period.

Metastorm is committed to developing industry-leading EA, BPA and BPM software and solutions that improve overall enterprise effectiveness and optimization. As always, we are honored to receive industry awards recognizing and commending our ability to deliver a strong, proven software portfolio.

Interested in learning more about Metastorm? Explore the complete list of Metastorm’s industry awards and industry analyst credentials. The ongoing recognition we receive from third parties is a testament to the value that our software delivers to end customers. We encourage you to explore some of these customer success stories to gain insights for your own initiatives.

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In previous years, Forrester evaluated BPM suites across four categories and published four different BPMS Wave reports —document-centric, integration-centric, human-centric for Java and human-centric for .NET. Now, based on the evolving BPM landscape, Forrester focused down to one BPM Suite report, ultimately narrowing the playing field down to 11 global BPM vendors. I think this is a smart move – it is less confusing for organizations that are evaluating BPM, and it more accurately reflects the premise of BPM itself, which is that the strongest vendors handle human-centric, integration-centric and document-centric processes in a single BPM platform that ties together all types of disparate systems (Java, .NET, mainframe) under a single process layer.

BPM tools and solutions have prevailed through the recent economic downturn, offering business solutions to help boost productivity and gain efficiency and greater control over key operational processes. Whether the organizational objectives are to reduce cost, improve productivity, increase compliance, enhance business agility or reduce risk, Metastorm BPM provides a comprehensive, user-friendly, and proven BPM solution, enabling users to quickly design, automate, analyze, and monitor organizational processes.

But going beyond the basics, I was pleased that Forrester called out a few things that really make Metastorm innovative and stand out from the wealth of basic BPM solutions on the market. The evaluation states, “Metastorm falls into the Leader category, with an impressive collaborative process design environment and Web 2.0 features. [Metastorm] now offers innovative collaborative workspaces and Web-based modeling features that make their BPM suite more accessible to business analysts and business users.”

The newest generation of BPM suites have been designed to target a wide variety of users process analysts, process architects, end users, business managers, and customers—and offer deeper, richer features and capabilities to meet business needs. Forrester noted that BPM vendors are beginning to focus on greater inclusion and collaboration across nontraditional roles for business process improvement, including process owners, business users and customers. It is with no coincidence that our newest products, Metastorm M3 and Metastorm Smart Business Workspace, are aligned with this growing trend. Metastorm is committed to developing cutting-edge solutions that enhance collaboration, visibility and productivity across all levels of the organization.

Another differentiator for Metastorm is that we have long recognized the importance of delivering best-of-breed enterprise business architecture (EA), business process analysis (BPA) and business process management (BPM) technologies on a single platform – to help organizations tackle the ever elusive challenge of aligning strategy with execution. Metastorm has been one of the long-standing leaders in the BPM industry, but it is our unique ability to deliver full-scale EA and BPA software (which by the way is also ranked as a Leader in its category in the Forrester Wave for EA Tools, BPA and IT Planning report) integrated with our BPM suite that sets us apart from the pack.

Forrester acknowledges this differentiation in the report, stating “Metastorm was one of the first vendors to take advantage of the synergies between EA and BPM. Now that investment seems to be paying dividends by providing a compelling environment for BPM and EA teams to collaborate on strategy and delivery for business process improvement.” However, I don’t think the magnitude of this differentiator was fully reflected in our Wave position, due to the nature of the BPM-centric scoring criteria. Perhaps one day soon, industry analysts will acknowledge the importance of merging the EA, BPA and BPM disciplines onto an integrated technology set rather than viewing them solely as independent technologies. In the meantime, we continue to work with our customers to help them see the powerful potential of the combination and realize this vision.

I encourage you to read the complete Forrester BPM Suites Wave report, as well as other industry analyst reports, to get a clearer picture of the technology landscape and to learn more about how Metastorm Enterprise software solutions can be leveraged to meet your organizational needs.

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Business process analysis and management software enables organizations to design and implement optimal customer service processes, resulting in a world-class customer chain that supports all points of interactions between the business and the customer.  When Hewlett-Packard needed help converging and simplifying complex, global customer service processes, they turned to business process analysis and management software to get the job done.  In a recent video interview, Bill Riordan, customer service and support manager of Hewlett-Packard, shares how they are successfully deploying business process management tools to uncover and transform their global processes. HP’s customer service programs provide support for 132 countries.  Using software as the basis for their BPM infrastructure, they were able to identify and analyze 1,500 disparate global processes and improve and consolidate them into 100 universal processes.

Watch more customer video interviews and read over 100 customer success stories.

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Norman Baldwin, global BPO operations director for Logica, discusses how Metastorm solutions have helped Logica generate a formal focus on organizational and customer success.  When selecting a business process analysis and business process management vendor, Logica was looking for software that fostered an openness culture between their employees and clients.  Baldwin explains that Metastorm software has allowed them to deliver their services in an economic, effective and efficient way.  Metastorm software also enables Logica to go back and evaluate what they do, and ensure that they are doing it in the best ways possible, Baldwin says.

The synergies between BPM and BPO are obvious. BPO providers must be “experts” in business process excellence in order to provide world-class outsourcing to their customers. Metastorm is unique in its ability to provide not only the business process management software foundation, but also business architecture and business process analysis software that gives BPO providers the ability to map out a unique strategy and business process improvement program for each customer.

All 38 episodes of the Metastorm Customers Speak Out video testimonial series can be watched on the MetastormMedia YouTube channel or on the Metastorm customer testimonial page.  The customer testimonials are also available on iTunes, by subscribing to the Metastorm iTunes Podcast.  If you are interested in learning more about our partner success, visit the Metastorm partner page.

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In this video from the Metastorm Customers Speak Out video testimonial series, released earlier this week, Cindy Bivians, senior manager of corporate risk control from a Fortune 100 energy company, shares insights into how they deployed Metastorm ProVision to achieve optimal business solutions.  Bivians discusses how they are using Metastorm ProVision to model, visualize and improve gaps across the enterprise. By implementing Metastorm ProVision, the organization was able to establish transparency across integrated processes within their Corporate Risk Controls sector.  In doing this, they were able to identify missing items and areas that needed improvement and documented results – including a repeatable savings of 65 hours of time from one group process.  Since then, they have deployed Metastorm ProVision into all other areas of their organizational structure, and expect to see a dramatic change in hours saved in 2011. 

Implementing Metastorm ProVision enables businesses to thoroughly understand the intricate relationships that exist between business strategy and business process and identify areas for improvement.  Want to learn more about how customers are leveraging Metastorm Enterprise software?  Check out our customer page where you can watch the complete Metastorm Customers Speak Out series and read over 100 customer success stories.

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In this video interview, Tom Holmberg, senior business process analyst for Allergan, provides insight into how business process initiatives have become powerful investments for Allergan’s long-term organizational goals.  Holmberg explains how Metastorm’s combined platform of enterprise architecture, business process analysis, and business process management became a priority within their organization.  Using these combined strategies, they enhanced their organizational structure and identified opportunities to deliver more optimal business results. Implementing business process initiatives helps users see into their current organizational structure and ensure that they are deploying the most efficient time-to-market processes—thus, optimizing their organizational structure and producing a competitive market advantage.  

Check out the complete season of Metastorm Customers Speak Out on our Metastorm Media YouTube channel, subscribe to the Metastorm iTunes Podcast, or visit the Metastorm customer testimonial page.

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Organizations worldwide rely on Metastorm software to meet the evolving demands of their dynamic business processes.  At Metastorm, we take great pride in our ability to consistently deliver services and solutions that meet customer needs in business process management, enterprise and business architecture, and business process analysis.  Metastorm’s integrated software portfolio, in combination with our on premise SaaS and Cloud-based options, enables organizations to define strategy, analyze change, and automate and improve key business processes—with clear visibility across the enterprise to optimize results. 

We continue to offer the Metastorm Customers Speak Out series because we, too, are inspired when we learn about the success our software enables.  We strive to deliver the best software, tools and support to help organizations optimize the use of their resources to achieve lower costs, faster time to market, better governance, greater agility and overall improved business performance. 

The 38 episodes of the Metastorm Customers Speak Out video series can be viewed on our customer testimonial page or on the MetastormMedia YouTube channel.  The customer interviews are also available on iTunes, by subscribing to the Metastorm iTunes Podcast series.  More than 100 customer case studies can be viewed and downloaded on the Metastorm customer success page. 

We hope that you gain valuable insights from the lessons learned and experiences of our customer base and can apply those to your own business improvement efforts.  And as always, Metastorm stands ready to help.

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Gartner, Inc. even issued a “First Take” research note with its opinion on the new applications – the conclusion being that Metastorm has raised the bar for Social BPM environments and surpassed its existing competition.

Our ability to raise the bar was not by sheer luck.  In developing these new applications, Metastorm invested a great deal of time and energy in working with our customers and industry experts (as well as assimilating user feedback on the flaws in other vendor offerings) to understand market needs and focus on the key criteria that would deliver the most business value.  Such feedback included:

• A true Cloud platform – not just SaaS
• Collaboration and social networking tools that business users will embrace
• A rich user experience that mimics desktop applications, but runs in the Cloud
• Role-based personalization that is configurable at the individual user level
• Automatic capture of collaboration sessions – record, playback and audit
• Full integration of content and models with Metastorm’s enterprise architecture (EA), business process analysis (BPA) and business process management (BPM) software applications
• Not just workflow modeling

That last criteria is a critical distinction that many people overlook – any modeling and collaboration tool that is confined to just a workflow or process view is flawed by nature.  How can you truly capture and optimize a business process without fully understanding the bigger picture enterprise elements that contribute to process success?  

Metastorm has raised the bar on Social BPM by releasing a rich enterprise modeling environment on a true Cloud platform (Microsoft Windows Azure) with 11 different model types and 23 modeling objects, complemented by social collaboration tools that are inherent in the user environment.  Of course Metastorm M3 enables collaborative process discovery, but it also goes beyond process to enable collaboration on other enterprise assets, including people and organization models, business capabilities, goals, rules, requirements and systems, that factor into the true optimization of organizational performance.  Opening up insight and collaboration on a broad set of models, to a broad set of participants, on an unlimited scale, sets the stage for not only social interaction at the business level, but also increased accuracy of assumptions and faster realization of business improvements – improvements in processes and improvements in how your organization operates as a whole.

I encourage you to read the Gartner research note while it is available for public access through September – Metastorm Offerings Raise the Bar for Social BPM Environments.  Whether you are just starting to consider the value of Social BPM or you are unhappy with your current tool, now is the time to request a free trial of Metastorm M3 to take your efforts to whole new level.

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“Through ongoing product innovation and a focus on customer success Metastorm has established itself as a market leader and we are fortunate to have a strong network of partners such as iOctane to deliver the Metastorm suite of products and services around the world,” stated Robin Martin, executive vice president of international operations for Metastorm.

“We are delighted to be able to sign this agreement with the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs.  It will allow government agencies to access the Metastorm process modeling, business architecture and process execution technology tools,” said Chris Symes, head of client engagement for iOctane.

Metastorm has a strong history of helping national and local governments increase efficiencies and improve citizen service through the use of business process management (BPM) software.  For example, the City of Norfolk, Virginia recently highlighted the results of its use of Metastorm BPM in an interview with CivSource. Additionally, in a customer video testimonial, the City of Richmond, Virginia discusses how they were able to successfully deploy Metastorm BPM solutions to structure and automate their business processes.  Metastorm BPM provides tools for users to design, develop, monitor, and change processes as their organization evolves.  

Government organizations worldwide have applied Metastorm BPM to business challenges such as compliance, operational efficiency, permit processing, citizen service, case management, grants management, logistics, defense, and disaster response. Many government organizations have turned to Metastorm BPM because it provides access to a wealth of information within organizations and has the ability to bridge silos across different agencies. These are just a few examples of how government agencies are leveraging Metastorm Enterprise software to develop optimal business processes.   Read more government success stories on BPM here.

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Operating on the Microsoft Windows Azure ™ platform, Metastorm M3 provides users with complete benefits of a private or public cloud, including scalability, performance, security, and elasticity.  Metastorm M3 is designed to be modeling for the masses, offering 11 different modeling types—goal, organization, capability, system, process/workflow, activity, rule, project, requirement, location and deliverable— from the Metastorm Enterprise software suite.  Additionally, Metastorm M3 provides 23 modeling objects and viewpoints, going beyond a traditional process model, to give users more comprehensive and holistic business improvements. 

Metastorm M3 empowers businesses by offering a cloud-based environment through which an unlimited number of users can easily improve their organizations using enterprise modeling and collaboration.  Business and IT users are given a rich, social environment in the Cloud where they are able to utilize social networking tools such as chat, whiteboard, model annotation, sharing, recording, and playback to design and implement business practices.  A distinguishing feature of Metastorm M3 is that it offers secure, cloud-based collaborative enterprise modeling for anyone, anywhere.  Metastorm M3 is an excellent tool for mass deployment because it offers built-in modeling guides and real-time help, requiring no prior knowledge of or training in enterprise modeling and no IT setup.  Additionally, its location in the Cloud allows users to gain unlimited access, opening a broader, global collaboration for businesses to achieve the most optimal results.

Metastorm M3 is designed to be used alone or with the Metastorm Enterprise software suite.  Any input, information and data captured in the Cloud is compatible with Metastorm’s enterprise architecture, business process analysis, business process management and integration products to ensure ongoing, shared visibility and the ability to incorporate user input enterprise-wide process improvements.

“Metastorm M3 is designed to go above and beyond any other tool available today to give our customers a distinct edge over their competition,” said Greg Carter, executive vice president of development and CTO of Metastorm.  “Leveraging our years of best practice experience in modeling, architecture strategy and process improvement, we have compiled a rich set of modeling and collaboration tools to empower users on a global scale to participate in business architecture and process definition activities that were once limited to a specific department or skill level.”

What to know more about Metastorm M3?  Check out the social media version of the press release here, complete with screenshots and other related materials.

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Metastorm Smart Business Workspace uses widgets and mashups to deliver a role-based user experience across the entire Metastorm Enterprise software platform as well as other applications.  This single, role-driven interface is designed to meet the needs all types of roles within an organization.  Metastorm Smart Business Workspace transforms the power of Metastorm’s enterprise software by adding a layer of highly personalized user experience, resulting in rapid information access and a more productive, agile work environment regardless of the user’s organizational role. Using Metastorm Smart Business Workspace allows individuals to develop their own personal space, catering to their unique needs.  The software takes into account the user’s job description, skill set, knowledge base, key responsibilities and personal preferences to go beyond traditional interfaces to support the preferences of the user in a single, actionable environment.   

Metastorm Smart Business Workspace provides libraries of widgets related to Metastorm’s enterprise software for enterprise and business architecture, business process analysis, business process management and integration, giving users the ability to easily mash up and integrate data and applications.  The Metastorm Widget Designer enables non-technical users to quickly and easily design and create rich, entirely new and unique widgets and applications that include built-in transaction support, governance and advanced external integration capabilities. 

Metastorm Smart Business Workspace is designed to increase and promote social collaboration within the workplace, taking advantage of popular social networking capabilities to deliver meaningful business results.

“Metastorm Smart Business Workspace will open up a whole new world of insight and productivity for business users and give organizations the mechanism they need to finally leverage social collaboration technologies in a productive way within the enterprise,” said Kevin Haugh, vice president of product marketing and management at Metastorm.   “By delivering role-based, actionable workspaces that can be personalized by each user, Metastorm Smart Business Workspace will make it easier for users to leverage critical information and powerful features of the Metastorm Enterprise software suite – from enterprise modeling to business process analysis to daily process execution and participation – and to make better, faster business decisions.”

Interested in learning more about Metastorm Smart Business Workspace? Check out the social media version of the press release here, complete with screenshots and other related materials.

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It is an honor to be consistently recognized as an innovative, market leader in enterprise software.  At Metastorm, we strive to design and develop products that deliver the best enterprise effectiveness and business results.   Our main priority is our customers and partners, and we are focused on delivering the most optimal software and solutions for their business practices.  We are always pleased in not only our success, but how our products have empowered the business practices of our customers.

Our deep industry knowledge has positioned Metastorm as a leader in enterprise software for both on-premise and SaaS deployments, and we are excited to continue to build and uphold our progressive reputation.  I encourage you to stay tuned to see the exciting things Metastorm will be doing in the upcoming months.

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The concept of collaboration and the incorporation of social tools in BPM have prompted a significant amount of dialogue within the enterprise software industry (see related blog posts below).  Many critics are not convinced of the industry need for integrating social components into BPM in a meaningful way.  In many cases people view social BPM as hype – people are talking about the concept, but not demonstrating how it can be utilized to produce successful organizational models or significant results. 

Applying social networking tools to BPM allows the organization to access a wealth of untapped resources.  Though BPM is designed to yield the most optimal solutions, it has the tendency to ignore variance of opinions, ideas and work styles within the organization.  Each person in a given model has unique characteristics, knowledge and skills, which lead to their ability to perform tasks.  Recognizing that each person is inherently different, assigning everyone to completely identical series of processes hinders the organization’s ability to efficiently optimize their workflow capacity.  Social BPM alleviates this problem because it provides a platform for individuals to express their unique abilities in a very real-time and interactive way.  The future of social BPM lies in developing the best way to leverage social media tools to promote collaboration and coordination in the workplace – on an enterprise basis with a meaningful contribution to the business.

Social media tools give individuals the opportunity to work together in an open space to seamlessly design and shape their specific business models.  When people are given the option to develop their own process, they are far more likely to efficiently use the model and be motivated to find additional areas for improvement.  The idea behind it being – If you develop it, you will use it (rather than build it, and they will come).

Adding a social dimension to BPM transforms the way organizations identify, manage and resolve issues within their processes.  Through these tools, an unlimited number of users are able to contribute their suggestions to the modeling process, thus creating the most successful, efficient processes for each organization and then interact with each other during day-to-day process execution to leverage specific skill sets as needed to make the best decisions.  Social networking is then about sharing information and insights and doing business more effectively, rather than just socializing for personal gain.

Stay tuned for more on Metastorm’s upcoming announcements in the areas of enterprise collaboration and social BPM – we will soon be empowering business users in unprecedented new ways!    

In the meantime, you can read up on the subject by perusing some of these recent blog posts on Social BPM:

Fast Forward Blog – Joe McKendrick

Forrester Research – Clay Richardson

Column 2.0 – Sandy Kemsley

Thoughts on Collaborative Planning – Keith Swenson

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One lesser known but fast growing approach to quality is to leverage business process management (BPM) technology to help drive process improvement.  BPM is particularly effective because it helps organizations identify opportunities for improvement, analyze process changes, and then actually implement and monitor the improvements to realize desired gains.

In a recorded audio podcast with Six Sigma IQ, a Quality executive at a major global Insurance group (a Metastorm customer) recently shared his insights on the value of BPM for delivering quality improvements.  Listen to the podcast which covers the following:

• An overview of the company’s process improvement program
• How BPM fit in with this reengineering effort
• The decision making process in selecting a BPM solution
• How the BPM solution was deployed against targeted processes  
• Implementation challenges
• Results and benefits of BPM and Quality efforts
• BPM deployment tips and recommendations

I always get energized when I hear end user organizations talk about the value they are getting from business process management and business architecture initiatives.  Read more of these success stories or listen to more BPM-related podcasts.

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Many Process Analysts see themselves as “Process Engineers,” and they take the designation quite literally.  They like to staff the project with like-minded people, not those pesky line workers who say, “But that’s not how we do it.”  Shortly after project kick-off, the Analysts dive into as much process detail as possible, as rapidly as possible.  They generate thick notebooks of swimlane diagrams, waving them around as if they were Holy Writ. These Engineers preside over process work sessions which are jaw-droppingly boring, mistaking the nodding heads of dozing participants for some kind of agreement on issues.  They are invariably shocked and dismayed to find that their final output -say, a Requirements Definition document – is panned by project team and sponsor alike.

So, what are they doing wrong?

Frequently, they are not attending to the “People Stuff”.  Now, a thorough discussion of the People Stuff would take a good deal of time, and should really be the subject of its own training course.  I will just touch on a few key pieces of advice here:

1. Start working on the People Stuff during your very first discussion with the Project Sponsor.  That person has an agenda of his/her own (no, really!), you need to determine what it is, and whether it will be a barrier to success.  One of my best projects, years ago, was one that never even got started.  I determined in my initial meeting with the Sponsor that he was demanding a lot of time and money for automation which would be of minimal benefit to the organization.  I made the case for tabling the project (and I had to make the case multiple times, because he was politically influential).  I count it one of my great successes, because I actively promoted the good of the company over the pet project of one person.
2. Determine the stakeholders – ALL of them.  Any stakeholder whom you ignore will show up at the worst possible time in your project, count on it. And, a stakeholder who has been ignored can be a powerful antagonist to the success of the initiative.  A good way to identify the stakeholder is to use the ProVision Business Interaction Model. This modeler helps you to push your team through the task of identifying touch points and it provides a really useful visual for your scope-setting conference with the Sponsor.
3. Ask every stakeholder: “What does success look like to you?” Ask them to pretend that the new process has been implemented successfully, and has been operating perfectly for six months: “What are you seeing? What are the things you love about this new process?” These discussions will surface some objectives which no one has talked about yet.  If undiscovered, these desires would have been voiced only at the time of project ”go-live,” when it would be too late to address them. 
4. Push both the Sponsor and management to get some workers of all levels on the project team.  You really need the day-to-day experience of all levels in order to get clarity on what the process SHOULD do for them.  Managers will tend to define the process according to the documented policy, line workers will tell you how often they have to violate that policy just to meet the goals set by management. Your job is to surface the real process; identify the broken parts, and help your clients to design a better way of doing things. Bleasdale’s Third Axiom of Process Management:  Honor the REAL process. If it’s broken, fix it; but don’t pretend it’s working when it’s not.
5. Plan to do a lot of crowd control in your work sessions.  There is no free lunch for the Process Analyst:  you must prepare for the work session with forethought; spend a lot of time developing visuals which will elicit maximum understanding and engagement, generate a good agenda, and keep to it. Provide descriptive meeting notes and lists of “takeaways” for the team to work on for the next session.  Without these tools, your meeting will degenerate into a “venting session.”  All this preparation is very difficult, very time-consuming – and a big part of the “magic” which makes a project successful.  Incidentally, I strongly advise tag-teaming the work sessions, with at least two people working on facilitation and scribing.  It is virtually impossible for one person to facilitate AND take notes.  When the facilitator stops to document issues or questions, that lull in the action sucks all the energy out of the session.
6. Find out what individual team members like, and provide it.  If possible, get a small budget for refreshments. Keep in mind that the people staffing these projects are doing ‘extra’ work. Yes, they really have full-time jobs; and they must add these meetings, and your wearisome take-away assignments, to their already-crammed workload. This causes them to feel a bit entitled to a treat, now and then; and it is only fair for you to provide it.  If money is tight at my company, I pay for candy myself (customer service is my thing.). My clients are very appreciative of the fact that I care enough to learn their preferences, and the sugar keeps the energy level up for those long afternoon work sessions.
7. Perhaps the most important advice on the people stuff—Plan to work harder than the rest of the team. If you are running the process analysis portion of a project (or the whole initiative), you are the one who sets the tone for diligence, precision, and thoroughness. Your audience will care only as much as you do. So, you must be willing to set the standard for others to follow. And, from a pragmatic standpoint, you will not be able to hold other team members accountable unless you have demonstrated that you have gone above and beyond. 

 In trying to think of a way to synthesize it all, I remembered a conversation with a potential client a few years ago.  He wanted me to work with a group comprised of IT and Marketing folks, very cantankerous and opinionated.  He was concerned about the “volatility factor” on the team, and wanted reassurance that I could manage the personalities. He asked me, “Would you mind telling me your management style?”  I hadn’t had THAT discussion in years, and the question took me by surprise.  So I answered from the gut, but tentatively, “…I guess you’d call it:  “Mother Hen…” 

 Even as the words slipped out, I thought, “Oh, brother, this is a deal-killer for sure.”  But before I had even finished the thought, he blurted, “That’s eXACTly what we need!!!!”   

 That was an “Aha!” moment for me, as I came face-to-face with my own philosophy about The People Stuff, something I had never articulated before.  And, if you think about it, it’s really not a bad paradigm.  The mother hen clearly cares about her wayward charges, but she’s not going to be a pushover.  She constantly watches their progress, intervening when necessary to keep order.  She bothers them, and bothers them some more, until she achieves the desired result. She doesn’t harm them, but she doesn’t let them deviate from the chosen path either.

So, if you are your project’s Mother Hen, look at it this way: You may bruise ‘em a little bit – but you’ll keep ‘em all alive; you’ll all get where you are going; and you won’t inflict any lasting damage.  Not bad, as management styles go.

===========================

Pat Bleasdale is an AVP with Wilmington Trust, a financial services company in Delaware.  She is a veteran Business Process and IT professional, with extensive experience in management consulting.  She has been actively involved in process analysis and business transformation since the 1990s.  Her background spans multiple industries, in sectors as diverse as Financial Services and Manufacturing; and her clients have included Fortune 100 firms, as well as small and mid-sized companies.  In 2006, Pat joined Wilmington Trust as the Company’s Business Process Specialist, charged with developing and deploying a BPM framework, a process engineering methodology, and best practices throughout the organization. 

 Pat holds B.S., M.A., and PhD degrees.  In the 1980s, she coined what has become Bleasdale’s First Axiom of Process Management:  ‘Never automate a mess.’

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