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The term "Enterprise Service Bus" continues to create confusion. This is in part because the term is used in a few different ways. "ESB" sometimes is used in describing an architectural approach towards enterprise integration relying on intermediary software to perform message brokering, routing, transformation and similar functions. At the same time, "ESB" also is applied to the broad and evolving category of middleware used in implementing ESB architectures. Adding to the confusion, the ESB category of middleware is so diverse that it defies "apples-to-apples" comparisons of ESB capabilities and features.

The purpose of this webinar is to demystify ESBs for HR IT stakeholders. Within large and medium-sized enterprises, it is common for HR systems to connect into the "enterprise service bus." However, HR IT typically is a relying party and doesn't always exercise control or influence over how ESB infrastructure is applied to HR integration scenarios. In many cases, there is no shortage of middleware or ESB infrastructure within the enterprise, but simply a lack of adequate attention given to the application of such technology to complex and rapidly evolving HR integration scenarios. While some HR integrations are quite pedestrian and well known (HR systems ultimately tie into any enterprise application needing to know who is a current employee), HR increasingly is a step ahead of other enterprise functions with regard to complex integration challenges such as interactions with enterprise portals and SaaS and "cloud-based" resources.

I was really pleased with last week's webinar on serious games. The application of game technology and "game mechanics" to human capital management purposes at first seems to be a new and radical departure from conventional practices. However, I think in some sense it represents technology catching up with tried and true training and performance management approaches. The medium of serious games really represents a return to active learning and "learning by doing". This is a far more natural and engaging approach to instruction than the passive, power-point delivered learning experiences that otherwise predominate.

Likewise, serious games and virtual enviroments offer a way to take "competency models" out of documents and system dialog boxes and put them into "3D." Virtual worlds can give employees the opportunity to try, reherse, and refine their competencies in a safe environment. Multiplayer environments can provide transparency across teams and opportunities to learn from both team members and competitors.

Thanks again to the panelists, Randy Brown, Virtual Heroes; Steve Mahaley, Duke Corporate Education; and Karen Sopko, Creative Bandwidth Games

Title: Serious Games for Human Capital Management
Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Time: 12:00 PM - 1:15 PM EDT

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Last week, I attended the IEEE Learning Standards Technology Committee (LSTC) meeting in Alexandria, VA. There are at least a couple topics discussed at the meeting I'd like to cover. I'm starting in reverse order in this post since I'm covering a topic discussed on the last day of the three-day meeting.

On that third day, Chris Guin of BBN joined us to review the "SCORM RTE Web Services Interface." This was developed as part of an "Integrated Prototype Architecture" funded by Joint ADL Co-Lab beginning in 2006. A paper describing this work was submitted in 2008 in response to LETSI's call for papers on requirements for a successor to the current-day SCORM standards. As the paper describes, the web services interface follows "as closely as possible" the SCORM ECMAScript Interface for Content to Runtime Services Communication (IEEE 1484.11.2-2003).

A key difference between the two versions of the same interface is that while the ECMAScript API facilitates communications to an LMS from a Sharable Content Object (SCO) delivered within web client, the SOAP-based Web Services interface allows any application to act as an SCO. Thus, the web services version opens up the opportunity to use SCORM for integrations where content is delivered within a specialized simulation or game application rather than just a browser.

One of the LinkedIn Groups I subscribe to is the "Informal Network of Standards Professionals". There have been a few interesting threads over there, including one about how standardization processes have changed -- or need to change.

In the case of information and software-related standards, the issue is simply that standards development methodologies haven't kept up with the pace of change in software development methodologies.

Software development methodologies have undergone revolutionary change in just the past decade. By comparison, the development methodologies of most SDOs and consortia have remained largely the same. SDOs and consortia tend to be the last great bastion for "death march" projects and "waterfall design". Under traditional standards development approaches, the balance of development time is spent in upfront design and drafting of specification documents. Key quality assurance processes, such as testing and the development of reference implementations tend to be activities that happen at the very end of the standards-approval project (if they occur at all).

What is needed?

• Realistic planning and estimation of what it will take to get a standard to a reasonable state of maturity.
• Some notion of iterative and test-driven development.
• Better delination of roles and responsibilities among a broader, more inclusive set of standards stakeholders.
• Better specification of requirements and interim testing and retrospectives as means to ensure requirements are effectively dealt with.

I plan on making a few posts on the topic of "talent management system provisioning." I want to cover the topic at a high-level before focusing on integration of competency content and other details.

Here, I'm using "talent management system" to refer to integrated TM suites as well as discrete TM components, such as performance management, compensation, learning management systems, succession planning, etc. "Provisioning" broadly describes processes for providing systems the data they require before they can be used productively. This data can be thought of as the "inputs" to talent management processes.

There is great variation in requirements around TM system provisioning. Requirements vary based on the particular TM components that an employer has deployed, the degree of built-in integration among components, and the sophistication of the particular employer's TM programs. However, the major categories of data of concern in TM system provisioning are:

• Organizational structures. This includes information describing an organization's sub-entities or "organization units", relationships among organization units and between organizational units and parent entities, the positions within each organizational unit, reporting relationships among positions, and the sometimes identifiers referencing position incumbents.
• Position profiles. A position profile (or sometimes "position competency model") associates a collection of competency and process accountability information with a position. A position profile includes references to individual competencies and to groups of competencies that are associated with a position. For each competency group and individual competency, proficiency levels (required or desired proficiencies) and weightings among competencies/groups can be specified.

In a recent post, I examined differences among the licenses of four different consortia. By and large, the licenses under which standards development organizations (SDOs) and consortia offer their work are unique to the particular SDO or consortium. Some are similar, but it is hard to find two independent SDOs or consortia using an identical license (can anyone cite examples otherwise?). This diversity of licenses is increasingly problematic as convergence among standards begins to occur and as enterprises look to apply multiple standards to meet cross-industry requirements.

Open source software ("OSS" or sometimes "FLOSS" - for the Free/Libre/Open Source Software variety) licenses have been the target of much scrutiny and the source of much consternation for those wanting to combine work made available under different licenses. However, compared to the current state of SDO and consortia licenses, a bit of progress has been made in the OSS world in reining-in the unnecessary proliferation of new licenses. The Open Source Initiative has helped in this regard. OSI reviews licenses for consistency with the "open source definition" and publishes a list of approved open source licenses. Restraint on the proliferation of licenses also is provided by project hosting venues such as Google Code, which limits projects to one of nine of open source software licenses and to one of two Creative Commons licenses if a separate license is desired for documentation.

I have written in previous posts about how HR services have been influenced and advanced through the incorporation of ideas that grew up outside of the HR field (examples of such influences being customer relationship management, supply-chain management, and business intelligence). Those looking for the next source of big ideas to shape HR and human capital management (HCM) need to keep an eye on the field known as "serious games."

Serious Games Day at IBM

Last week IBM hosted "Serious Games Day" at its software executive briefing center in Research Triangle Park, NC. I came away from the event with an appreciation for the accelerating sophistication of serious games and with a few insights about their increasing relevance to strategic human capital management.

I'll describe some of the games demonstrated at the event, but first I want to zero in on a few of the most salient "take aways" for those in the field of HCM. A sign that it is time for those in the HCM field to take "serious games" seriously is the increasing activity around putting rigorously derived competency content into games (call them "business simulations" if it is more palatable to your management).

Many thanks to Len Silverston and Paul Agnew for their participation in yesterday's seminar, Universal Patterns: How They Can Help You Develop Your HR Data Model. A screencast of the webinar is in production, but in the mean time, you can browse and download the slides that were presented using the embed below.

The rise of the API as a means to deliver services and other business capabilties from the Internet isn't a new development. However, it is a safe prediction for 2009 that the number and variety of APIs for accessing business services will continue to proliferate. In theory, industry standards should benefit as more service providers look for proven models to put up new APIs. You'd also imagine that customers would be demanding adherence to industry standards in the hope that standards would be of help should customers want to get their data back from "the cloud" (see Vinnie Mirchandani's related advice for customers as they move into the cloud).

The reality regarding the role of industry standards as the basis for APIs is messy. In the next several posts, I'll take a look at some of the opportunities and challenges for industry standards. First, I'll take a look at how the licenses under which standards are offered by different standards organizations help and hinder standards adoption and convergence.

Derivations and Modifications

I'm not an IP attorney, but you don't need to be an IP attorney to realize that the lack of a standard license for business language standards adds costs, complexity, and poses a barrier to opportunistic use and convergence of industry standards. The matrix below isn't intended as anything like an in-depth analysis of the IP policies of different standards organizations. But then again, most developers and implementers don't do much research into these licenses anyway. They simply assume freely available standards are available for use without restriction - which isn't always a good assumption. While not wildly divergent, the licenses described below do illustrate a few common differences among licenses.