Deb Miller News & Articles

If a ghost, a werewolf and a vampire can appreciate how difficult it is Being Human, so can a BPM practitioner” -- Anonymous  

How important is the human factor in driving meaningful process improvements for your business?

“Who’s the best pilot I ever saw? Well, uh, you're lookin' at 'im”
--Gordo Cooper, Astronaut, The Right Stuff

“What’s the best process improvement approach you’ve ever seen?”
I have answered that question differently over the span of my career and suspect you may have as well. In this article in my adaptive case management series, I reflect on the different business process improvement approaches and tools I have seen and share which one I think has the right stuff.

It's awards time for the film industry and like many, I took some time out to watch the Oscars last Sunday. It's great to see high quality performances recognized. But Oscars aren't just for the movies, so I thought it would be a good time to look at award-winning performances in our own industry.

If everything seems to be in control, you're not going fast enough.”
- Mario Andretti, champion racing car driver

In the world of automotive racing, speed is paramount. When it comes to automotive financing, speed is equally important. However, it is not enough to just move faster. The race to engage and capture new business requires agility, coordination, and control. In this article, I continue my writings on adaptive case management by focusing on how it is being successfully applied in automotive and equipment financing.

Your ability to anticipate, respond to and maximize the results from changes to your external environments are the key drivers of success.” - Stuart Cross

Business agility is all about being prepared for and able to quickly adapt to change. There has been so much written about agility from gurus like Peter Drucker, industry analysts like Forrester and Gartner, and the large well-respected community of process improvement practitioners that it would seem there is nothing new left to be said. Well, challenge accepted.

Have you seen the movie Real Steel? In the storyline of this flick, automation has replaced human fighters with 2000-pound, 8-foot-tall steel robot boxers. The moral is "humans out, automation in" -- end of story, right? Not exactly. As it turns out, it’s the right combination of human and machine that proves necessary for the win. Sounds a lot like business process improvement to me.

I believe the big breakthrough value with adaptive case management (ACM) will come from people who can’t spell ACM. That is, from executives. Before I get accused of writing an article saying executives can’t spell, let me explain that I see ACM solutions being driven by those who are technology-agnostic, who simply want the business results that adaptive case management can deliver. In this article I explore how forward-thinking business leaders will use adaptive case management, including some of its social business aspects, to help foster knowledge worker innovation and win market share.

Where do you bank? If you’re like millions of other consumers or small businesses last year, you moved one or more of your accounts from a large bank over to a community bank or credit union. The shift is really no surprise. It is a direct result of continuing turmoil in the financial markets and a desire for better, more personal service. This growth opportunity for community banks, who are actively promoting to attract new accounts and customers, inevitably leads to the question: “You can run the promotion, can you handle the result?” My answer is “Yes, but not without the right technology.” What to consider then? Adaptive case management (ACM) of course.

In this article in my case management series, I explore how ACM can and already is playing an important role in meeting operational challenges for community banks to help them cost effectively capture and service new business.

In this installment of my case management series, I consider what might be possible not just for the largest retailer in the world, but also for the fashion forward.

Case management is proving to be an important means of delivering process improvement to solve critical business challenges, regardless of industry or type of process. Just a few examples include Chartis Insurance accelerating their loan application and underwriting response time, AEGON Financial Services improving their invoice processing, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reducing costs of responding to information requests. While these examples are widely different, they share some common characteristics. This opens the opportunity to learn and leverage not just from other company best practices in your industry, but also from those in completely different industries -- a core principle of “knowledge brokering.”

The successful series Law & Order was based on stories “ripped from the headlines.” In this article, I continue my writings on adaptive case management by focusing on how it is being applied in the government sector to serve the public good. I think you’ll find these case management stories worthy of the great Law & Order franchise. 

Are you stressed out? Companies that compete on the basis of their supply chain are definitely feeling the stress right now. You only have to look at recent headlines of the tragic disasters in Japan and the unrest in the Middle East to understand the disruptive pressures being placed on lean supply chains. It makes sense to turn to technology to help relieve the pressure and supply chain leaders are doing just that. I think that case management -- a technology that has already demonstrated its usefulness in the financial services sector -- has tremendous potential as a new form of stress relief for the supply chain sector. In this article in my adaptive case management series, I share some examples of how business process and case management are being applied to improve the financial flows over the supply chain.

In my previous articles, I wrote about the rise of knowledge work and the increasing need for tools that can improve decision making in manual, paper-intensive processes. In this article, I begin sharing some use case examples and invite you to share your examples as well.

The rise of knowledge work is making it more important to have a strategy addressing improvements for untamed manual processes in paper-intensive environments. In this second article in my series on Adaptive Case Management (read the first one: How Adaptive Case Management Helps Businesses Overcome Challenges and Improve Performance), I discuss the role that adaptive case management technology can play in that strategy.

When was the last time your work day went as anticipated? A predictable day with all data found on the first try, and a series of activities that occurred in a predefined well-mannered order? A day with no problems, no errors, no surprises? Not recently is my answer, maybe never! The reality is as knowledge workers we all need to deal with uncertainty in business.

A perfect day then is one where we’ve adapted to the unexpected, overcome the challenges, and managed the unpredictable nature of our business activities to accomplish our goals. I think that case management might be just the right technology to achieve this perfect day. Here is the first in my series of articles on adaptive case management and the role it can play to improve knowledge worker performance.