Product Description

Every company wants to improve the way it does business, to produce goods and services more efficiently, and to increase profits. Nonprofit organizations are also concerned with efficiency, productivity, and with achieving the goals they set for themselves. Every manager understands that achieving these goals is a part of his or her job.

In the wake of the dot-com collapse, managers are trying to figure out how they can take advantage of email, the Internet, and the Web to improve their business process. At the same time, managers are interested in developing business process architectures and measurement systems that align business processes with corporate goals. Managers face many options in approaching these problems. Business Process Change provides an overview of the options and describes a variety of business process techniques proven by successful companies over the course of a decade.

*Focuses on the process change problems faced by today's managers.
*Summarizes the state of the art of business process analysis & improvement, including the basic vocabulary of modeling.
*Presents a methodology based on the best practices available that can be tailored for specific needs and that maintains a focus on the human aspects of process redesign.
*Offers detailed case studies showing how these methods are implemented.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #348678 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 552 pages

Review
“This book is a must-read for every business manager who wants to manage business process change in an e-business environment; it's a true practitioner's guidebook to the complex world of end-to-end business process management. The book not only gives an excellent introduction to all aspects of process change management (from analysis or redesign to implementation to monitoring to improvement of business processes), but also provides a comprehensive guide to state-of-the-art techniques and technologies supporting the various aspects of this process (from process design methodologies to realizing business processes via choreography of Web services).”—Steve Mill, Senior Vice President, IBM Software Group

“Finally a book that brings it all together—background, theory, and practice—in a way that is easily digested by business and IT managers alike. This book is a must-read for anyone contemplating a business change project in order that they understand why a holistic approach is beneficial and how the work they are undertaking will impact others.
“The concepts and notations presented in the book are straightforward and easy to follow and do not require either weeks of training or an army of outside consultants to help implement them. I feel sure that after reading the book, any manager will come away with two lasting impressions: first, ‘Now I understand where that fits . . .’ and ‘Yes, I can do it.’”—Mark McGregor, Vice President, MEGA International

“Finally, someone has written a practical guide for those building a business for the information age.”—Bill Coleman, Founder, Chairman, CSO, BEA Systems

“When it comes to Business Process Change, Paul Harmon’s new book is a must-read. It is a great resource for performance improvement professionals.”—Dr. Roger M. Addison, Director Performance Technologies, International Society for Performance Improvement

“A great deal has been written about process improvement and business process reengineering, most before its presumed demise and recent resurrection. Much has been written about the Internet and e-business, most before the tech bubble. This book is ‘post-bust’; it is the first book to thoroughly discuss the critical link between ‘process,’ information technology, and the Internet—all things that managers must understand if they are to develop and manage sound internal operations that will provide legitimate profits. And it is the manager’s job to do that. Some of the technical work must be done by business process consultants and IT staff, but the setting of the direction and requirements, the management of the integrating efforts, must be done by managers. That critical role cannot be delegated to the ‘techies.’ Meeting that management challenge will be made easier by this book.”—From the foreword by Geary A. Rummler, Founder and Chairman, Performance Design Lab; Co-author, Improving Performance -- Review

A book that brings it all together--background, theory, and practice--in a way easily digested by business and IT managers alike. -- Mark McGregor, Vice President - MEGA International

Finally, someone has written a practical guide for those building a business for the information age. -- Bill Coleman, Founder, Chairman, CSO - BEA Systems

This book is "post-bust"--the first book to thoroughly discuss the critical link between "process," information technology, and the Internet. -- From the foreword by Geary A. Rummler, Founder and Chairman, Performance Design Lab; Co-author, Improving Performance

This book is a true practitioner's guidebook to the complex world of end-to-end business process management. -- Steve Mill, Senior Vice President - IBM Software Group

When it comes to Business Process Change Paul Harmon’s new book is a great resource for performance improvement professionals. -- Dr. Roger M. Addison, International Society for Performance Improvement, Director Performance Technologies

Review
"This book is a must-read for every business manager who wants to manage business process change in an e-business environment; it's a true practitioner's guidebook to the complex world of end-to-end business process management. The book not only gives an excellent introduction to all aspects of process change management (from analysis or redesign to implementation to monitoring to improvement of business processes), but also provides a comprehensive guide to state-of-the-art techniques and technologies supporting the various aspects of this process (from process design methodologies to realizing business processes via choreography of Web services)."Steve Mill, Senior Vice President, IBM Software Group

"Finally a book that brings it all togetherbackground, theory, and practicein a way that is easily digested by business and IT managers alike. This book is a must-read for anyone contemplating a business change project in order that they understand why a holistic approach is beneficial and how the work they are undertaking will impact others.
"The concepts and notations presented in the book are straightforward and easy to follow and do not require either weeks of training or an army of outside consultants to help implement them. I feel sure that after reading the book, any manager will come away with two lasting impressions: first, "Now I understand where that fits . . ." and "Yes, I can do it.""Mark McGregor, Vice President, MEGA International

"Finally, someone has written a practical guide for those building a business for the information age."Bill Coleman, Founder, Chairman, CSO, BEA Systems

"When it comes to Business Process Change, Paul Harmon"s new book is a must-read. It is a great resource for performance improvement professionals."Dr. Roger M. Addison, Director Performance Technologies, International Society for Performance Improvement

"A great deal has been written about process improvement and business process reengineering, most before its presumed demise and recent resurrection. Much has been written about the Internet and e-business, most before the tech bubble. This book is "post-bust"; it is the first book to thoroughly discuss the critical link between "process," information technology, and the Internetall things that managers must understand if they are to develop and manage sound internal operations that will provide legitimate profits. And it is the manager"s job to do that. Some of the technical work must be done by business process consultants and IT staff, but the setting of the direction and requirements, the management of the integrating efforts, must be done by managers. That critical role cannot be delegated to the "techies." Meeting that management challenge will be made easier by this book."From the foreword by Geary A. Rummler, Founder and Chairman, Performance Design Lab; Co-author, Improving Performance

From the Publisher
Every company wants to improve the way it does business, to produce goods and services more efficiently, and to increase profits. Nonprofit organizations are also concerned with efficiency, productivity, and with achieving the goals they set for themselves. Every manager understands that achieving these goals is a part of his or her job.

In the wake of the dot-com collapse, managers are trying to figure out how they can take advantage of email, the Internet, and the Web to improve their business process.

At the same time, managers are interested in developing business process architectures and measurement systems that align business processes with corporate goals. Managers face many options in approaching these problems. Business Process Change provides an overview of the options and describes a variety of business process techniques proven by successful companies over the course of a decade.

Customer Reviews

Good Software Book, Bad Business Process Change Book
This book is geared too much towards IT process changes and can never escape its software base of knowledge to address general business process change in a meaningful way. It was required reading for a business process improvement class and I never went beyond the required reading because it just wasn't useful. This might be useful for an IT project lead but anyone else would be better served by any one of the many books on Toyota, Six Sigma, or Lean.

Good seller.
It came in on time and in the condition stated. Would buy from this seller again.

Very good book from Paul Harmon
This is a very good book. I am a Data Warehouse / Business Analysis Architect and one of the keys to my profession is maximizing technology in order to solve business problems. Harmon writes about how IT is a key enabler of BPM.

Harmon really does a good job of documenting the importance of BPM and process redesign, rather than wholesale reengineering of processes through the implementation of ERP systems. Harmon writes about how business processes can be considered assets of a corporation. This is important. Another key thread in the book is that all processes in an organization should map back to the value propositions of the company and therefore map directly to strategic goals.

Mapping all processes to the value propositions of the company is important to ensure that nothing the company does is done solely for the sake of the institution, but maps to a business goal.