3/31/2003
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in this issue
-- Quote of the Month....
-- Business Process Improvement Workbook by H. James Harrington
-- ROI from your RFP's
-- Ultimus has a new VP of Marketing & Training Manager
-- Food for thought... doing a lot more with A LOT LESS
-- How can we help you?
-- How to Determine the Value of a Project
-- Can you help us find new customers?
-- Driving Enterprise Transformation - ARM Conference in June

Dear Frank,

This is my latest attempt at a newsletter for people that contacted Ultimus looking for information about workflow automation or business process improvement. It is not an offical Ultimus newsletter, so please don't squeal on me. I'll try to help keep you up to date on things going on at Ultimus and other information I hope you'll find useful. Your comments and suggestions are welcome and if you find that my efforts here aren't useful - please feel free to opt- out

Suggestions, stories, questions are always welcome.

Quote of the Month....
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"A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine" Murphy's Law of Computing

Business Process Improvement Workbook by H. James Harrington
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I found this cruising the shelves @ Borders. James Harrington is the international quality advisor to Ernst & Young & worked for 40 years at IBM. This is a very detailed book that runs the gamut from selecting process candidates to documentation and implementation. It's a good place to start if you want less theory and more concrete examples of all of the components associated with business process improvement.

Just a caveat - This is a TEXT book - not light reading. Please check the reviews on Amazon before you decide to buy - its expensive and may not suit your needs

for reviews and descriptions

ROI from your RFP's
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Baseline magazine has a good article on what you should be looking for when you need to identify the ROI of a specific project. There's also an MS Excel template that you can use or modify.

to read this article

Ultimus has a new VP of Marketing & Training Manager
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Just wanted to introduce you to two new people at Ultlimus. Henry "Hank" Barnes (hbarnes@ultimus.com) has joined Ultimus as our new VP of Marketing. Sandy Woods (swoods@ultimus.com) has moved from Florida to become our new training manager.

If you have any suggestions on how we could improve our marketing or our training please pass them on. From a training perspective we're discussing advanced classes, on-line coaching & training, new process example for the eval tutorial... to name a few ideas. Perhaps you have a few of your own. We'll be glad to hear your suggestions.

Food for thought... doing a lot more with A LOT LESS
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This was one of the most interesting articles I've read recently. Rich Karlgaard of Forbes Magazine recently published an article about the next big revolution in business. He calls it the cheap decade. CEO's are going to have to learn how to get things done - REALLY, REALLY cheap. And they're going to have to get cheap faster than their competitors. If you think you're getting squeazed to do more with less - wait until you read this!

If Rich's thesis turns out to be right I think that managers that are able to implement business process improvements with tools like Ultimus will be a valuable asset to their enterprises.

to read this article

How can we help you?
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We're always looking for suggestions on how we can improve our software, professional services, support, etc. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or comments you'd like me to send up the flagpole. Almost every enhancement that's been built into Ultimus came from our customers. Thanks!

or to suggest an enhancement directly to Ultimus

How to Determine the Value of a Project
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CIO Insider news letter has a good article on how to value a project. It also includes templates and printable white board to help explain the concept to your project team.

Easy read - easy to understand

to read this article

Can you help us find new customers?
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If you know anyone or any company that could benefit from Ultimus would you please us know. If your referral results in an Ultimus sale we'll be sure to do something nice for you. Thanks

Driving Enterprise Transformation - ARM Conference in June
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Join AMR Research at the Spring Executive Conference in Scottsdale AZ, June 4-6 for insight on the technologies and business best practices that are "Driving Enterprise Transformation.

to learn more about this conference