Have you ever wondered if you could spend the time wasted on status meetings doing something that actually adds value? Do you think there should be a better way to use Excel and PowerPoint to manage your initiative?

You should take a look at Shibumi application.

Does this name sound Zen-like? It should as in Japanese culture it means the state of effortless perfection (you can learn more on Wikipedia)

Few weeks ago Ken Pellegrino from Shibumi was so kind to demo Shibumi to me and I must admit it was one of the coolest applications I had a chance to see recently.

How does it help?
It allows you to create shared understanding of goals, initiatives and tasks with your team, so that you can work together to create value.

Of course there are thousands of task management apps, but Shibumi links it to the strategy, so it is possible to see whether given tasks add value and (on executive level) manage portfolio of the initiatives so that they support the company goals in a best way.

What does it mean for BPM practitioners? You can easily track how is your process improvement initiative running and see what needs to be changed to make sure it brings desired results (e.g. productivity gains, cost reduction). You can also make your bosses happy by giving them possibility to see how each team supports overall goals.

It also works great for consulting companies that want to spend less time on reporting status to customers and more on adding value.

How could I describe Shibumi on one sentence? Most probably I would say something like:

it is a task management application mixed with strategy management scorecard and very flexible dashboard mechanism in such a way that the whole company can easily work towards a common goal instead of wasting time on things that do not matter.

When should you consider it?
Here are some of the scenarios (taken from their site):

• Operational improvement initiatives
• Post-merger / acquisitions optimization
• Cost reduction initiatives
• Metric driven process improvement
• Lean Six Sigma
• Enterprise transformation

It can also be used for Sales Execution and Revenue Growth scenarios.

Do you want to learn more? Visit www.shibumi.com (you can also sign up for the 30-day free trial).