Todd Biske: Outside the Box

I actually had to think harder than normal for a title for this entry because as I suspected, I had a previous post that had the title of “Importance of Identity.” That post merely talked about the need to get identity on your service messages and some of the challenges associated with defining what that identity should be. This post, however, discusses identity in a different light.

It occurred to me recently that we’re on a path where having an accurate representation of the organization will be absolutely critical to IT success. Organizations that can’t keep ActiveDirectory or their favorite LDAP up to date with the organizational changes that are always occurring with find themselves saddled with a boat anchor. Organizations that are able to keep their identity stores accurate and up to date will find themselves with a significant advantage. An accurate identity store is critical to the successful adoption of BPM technology. While that may be more emerging, think about your operations staff and the need for accurate roles associated with the support of your applications and infrastructure. One reorg of operations and the whole thing could fall apart with escalation paths no longer in existence, incorrect reporting paths, and more.

So, before you go gung-ho with BPM adoption, take a good look at your identity stores and make sure that you’ve got good processes in place to keep it up to date. Perhaps that should be the first place you look to leverage the BPM technology itself!

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