Summary : the business process issue recently burst into the enterprise 2.0 world. Sacrilege for some, pragmatic approach without which no value will be created for others, it seems we’ve reach a tipping point. But what are we really talking about ? It’s not about turning unstructured activities into processes but to make it serve processes without distorting it. Then, if we define process as a set of tasks that gives structures to production, it’s important not to mistake what processes applied to some kind of activities should be with what businesses have been used to do for decades. It’s about production as it should be and not as it is today. That said, knowing why this approach is emerging matters too. There are many reasons to that and they are inequally worth but it does not matter : even if many things have to be done out of the process field, this issue will have to be tackled one day or the other. It does not matter anyone wants to change them, keep them unchanged or break them down : they can’t be overlooked.

Big agitation in the small enterprise 2.0 word : since some people at the last Enterprise 2.0 conference suggested that business processes had to be taken into account this topic has become very trendy. Salutary brainwave for those who see there the evidence that enterprise 2.0 is not a funny gadget disconnected from reality and unable to deliver any measurable benefit, crime of lese-majesty for those who see a horde of hungry wolves entering a house full of little red riding hoods.

Cela fait plus d’un an que je milite en faveur de cette approche (ou en tout cas de ne pas refuser de l’aborder et être dans le deni permanent) et je ne vais donc pas me priver de commenter la chose.

What are we talking about ? (Or the story of a big misunderstanding)

The word process is so scaring for some that they run away as soon as they hear it without even listening to the rest of the sentence. It’s not about turning informal and unstructured dynamics into carve-ups but making sure all the energy goes in the right direction. As I said earlier, serendipity is a very limited model for value creation and I find legitimate that businesses want channel what looks like chaos to them. As Rex Lee brillantly wrote recently :

Enterprise 1.0, would suggest that only specialized, trained individuals with the resources knew how to find pearls (i.e. where to dive, specialized equipment, knowledge on how to abstract the pearl from the shelled mollusk, etc.)

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Enterprise 2.0 suggests that we can simplify and remove some of the “specialization” barriers to enable more people to search for pearls.
Enterprise 2.1 would suggest that rather than “serendipitously” finding pearls, that we coordinate our efforts to actually create pearl farms.

The purpose of any business is to create value and to do so it tries to optimize its production. Nothing shoking here. So sets of tasks are defined in order to make things more predictable, manageable and cost efficient. It often ends with a very rigid result and that often is the main point of friction.

In a manufacturing world, where production flows are tangible and can be normalized, rigidity is well adapated, exceptions to the rule being very rare. In a world where people work on knowledge, continuously solve problems, exceptions are the new normality and rigidity only works in a few cases. [Read more...]