The merging of business process management systems (BPMSs) and business rules management systems (BRMSs) represents an important trend in business process management. Why is this so? Because it is enabling companies to more easily define and manage processes designed to automate the complex tasks associated with frequently changing applications like decision support, fraud prevention, product recommendation, marketing, and compliance.

Early last year, the FBI finally cancelled its Virtual Case File (VCF) system project after spending more than US $100 million on it.

Early last year, the FBI finally cancelled its Virtual Case File (VCF) system project after spending more than US $100 million on it.

The question came up in the project management discussion group I run (www.newgrange.org) about how much responsibility a project manager (PM) has in making sure that a vendor is fairly compensated under the terms of a fixed-fee contract. Far be it from me to say a vendor can't enter a fixed-fee deal knowing they'll be taking a loss BUT once the contract is signed a certain attitude of fairness should prevail.

Recently, in preparing for a presentation, I was thinking about what makes agile project management and development successful. While there are many factors in agile's success, I think four key ones are:

One test to determine whether an organizational process has really taken root is to see whether the organization continues to follow the process in difficult times. Often when an organization is under budgetary or strong competitive pressure, process is the first thing to be chucked overboard. It is common, for instance, to find testing reduced on programs that are behind schedule and over cost.

One test to determine whether an organizational process has really taken root is to see whether the organization continues to follow the process in difficult times. Often when an organization is under budgetary or strong competitive pressure, process is the first thing to be chucked overboard. It is common, for instance, to find testing reduced on programs that are behind schedule and over cost.

In general, as has been observed since the turn of the millennium in India, the global BPO sector continues to grow in strength, with high levels of activity both onshore and offshore. Complementing this growth is the spurt of new suppliers coming to the table with highly complex services such as research or analytics. This trend is often termed "moving up the value chain" -- a dreadful cliche uttered far too often by commentators who forget that less complex services can also be of great value.

In general, as has been observed since the turn of the millennium in India, the global BPO sector continues to grow in strength, with high levels of activity both onshore and offshore. Complementing this growth is the spurt of new suppliers coming to the table with highly complex services such as research or analytics. This trend is often termed "moving up the value chain" -- a dreadful cliche uttered far too often by commentators who forget that less complex services can also be of great value.