Framework Management & Continuous Improvement Methodology Knowledge Series

Value Chain Associates is pleased to announce an upcoming Webinar series on enabling business agility through our focus on Business Process Modeling & Management (BPM) and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).

The agenda will address critical business drivers or opportunities and potential areas of innovation over a lifecycle for evolving to a full SOA solution that maps the migration from a technology focus to a business focus in enabling SOA.

We will start with a brief explanation of business challenges that have motivated our strategy for enabling the transition to SOA. You will hear a short explanation of where we are in the transition to SOA and what is meant by Service Oriented Enterprise.

We then provide an introduction to Value Reference (VRM), a cross functional integrated framework that spans business processes across the entire value chain. Methodologies will be summarized for various business domains and at strategic, tactical, and operational levels. We show how using a value chain reference model like VRM can begin to define the business process context for services. You will be exposed to details about the Value Reference Model and our supporting database tool, ValueScape. Then you will see the value of transporting value chain models into business process modeling tools.

Next is an introduction to the conceptual Federated Enterprise Reference Architecture (FERA) that enables SOA implementation and becomes the basis for the new SOA standards intended to ensure semantic integration of collaborative processes. VRM and FERA are the basis of a Business Transformation Framework for coupling of BPM and SOA which will be introduced. In addition, we will discuss a business architecture methodology with which we can use the Value Streams modeled in VRM to define services.

The last section is about how value streams modeled in VRM can be used to map the resource requirements of business processes from SOA to a virtual resource environment.

These Webinars cover a considerable amount of information but our intent is to introduce you to the real potential of coupling BPM with SOA through the use of VRM and FERA with the expectation of having you provide feedback on which aspect of value potential we should go into in much more detail in our Webinar Series.

Tom Mercer

CEO – Value Chain Associates

There is no charge to attend these Sessions.

Session 1 | Business Agility using Process Frameworks | March 27, 2007 | 1:00 pm EDT

Business Process Management (BPM) frameworks reconcile management objectives with every day activities by defining reference models as baselines to model processes, and by applying metrics to manage, evaluate, and realign product development efforts during their execution across the supply chain. With the alignment of the development process and metrics down to the operational level, everybody is on the same page. This case study will demonstrate how VRM and ValueScape enable rapid results.

•           Challenges and Opportunities

•           Innovation to enable business agility

•           Introduction to VRM

•           Example Use Case

Session 2 | The Services Oriented Enterprise | April 24, 2007 | 1:00 pm  EDT

A Service-Oriented Enterprise is an enterprise that implements and exposes its business processes through an SOA and that provides frameworks for managing its business processes across an SOA landscape. The challenges for the enterprise are on two distinct levels. First, the enterprise must deal with the complexities of collaborative processes across a federation of independent entities. Second, enterprises must respond to the fundamental changes in their computing environments and realize the significant value to the global value chain in leveraging the migration to virtualization. These goals can be achieved through a managed SOA-ecosystem where processes are implemented and monitored across the value chain.

                 •            Challenges and Opportunities

                 •            Introduction to Service-Oriented Enterprise

                 •            Introduction to IPTF Methodology

                 •            Example Use Case

Session 3 | Integrated Process & Technology Framework | July 31, 2007 | 1:00 pm EDT

Processes which were traditionally scoped entirely within the boundaries of an individual enterprise now participate as elements of a collaborative process within a value chain across a federation of enterprises. New usage models will emerge and we need new architecture solutions to support collaborative process within a federation of enterprises This can be accomplished with a business transformation framework that at one level defines business semantics in a common vocabulary and supports modeling, requirements analysis, and simulation, and at another level facilitates deployment and management of collaborative processes within the value chain through an appropriate conceptual architecture.

Enterprise business architecture defines the enterprise value streams and their relationships to all external entities and other enterprise value streams and the events that trigger instantiation. A value stream is an end-to-end collection of activities that creates a result for a “customer,” who may be the ultimate customer or an internal “end user” of the "value stream."

Federated Enterprise Reference Architecture™ (FERA) is an architectural framework that defines principles and provides guidelines for a service oriented solution for value chain collaboration.

•           Coupling BPM and SOA

•           Intro to EBA and Value Streams

•           Intro to FERA

•           Introduction to FERA-based SOA

•           Example Use Case

Session 4 | Value Oriented Architecture | September 25, 2007 | 1:00 pm EDT

The Value Reference Model represents an integrated framework across the Value Chain and support multiple perspectives on business processes. The processes are defined for support of product development, supply chain management, and customer experience, as well as governance. The support for these domains also impacts the VRM methodology which can be used support transactional, decision oriented, and business intelligence orientations effectively through the underlying ValueScape database tool. ValueScape is used by the Value Chain Group to maintain VRM and is not a BPM tool but supports the reference model, configurations, value chain scenarios or Value streams, and various methodologies. Business agility projects are planned to have Value Streams modeled in VRM to support the Enterprise Business Architecture methodology and to define services for SOE.

•           Walk Thru on VRM and ValueScape

•           Walk Thru on Visual Composer

•           Walk Thru on Semantion SOA (FERA-based SOA)

•           Walk Thru on Service Ecosystem for mapping SOA to SOI

All Sessions will be presented by George Brown, Director SOA Business Development, Value Chain Associates, LLC, or Vasco Drecun, PLM Research Director, CPDA

George Brown who recently joined VCA worked for Intel since 1994 as a Senior Program Manager within the IT Research.  He collaborated with the senior management of Intel business units and application groups to define business strategy, architecture of business applications, and strategies for applying information technology to improve Intel competitiveness.  In addition, he represented Intel in external research and benchmarking activities, and identifies opportunities to apply information technology in innovative ways to solve business problems and improve Intel business processes.  Special focus was given to methods and tools to ensure Intel reached its goals in Supply Chain Management. George is the former Chairman of the Value Chain Group Board of Directors and currently serves as the Chief Model Architect.