Acknowledgments

When I started on this book, I wondered what it would take it to finish it. Could I master the subject matter and write it the O’Reilly way? Could I, already maxed out on time with a busy day job and family life, work vigorously, keep the pace, and finish on schedule? Well, I made it, and as it turns out, I had help. Though I can’t part with the image of a solitary me sitting night-after-night by laptop at kitchen table, when I think it through, I have to admit that this book would have been doomed without the help of my family, my reviewers, and my editors.

Family comes first, in more ways than one. This book is dedicated to you, Paola, for supporting and inspiring me! And to our beautiful children, Napoleon, Nina, Mason, and Ireland: when you get older please study BPM and quote me in your theses. To my mother Maureen, dear departed father Frank and brother Tim, brothers Mark and John, and sisters Liza and Susan: thank you for your cheerleading, and I do admit that this book is proof of Dr. Spock’s methods.

My reviewers were drawn from a wish list that editor Andrew Odewahn asked me to put together. I chose heroes of the field. That we were actually able to get some of these guys delights me immensely. Thanks to Wil van der Aalst (larger-than-life BPM academic and patterns visionary), Nick Kavantzas (WS-CDL lead author and Oracle web services architect), and David Frankel (BPTrends editor and author of a key MDA book) for their constructive criticism. I also had two top-echelon consulting enterprise architects: Brian Waterworth from IBM, and my friend Mark Janzen from BEA. Customers rely on these individuals to make sound business and technology decisions, and I trust their criticism of my thoughts on BPM.

Finally, among the many folks at O’Reilly who contributed to this book, let me single out copy editor Nancy Kotary, illustrators Rob Romano and Leslie Borash, production editor Mary Anne Weeks Mayo, indexer Lucie Haskins and, above all, editors Andrew Odewahn and Mike Hendrickson. Andrew, a talented writer and a writer’s editor, encouraged me and diligently spotted needed improvements in my writing. Much like a BPM runtime engine, Andrew helped guide me through the process. Mike Hendrickson was the first one from O’Reilly to contact me, and his acceptance of my proposal was not the thunderous “Congratulations!” that I had expected, but an understated “By the way, we have the go-ahead” camouflaged in the body of an email entitled “RE: Proposal.” When Mike and I first spoke on the phone, I was struck by his sense of possibility and open-endedness in a book. He assured me that books often change course in mid-flight, and although I largely stuck to my original flight plan, I flew more confidently knowing the extent of the sky.

Get Essential Business Process Modeling now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.