Burndown is a technique used in Scrum projects for tracking the progress within or across sprints. It is an exciting way to track how a team is progressing against a deadline – and we can apply it to any form of project-status. In this article, we will apply it to […]
Estimating the Effort of Documenting an As-Is Process
Estimating the gathering of requirements is hard. Not as hard as scheduling innovation, but easier than estimating implementation effort. One step in gathering requirements is often the documentation of the “as-is” process – how things exist today. We provide a framework for building those estimates – making the job a little bit easier.
Vote Early And Often – Getting Value From Brainstorming
Brainstorming can be a simultaneously fun and effective technique for identifying software features or requirements. We’ve written previously about how to facilitate a brainstorming session and how to leverage the results. Timothy Johnson shares another way to use the results effectively. His way is more fun, and maybe just as effective.
Free BPMN Stencils for Visio 2003 and Visio 2002
In support of our series of BPMN Tutorial posts, we’ve created a series of Visio 2003 stencils (*.vss) and a template (BPMN_Template.vst) of BPMN symbols. Download this free resource today courtesy of Tyner Blain!
Cost Reduction Potential
All process improvements are not created equal. How should we select which processes (or process steps) to improve? How do we approach this for a really large migration project? Start with understanding the potential for improvement and then narrow it down from there.
Flesh Out Those Wireframes
Stephen Turbek, at Boxes and Arrows, tells us how to get better results from our wireframes. Wireframe prototyping can provide feedback early in the design cycle, reducing costs and improving the quality of the final software. By putting a little flesh on the bone, we can get even better results.
Process 2006 – Day 1 by Sandy Kemsley
Sandy, of Column 2 fame, is blogging the Process 2006 convention “live” as it goes. Subscribe to her blog to stay on top of things. For now, here are the articles she’s posted from day 1.
BPMN Deadlock
One danger of using a precise language like BPMN to describe business processes is that you can precisely get yourself into trouble. Deadlock (in BPMN) is a condition used to describe a process that can’t be completed. By designing (or describing) the wrong business process, you can create a process that never finishes.
Before And After – A Rule For Improving Processes
Nils proposes his rule of three boxes as a consideration when developing software or software features to improve business processes. In short, make sure that you can actually execute the new process. It isn’t enough to create a good “replacement process” – you have to be able to transition to the new process and then back out of it. The new process is plugged into a business ecosystem, and it must coexist with the existing processes.