June 30, 2004
Mutlimedia Learning
Here's yet another effective form of learning.
Motivation
I am thirty pounds overweight and must exercise at leasst 30 minutes a day to work off the fat.
Access
I can transfer MP3 sounds files downloaded from the 'net via the USB port on my computer.
This tiny $80 device can record or play two hours of voice.
Learning
Yesterday I downloaded a variety of high-tech intereviews by Doug Kaye. Later, I trudged up a steep hil while listening to interviews with Chris Perillo, Steve Gilmour, and Craig Newmark. Forty-five minutes later, I had completed the day's exercise and learned a lot more about sydication, the Microsoft/Sun deal, and forming social networks. I had also completed the day's exercise.
Hearing a recorded voice has more impact than reading the same message. Talk about a cheap delivery system. Give everyone one of the gizmos and load if up with need-to-know information.
It my case, this is an example of mutlitasking that works.
Damn, damn, double damn
High on my list of things that really tick me off are:
- People who waste my time
- Malicious vandals
There's no simple way to put things back to normal. I'm not about to go through the multi-step process of removing each instance of this garbage manually; life's too short. I will clean at the crap at the SQL level.
Then there's the issue of stopping this from happening in the future. I may switch over to MT 3.0 and force people to register in order to comment, but I fear that this will reduce the already pitiful level of response here. I may set up sufficient disguises and spoofs to mislead a Spam-posting bot.
Has anyone found a really effective way to stop this nuisance?
Google should take away the incentive for this by overlooking links that appear in Comments fields. I think I'll jot them a note.
June 28, 2004
Nonverbal impact?
Sahib Spiderman. Maish points to this example of extreme localization. To the right is Indian Spiderman..
I was never a Spiderman fan. Superman and Batman were in vogue when I read comic books. Recently, Spidey has been popping up on my radar. Only yesterday, Boing-Boing pointed to Spiderman satire. [Refresh the page when you get there for a rotation of 20 strips.]
I'm losing my hearing. It's not like someone turned down the volume knob on my ears. No, it's more like the sliders on my mental audio mixer are set to drop out a few frequencies. A sound in an otherwise quiet room is crystal clear but a voice in a crowded room fades into the generalized noise. This got me to thinking about nonverbal communication and the oft-quoted finding that most of what's communicated in conversation does come through our ears.
Professor Albert Mehrabian has pioneered the understanding of communications since the 1960's. Aside from his many and various other fascinating works, Mehrabian established this classic statistic for the effectiveness of spoken communications:
* 7% of meaning is in the words that are spoken.
* 38% of meaning is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said).
* 55% of meaning is in facial expression.
"Mehrabian's research involved spoken communications. Transferring the model indiscriminately to written or telephone communications is not reliable, except to say that without the opportunity for visual signs, there is likely to be even more potential for confused understanding and inferred meanings." Mehrabian's site is worth a look, too.
Thinking back on the findings that people tend to treat computers as if they were people, I began to wonder if an avatar can communicate nonverbally.
Spiderman is clearly a poor choice because he rarely changes expression; I'm not even sure he has lips.
Better pick some more expressive figures. Have them all say the same thing and see if the impact of the message differs....
Are the messages equally compelling? Believable?
Does the "speaker" influence your evaluation of the content? Do you feel one communicates better than the other?
Leave a comment if you think there's anything to this.
1. 'Dance' with the nonverbal signals being sent your way on a moment-to-moment basis.
Stop and ask the other person what their nonverbal behavior means if you are uncertain about it. It is more effective to be 'in the moment,' tuning in to your audience, than to drone on with what you were trying to say.
2. Use the tonality of your voice the way that a musician uses an instrument.
When you are expressing love you can speak in soft, lilting tones. When someone is crying you can speak with a 'crying' sound in your voice. When you are setting limits on a toddler's behavior you can use a tone of authority and firmness.
3. Soak in the hugs that others give to you.
Many people have difficulty being 'present' in the moment to truly receive the affection that comes with a hug. You probably need to be hugged more than you are being hugged, so why resist?
4. Express gratitude to your audience when they are being attentive and responsive.
The encouragement could increase the level of attentiveness and responsiveness, making it a more enjoyable experience for you and for them.
5. Use good eye contact.
Many people stop using eye contact when they are speaking about their successes due to fear or embarrassment. Others stop using eye contact when they are talking about painful things.
6. Stop what you were doing when your listeners look glassy-eyed or bored.
Take ownership and responsibility for the situation by saying, "I must be 'off' tonight because I'm not getting that 'you're interesting' look." Change something drastically about what you were doing.
7. Tune in to the 'metacommunication' that is going on at a given moment.
Metacommunication involves noticing the larger context of communication. It can be helpful to tune in to the larger context when there is a sense of being provoked by what a speaker is saying. For example, you might ask yourself, "Why is my teenager telling me that he is going to pierce his tongue? Is he telling me to test me or to take a risk of being open with me?"
8. When you are confronting someone who you are in a close relationship with, reach out to take their hand in both of yours.
This kind of gesture will communicate that you want the difficult words that you are sharing to increase your intimacy rather than to put a wedge in it. A caring gesture during a confrontation can assist the other person in hearing you instead of defending themselves.
9. Notice the effect that your words have on others.
Do they cause life or dampen life? With practice, your 'radar' will improve and you will immediately know the effect that you are having on others.
10. Hug others as if you were St. Peter greeting newcomers at the Pearly Gates.
Leo Buscaglia was on to something. Dr. Buscaglia, the famous educator known as Dr. Hug, made it part of his lectures to hug any members of the audience who would line up for the embrace.
June 27, 2004
The New Religion
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
A Screed about Process
If you walked into the conference I’ve been attending for the last two days cold, you would not have a clue what people were talking about or why you would want any part of it. You might think you’d stepped into a revival for geeks. I’ll bear witness to what transpired.
Peaceable Kingdom
Speakers fervently describe a Second Coming for IT, an entirely new
and hyper-productive way of doing business. In the Promised Land, managers and
workers no longer need to turn to IT to get their jobs done. Bankers run the
banks and merchants run the stores without relying on CIO’s to satisfy their
customers. Silos fall. Everyone makes informed decisions. Converts are on the
edge of their pews.
The prophets envision the profits, but
their belief system lacks a name. Some call it Business Process Management.
Other say it’s Web Services. Yet others talk of Service-Oriented Architecture. They
describe the wonders of SOAP and UML, seek blessings from W3C and OASIS, and
tell parables of independent angels agents doing what’s right. They speak in tongues.
Non-believers sense a sham. The masses have long prayed at the altar of IT for better, faster, cheaper ways of creating value and making the world a better place. The vengeful IT god inevitably punishes the populace with plagues of non-functionality, cost overruns, missed deadlines, administrative catastrophe, scaring away customers, frustration, and demoralization. To every FUD there is a season.
Are those who herald the new order today’s false prophets or are they messengers trumpeting true change? Business people are skeptical. Fool me once, shame on thee. Fool me twice, shame on me.
What does business gain from going to this church? Less lag time between strategy and execution. Faster response time to customers. More agility amid changing conditions. Faster cycles, less lead time, less lag time. Richer innovation and more of it. Focus on core strengths. Everyone singing from the same hymnal. This is not IT; this is business.
Twenty years ago, few executives touched a keyboard. Today, few business people change the process they employ to do their jobs. Tomorrow, workers will contribute to helping their organizations improve the way work is performed. Continuous performance improvement will become everyone’s job.
| “Science
without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” Albert Einstein |
A New Testament
Epiphany: If you climb up the ladder of abstraction several rungs,
you can begin to divine what the prophets are talking about. The patterns we
couldn’t see because we were too close begin to come into focus. The grand
design becomes obvious.
The day-to-day world of commerce is so far below that the cubicles, silos, firewalls, and boundaries fade away. From up here, people and politics are impossible to discern. We’re looking at the broad flows of value across the global marketplace.
Just as the first image of the earth from space raised our consciousness of living on a tiny sphere in space, looking at the flows of knowledge and value from above brings what’s really important in commerce into sharp relief.
From up above, all business consists of flows of value across networks. As on the Internet, all nodes are connected. Sometimes the route from one node to another is circuitous and inefficient, but somehow it all works together. When synapses in the human brain traverse a meaningful route, the result is a memory. When value flows through an organization, the result is a pattern. When patterns are repeated and refined, they become a process.
Processes can be modeled and mapped. In fact, evangelists recommend that business organizations map current processes simply to get a handle on what they are really doing. Disconnects and gross inefficiencies will become immediately apparent.
A map of a process is a picture of how an organization works. The map tracks a common reality, not a view from within a silo. The map divorces descriptions of how things work from personalities and turf issues. A process map is the logic of business laid bare. No fluff. No politics. Just “Here's how it happens.”
Like a mural interpreting a meeting, a process map enables people to talk about what works and what doesn't without getting personal about it. The map is agnostic. Everyone's goal is to make it better. Furthermore, thanks to smart software, the value of choosing this option instead of that is automatically generated and explicitly stated.
For example, when HP was merging with Compaq, the combined organization had many redundant processes. The staff modeled each HP and Compaq supply chain process whenever they overlapped. They chose whichever process promised the best profit potential. Instead of presenting a list of software apps to debate, the supply chain guys presented a blueprint and financials for an optimal mix of interoperable processes. Now HP has taken this to marketing, sales, and manufacturing. Why shouldn’t all businesses be evaluating the way they do business all the time?
|
"Whatever
your mind Napoleon Hill |
The electronic spreadsheet enthralled business managers with the power of what-if analysis. Process models take what-if analysis to the level of organizational change. In lieu of a spreadsheet’s rows and columns, process maps blueprint the value circuitry underpinning the business. Instead of seeing the effect of a 3% up-tick in sales, management can assess the impact of streamlining a process or outsourcing an entire function.
Time for a miracle. I want to move a few walls in my house to make a leisure room out of two small bedrooms. What if I could tear down the walls and build the new room by doing nothing more than changing the architect’s sketch of my house? Well, of course I can’t do that; I’m going to have to hire a construction crew. However, a process model can accomplish changes. Unlike my house, business is mostly virtual. Software runs the show. Change the process map on the screen, and the system automatically generates and installs revised code!
The seers prophesy a new category of asset: Process Capital. An organization that has its processes rigorously refined should be able to swap entire corporate functions in and out like Lego® blocks. The what-if model shows the bottom-line impact of handing off payroll and benefits administration and applying the resources thus freed up to a core business area. Sufficient Process Capital will enable an organization to focus on what it can do best and to shift that focus as conditions change.
"In the Beginning, ARPA created the ARPANET.
And the ARPANET was without form and void.
And darkness was upon the deep.
And the spirit of ARPA moved upon the face of the network and ARPA said, 'Let there be a protocol,' and there was a protocol. And ARPA saw that it was good.
And ARPA said, 'Let there be more protocols,' and it was so. And ARPA saw that it was good.
And ARPA said, 'Let there be more networks,' and it was so."
-- Danny Cohen
Computer
History Museum
A Creation Myth
What laid the groundwork for these audacious claims at the altar of process? Like a voice out of the wilderness, the Internet gave us the sign.
In 1991, CERN released the World Wide Web. A year later, the Internet had 1,000,000 hosts. Two years after that, Netscape went public and the Vatican went online. Assisted by Moore’s Law of the loaves and fishes, the Internet becomes the biggest force in the history of commerce, communication, and culture change.
The miracle of the Net gave us faith and guided us in the right direction.
From Babel to interoperability. In Old Testament days, IBM computers did not talk to UNIVAC computers; GE machines did not talk to Honeywells; NCRs did not talk with Burroughs; and RCA tried to talk with IBM but died prematurely. Commercial computing relied on proprietary software to handcuff customers who couldn’t afford to change horses. Software companies upheld the tradition. But the Net provided a lingua franca. TCP/IP succeeded where Esperanto had failed. Open standards enabled any compliant browser to understand anything on the Net. The value of joining the party soon outweighed the rewards of locking in customers, and before you knew it, IBM was spray-painting Linux penguins on the sidewalks of Chicago. Now in-house and commercial systems are adopting Web Standards, and eventually the world will transubstantiate into a single, immense network.
Don’t play God. The Net is a web without a weaver. No master programmer hides behind the curtain. Like Nature herself, the web organizes itself. Start with simple rules; clear the way; don’t get in the way; let it grow. Great and unexpected things arise from complexity if you let them. In IT, this letting-go takes the form of delegating interactions to bots, personas, and software agents.
June 25, 2004
Shhhhh.....
Today I had lunch at Google with a friend. Lunch at Google is free and tasty. You can eat things cooked outside on the grill or choose from Italian, Asian Fusion, Mexican, Veggie, Charlie's Grill, or a salad bar. I had Charlie's venison.
You probably want to know what I found out about the IPO and the new product concepts the guys are batting around. Unfortunately, that's not what we talked about. Besides, Google's in their "quiet period." To help you get over that disappointment, I'm going to repeat a number of jokes from Dive Into Mark.
What's the difference between roast beef and pea soup?
Anyone can roast beef.
A man and a parrot sit next to each other in a plane. The service in the plane is really bad, the man hasn’t had a drink for hours and he’s starting to dehydrate. The parrot on the other hand is getting drink after drink by the harrowed cabin crew. Each time the parrot orders a drink it does so with a lot of cursing and shouting. The man decides to follow the same tactic and starts shouting. "Hey, bitch get me a whiskey!" To his suprise he gets his whiskey and follows through with the same tactic. Soon, both man and parrot outdo each other in shouting and insults untill the cabin crew has had enough. They grab the man and parrot and throw them out of the plane. Now both of them are plummeting towards the ground below when the parrot says to the man: "Boy, for someone who can't fly you sure do curse a lot".
Two molecules are walking down the street. One suddenly stops and says, "Wait, I think I dropped an electron." The other looks at him and asks "Are you positive?"
Mahatma Ghandi was an amazingly spiritual man, but physically he was quite a wreck. His penchant for going barefoot led to him having enormously tough feet. His diet, such as it was between hunger strikes, meant he was very thin and frail. It also had the side effect of giving him very bad breath. In fact you could say he was a super-calloused, fragile mystic cursed by halitosis.
Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!
Researchers warn of infectious Web sites
WWW.Danger.Net
It looks like the Internet is turning into a world wide minefield this morning.
MS issues warning on Web attacks, pushes XP SP2 beta
The warnings from the Redmond, Washington, company came as antivirus and computer security experts said Friday that an organized gang of Russian hackers were behind the attacks and were using the security holes in a coordinated, global attack to steal sensitive personal and financial information from customers of leading banking and e-commerce Web sites.
Major Internet Attack Under Way
Security experts say Russian hackers are using a sophisticated attack to compromise major E-commerce Web sites, which then infect visitors with hacker tools designed to steal passwords and financial data, and possibly spew spam.
Web browser flaw prompts warning
Users are being told to avoid using Internet Explorer until Microsoft patches a serious security hole in it. The loophole is being exploited to open a backdoor on a PC that could let criminals take control of a machine.
Warning: Widespread Internet Attack Possible
U.S. official sources, along with Internet security experts, are warning of a mysterious virus that can turn infected computers into spam-delivering zombies. The virus apparently has attacked thousands of servers that power popular Web sites already.
IIS 5 Web Server Compromises
US-CERT recommends that end-users disable JavaScript unless it is absolutely necessary. Users should be aware that any web site, even those that may be trusted by the user, may be affected by this activity and thus contain potentially malicious code.
Antivirus experts and the U.S. Homeland Security Department are warning of a mysterious virus that has attacked "thousands" of Web servers that power a number of popular Web sites, none of which the department has yet identified.
The threat of infection is so high because the code created to exploit the loophole has somehow been placed on many popular websites. Experts say the list of compromised sites involves banks, auction and price comparison firms and is growing fast.
June 23, 2004
Business Process Management (2)
Worldwide Interoperability Demonstration of ASAP & WfXML 2.0
Presented by The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC)
Demonstration of interoperability among three vendors and two open source initiatives (Fujitsu, Staffware, a client, Handysoft, and another)
ASAP = the Asynchronous Standard Access Protocol. Enter the URLs and the metadata hooks up automatically.
We're watching an interchange of activities on a live flowchart. Then we check the XML code and find that indeed the transaction made its way through the various organizations. Untouched by human hands. This is a virtual replay of pounding in the golden spike.
ASAP can be used today to link systems easily. Next step is to go through OASIS Process, but this is ready to go now.
WfMC is looking to design tool vendors to demo ability to upload and download process definitions using Wf-XML 2.0 in January 2005. Wf-XML 3.0 has "containers" which hold "factories." The URL of the factory automatically calls the details for the "instance" which includes the "activity." The activity contains two blocks of XML Schema: the data and the … The SOAP protocol carries this.
John Pike from Staffware, chair of the WfMC, points out how significant is the demo we have just seen. This was a historic moment.
Panel: Business Process Innovation
Tom Dwyer, Principal, Beagle Research Group, and a panel
Things in process are getting less visible, which is a sign of maturity - when things don't get in the way. The business used to be measuring, monitoring, and improving inefficient processes. The new objective is to use processes for innovation.
1. Innovation = application of an invention (something new) that brings benefit.
2. Two key elements are collaboration and knowledge flow.
3. Process innovation = requires a structured approach of experimentation, education....
Some of the panelists offer all-in-one, others focus on only rules or analysis. It's like assembling cars.
"Process Management Tools should be on the desk of every business user" (says Proforma).
Where is the demand for innovation coming from?
" Need a champion of processes and rules together (says a guy who sells both).
" Demand comes from the business that wants improvement in a process.
" Innovation is overwhelmingly making an existing process better rather than creating processes de novo (Fair Isaac)
" Next processes instead of best practices - things that haven't been automated before (SAP)
" No, most of it's new applications (ProForma, which covers only the analysis and planning end of things)
Where is motivating the demand for process innovation? (Jay.) Okay, I asked a bit more.
- Get executive sponsorship
- Start small, score a quick win
- Talk up the payback
- People matter, include all the stakeholders
- Avoid analysis paralysis
New paradigm. Higher level, where orgs think of process and rules as assets. Build for change.
Supply side business. We build it and then figure out what to do with it. We back into it.
Fair Isaac actually answered the question.
" Stay out of jail - compliance
" Profitability - cost cuts
" IT - infrastructure cost to high
Bottom up, top down, general awareness…it's pervasive. People are buying into it at different levels.
" Next practices. (says SAP)
" Ad hoc workflow vs. workflow in the silo.
" Seeking competitive advantage (buy, buy, buy says the vendor)
[Uh-oh. The vendors on the panel as jostling for position, only presenting examples that tout the value of their own solutions.]
Tom Dwyer observed that in high tech, we often invent something and later find the use for it. BPM is there. We're reverse-engineering the benefits from the invention.
I can imagine another back-formation from process centricism. When a business manager is confronted with the profit contribution of one way of doing things versus another, won't she want to take the option that's best economically? Will the long-term benefits of lasting processes get American business leaders to think more than one quarter ahead? Eventually, if corporations become truly transparent, market analysts could rate companies not only on earnings but also on whether they're focused on the long term or the short.
Doug Engelbart's name is reverberating in my head. Improve the process. Improve the process of improving the process.
BRP is the logic of business laid bare. No fluff. No politics. Just here's how it happens. It's a roadmap people can understand. Like a mural of a meeting, it enables people to talk about what works and what doesn't without getting personal about it. The map is agnostic. Everyone's goal is to make it better. Furthermore, thanks to smart software, the value of choosing this option instead of that is automatically generated and explicitly stated.
The Process-Centric Company & Business Process Frameworks
by Paul Harmon, Editor, BP Trends
Business process is hot. At least as hot as BPR in '93-'94 but this time the interest is broader, which means it will have more staying power.
Customer focus. The Internet has had an impact on the awareness of executives. How quick can I get through the seller's website?
Better control
Reduce costs
Mergers
Process-Centric Company = A company that is organized, structured, measured and managed in terms of business processes. (Most companies are still function-centric.) This is more in the talking stage than the reality.
Electrocomponents plc, 743 million pounds
Download Annual Report
www.electrocomponents.com
Chief Process Officer: Richard Butler
CEO, CFO, CPO
Lots of work on alignment in the 90s was horizontal, integrations from supplier to customer. New alignment is vertical: integrated measures, managers, and resources. The vertical lets management conceptualize the business and therefore to change
SEI CMM Process Maturity Levels, used to assess software by DoD but is a good touchstone for assessing process maturity. From ad hoc to process improvement. Most companies are only at about 2.5. They don't have measures that tie to strategic goals.
Strategy and Goals
Business Process Architecture
Implementation: Employees/Systems
Six sigma/OMG model-driver architecture
Business Process Outsourcing = how to focus on core
Outsourcers are good prospects for BPM
Different groups want to discuss different pieces of the triangle.
Business Process Frameworks
Aka Reference Models, Templates
High level descriptions of a set of processes, measures, best practices
Provide a package that allows an analyst to treat a given process as an instance of a class of similar processes (they characterize processes at a high level)
Examples
1. Supply Chain Council (SCOR). 700 companies. How to link up processes at a high level and how to measure them. (Check their layers of modeling) This is essentially meta-processing mapping. Plan ' Source 'Make ' Deliver. At a one-day meeting, a dozen people from many companies spend the morning learning the terminology and notation; in the afternoon they create and agree upon a global, interoperable supply chain. An independent auditing agency provides benchmark data to other in an industry. The Benchmark enables you to assess your level of profitability if your performance were average. Management Plan and HR Best Practices are part of SCOR.
2. TeleManagement Forum eTOM, implemented in IT as NGOSS, their expanded architecture.
3. HPs Extended SCOR Architecture. In the Compaq merger, they modeled both the HP and the Compaq supply chain where each company had a similar process. Which process provides the best profit opportunity? Instead of a list of software apps, the supply chain guys presented a blueprint and financials. Now HP has taken this to marketing, sales, and manufacturing. It works great at HP, but since it's proprietary, it doesn't facilitate conversing with partners. (Two newly established councils are working on taking this to marketing and sales functions.) See www.supply-chain.com
for the latest; this only happened last week.
BP Frameworks are a major opportunity for companies to significantly improve their business process practices. Nothing else offers BP practitioners the speed.
Gary Chan, IT manager, City of Walnut Creek
Gary Chan explained how the City of Walnut Creek implemented BPM, the results received, and the City's vision of the future. This was the first time I've heard the details of a far-ranging deployment that involved all employees and will eventually link all customers (residents) in City projects. Plus, they brought the entire project home for under $100,000 and in less than six months.
BPM is the execution of software, measures, and processes than enable rapid, more accurate, decision making. It makes for fiscal responsibility.
Had a manual system. Nothing real-time. Two-week old reports. Monitor project progress.
Implementation of Metastorm, from signing the contract to generating reports, took place in 5 ½ months. Six weeks for training. Now installing web version. The City no longer uses any other project management software.
Creating paperless environment. Little training required: they pick it up at the push of a button. On-demand reports. Tracks all project communications. Automated processes for approval and to escalate multi-level project changes. Let's public service employees who don't work 8 to 5 communicate with others.
The total tab for the software and some expert advice from the vendor was $85,000. The hold costs down, Walnut Creek did most of the process design in-house.
Walnut Creek is currently putting the app on the Web. They envision opening up the system to citizens. If you've got a pothole in the street in front of your house, you log it on the system and monitor the trouble ticket from there on.
Futures Panel
Difficulty implementing is that companies are not organized by process. We don't need to control so much as to do the right thing. How are our haphazard processes doing? Then how can we do them better?
This is all about making business more efficient, not about adding infrastructure.
BPM has an overall architecture for management.
What are our PKIs? How are we doing against those indicators? How could we do better? What's that worth?
Janelle: At the enterprise level, all the PKIs I know of are financial. (Should Workflow Institute help develop the intangible PKIs?)
One view: IT will come under the business managers. Contrarian: We've been there before. IT people think all Business people are idiots; the business people think IT people are idiots. Another contrarian view: When more people can make changes without coding than there are coders, things will change. Right now there is one BP analyst to every ten Java coders. It should be the other way around.
One view: IT vs. the business. IT should be the business.
Are there efforts to establish standards at a higher level, e.g. accounts receivable? There's SCOR. There are also semantics being developed for some 300 industries.
"Information Resource Management" covers everything IT should be doing.
Business Intelligence has demonstrated how coding can be delegated to business people. It's time for BPM to get on board.
The assembled crowd sings Happy Birthday to Greg Rock,
panel leader and CEO of Brainstorm Group.
From luncheon conversation:
Who's the #1 thought leader in this space? Geary Rummler.
Who do the vendors sell to? It's sort of like the training market. The natural buyers lack budget and clout. Few firms have a Chief Process Officer, so there's no natural prospect at the top level either.
I plan to summarize these reports and attach my consclusions. Then they'll go on the Workflow Institute site.
Your correspondent
June 22, 2004
Really Big
Think Big.
Yesterday I had lunch with Jinlei Ni, the former CEO of China's Beida-Online.
You've may have heard how China's telephone system leapfrogged poles and wires, heading from zero to cell phones with no intermediate stops.
Business in China is going through the roof, making almost unimaginable gains. Workers at all levels need business skills. Think of eLearning as the cell phone. Imagine leapfrogging instructors, classrooms, and chalk talks.
We may form a community of practice to tackle the challenge. Drop me an email if you'd like to be kept informed.
Business Process Management Conference
Brainstorm Group.Tuesday, June 22, 2004. Hyatt Regency, San Francisco Airport
Business Process Management – The Path to Becoming an Adaptive Organization
by Janelle Hill, METAGroup
Confusion among the terms: BPM, SOA, On Demand, Adaptive Organization. BPM includes integrating human activities with required data & systems.
True e-Business has yet to happen. Although process management theory is mature, process thinking & use of BPM technology is not.
Adaptability of Business Processes
- Enhancements
- Extensions
- Corrections
- Refinements
How much is too much? How often? Don’t do it all; do the processes that need to be adaptable.
To understand the bounds and potential of adaptability, business users must have an appreciation for the technologies.
Historical perspective
| EDI Successes |
EDI Failures |
| Standardized top business documents for reusability; standards based, bullet proof |
Point to Point one-offs, hard-coded, complex, high cost, specialized skills, single implementation infrastructure (VAN), data interchange only |
| EAI/B2B Successes |
EAI Failures |
| Brokered architecture encourages reuse, Simpler tools, metadata driven engine, Standaradized application adapters, Transport Choices |
High entry cost, Specialized skills, Emphasis on data an message transformation, not process, Not bullet proof |
| BPM Advantages |
· |
| Lowers costs with standards – fewer skills required, commoditization drives down software cost, leverages existing data nd process. E.g., $500K in 2002, $50-250I in 2004. Visual representation (BPMN). Open (XML). Supports multiple levels of process abstraction in the modeloing palette. Change the process and automatically change the code. |
· |
The more your applications expose themselves as Web services, the easier they link to existing systems.
A summary of this report will appear at Modeling must become a business discipline – not a creative pastime. Get a real modeling tool, not just a drawing tool like Visio. The model facilitates the conversation between business process and IT. It defines what events – human or system interactions – advance the process. Abstract objects hide implementation details. (It’s software application-agnostic.) This just lets you define where you want business processes to be adaptive. BPM is a Service Oriented Architecture. Interoperable, virtual network. Challenges of BPM… (Business modeler = someone “like a former McKinsey consultant, who really understands the big picture.” I can’t imagine the cost of putting together a team of these guys.) IT culture shock: From Code to Models. Model mindset – not just learning the tool. Willingness to share development responsibility. This is a new game for IT, which has been accustomed to squirreling away during development and returning with a solution. If IT architects don’t buy in, this won’t work. BPM is both a strategy and a set of technologies. It requires business and IT to work with one another. Educate everyone, then assess readiness. Establish notational standards (not just Visio drawing). Peter is great. He wraps BPM into a package management can buy into. It's a Strategy-Execution Machine. Give your people "Work Processors" so they can get your business aligned. Bravo! Dot-com bust: $3.5 trillion sucked out of market. 300,000 jobs lost. Enough technology already. RTE = real time enterprise; BRM = business process management. Executives are fed up with three-letter acronyms and technology being foisted off on them. They’re reading Nick Carr’s “IT doesn’t matter” in Harvard Business Review. Carr suggests that IT is a commodity. Fingar says IT is nothing but an enabler. Porter taught us that differentiation is the key to competitive advantage. (Don’t read Porter; it’s soporific. Read Max Strategy, a 100 page parable.) FedEx founder wanted to “sell time.” Poo-pooed at first, Fedex IS NOW A $20 billion enterprise. George Stalk’s Competing Against Time is the argument in favor of BPM. We need a better vocabulary than IT’s to get managements excited about this. Toyota and Honda managed structural changes that enabled their operations to execute their processes much faster. Toyota went through a two-year internal M&A. (Now you can do it with BPM.) HBR July 1988. Change has switched from episodic to evolutionary. What was discontinuous is now a flow; the pace of innovation is what’s key. Serial innovators will run circles around the competition. Time-Based Competition Cycle, product design, lead, lag, time to market The most value for the lowest cost in the least amount of time. Cheaper, Better, Faster. Toyota: Empower the people on the line, not just the production line. “Downsizing was the objective of BPR.” Time based competitors: ········· Compress time to mfg and distribution ········· Cut time to develop and introduce new products ········· Cut inventory thru value-delivery system ········· Lever all competitive differences Process maps are not the object. The point is whether that map will execute with my business. We need executable BP models. BPM is not IT Software Development, its an IT tool that enables business people to build and manage processes “Time is the scarcest resource.” – Drucker GE: Digitization of business process was the key. Now it's shifting to managing processes. Time-based competition is not new. But the BPM System is a way to make it real. Look for his new book, differentiating BPM from IT. No one in the corner office has a clue what BPM is. BPM is all about strategy execution. Typical value chain has 22 companies in it. With BPM systems, the tide has shifted--For the 1st 50 years
IT has automated the business, for the next 50 years BPM systems will be used to automate IT. Competition is one end-to-end value chain vs your end-to-end value chain. Peter conceptualizes a Work Processor. It’s the competitive weapon of choice. BPMS inside. What does it do? It squeezes out time. This squeezes out the right kind of costs. NDA… The specs. Doesn’t automate people out of their jobs, but instead amplifies their work by providing human connections, a shared information base, a communal knowledge base, shared design tools, shared problem-solving tools, and a command and control capability over existing IT systems…all without onhe line of code. Underpinning include cognitive science, HCI, AI, pi calculus, M, collaborative filtering, semantic search, etc. Peter told me he is putting the finishing touches on his new book, which takes the Work Processor metaphor forward. Expo break BPM Thought Leader Panel: Creating the Process Oriented Enterprise Q: John’s familiar with the automation of human processes. That market never took off. What’s different now? What’s the trigger to growth? A: BAM, Web Services, etc., are all helping from a technical perspective. Accountability and governance issues raise issues of corporate control. A triggering event is the thought of the CEO going to jail. Q. Greg, senior execs ready to take on process responsibility? A: Yes, there’s a general understanding that processes are vital. Senior managers feel like they can’t understand ownership and execution. They must own the automation of the process. Q. Mark, why do you think outsourcing is the right approach? A: It becomes easier and easier to construct a contract if there’s outsourcing involved. Both parties need to manage their risk. Challenge – example – call center answers in funny accent you can’t understand. A measure might be how long it takes to get a question answered. Either party can game the system. John: Can an outsource guy go to jail? Who owns the process? Who decides? Rachel: customers are just starting to implement Sarbanes-Oxley. There are interesting court cases on the way. How about process insurance? Seems to me companies and their outsourcers need a pre-nup. Q. IBM’s modeling tool for BPM is a way to draw boundaries. What’s your experience? Do customers take ownership of the models? A: The most successful contracts go that way. BPM can enhance teaming, too. IBM is committed to standards. They are the only one with a BPEL runtime engine. Off the shelf processes viable? IBM: I’d call them process templates. RosettaNet and UCCNet involve processes, too. Use the 80/20 rule. It’s similar to packaged ERP. Takeaways from IBM at First Data Train motivated analysts Culture change required Find success everywhere Build confidence in the modeling process through ultra-competency Whatever you do, don’t give the analyst job to anyone in IT. They won’t buy it because they know better. Reading List: Luncheon speech by key sponsor Enron. Worldcom. Power blackouts. Hurricanes. Every one of these is the result of broken processes. Agility is the cure-all. AIIM finds that 44% put BPM on the top of CIO to-do lists. IDC says Managing Business Processes is #1 call in IT. The prime sources of BP value are: BPM is not IT. BPM works by consolidating the white space on the chart, not IT. Gartner looked at 50 BPM projects. 2/3 took less than 6 months to implement. 2/3 were primarily human focused. 2% had no human component. 60% hd no system activity. (Which makes me wonder if this is really BPM.) I asked METAGroup’s Janelle Hill if BPM designers were thinking about the workers’ quality of life that would result from implementing BPM Suites. She told me that process designers were aware that BPM would fail without people. They focus on human systems. I replied that eLearning experts all parroted the mantra that what counts is the people, not the technology. Then they sell and install the technology, and the workers are left to sift through excruciatingly poorly-designed programs. Do BPM folks factor the satisfaction of the worker into the equation? Alas, Janelle told me, no. It’s the old one-quarter-at-a-time thinking. I said we would address the issue at the upcoming Workflow Symposium. No show. 
Competing on Time with the Revolutionary Business SEx Machine
Peter Fingar, co-author of BPM, The Third Wave and The Real-Time Enterprise
Besides that, the 
Flow is the trickier piece of the puzzle. I am thinking of Flow in the psychological sense, as Mihaly Csizentmihalyi describes it. 
Roaming through 
We've had opportunities to improve working conditions again and again. The peasant's lifestyle was impoverished and hard, but the early factory hand or coal miner working 12-hours days in wretched conditions certainly had it worse. People were not treated as machines. Foremen didn't beat machines. Supervisors didn't yell at and berate machines. Plant managers didn't abuse machines to the breaking point. No, the industrial workplace treated people worse than machines, as if they were throw-away tools. 
We've come a long way, you think. Out of sight out of mind. But sweatshots, slave labor, stoop labor, lost limbs, and the working poor are all there if you look. Not to mention McJobs.
The San Francisco Bay Area has been blessed with great weather for a few days, and nature is ripping me away from my computer to go for walks. This morning I wandered down the hill to join the Saturday ramble of the 
Tromping up the hill, a fellow with a dog passed me. "This is the cardiovascular section," he said. I told him that's why I was here. 
Health was only one justification for my tromp. I'm hatching a new concept of what's going on in the world, and nature's a great place for quiet contemplation. It blows my mind that I can see San Francisco from the East Bay hills. It's jam-packed with people. Yet the guy and his dog are the only creatures I see during an hour of hiking. 
This morning, when I awoke, I wrote: "We are at the dawn of an era that will change the structure of business, the nature of work, our view of the world, and our impressions of ourselves. Our culture and institutions are stretched to the breaking point. After a quarter-millennium of the Industrial Age, humankind is poised to rewrite the rules, abolish modern slavery, stop plundering the earth’s resources, and focus on using our time wisely. 
The model for the future is biological. Nature doesn’t have executives, managers, supervisors, or bosses. No one’s in control. Living things interact with one another and their surroundings. They adapt. They grow. It’s not planned; it just happens. There are no hidden agendas, no shadow organizations. In business, complex interactions will spontaneously create organizations without bosses, software without programmers, webs without weavers, and learning without instructors. 
Tuesday night half a dozen of us went to see the interminably long screed against business called "The Corporation." This movie slams business very hard, saying that if the corporation is legally a person, it's a psychopathic one. Examples abound: Monsanto shutting down a (true) Fox news story, Bechtel trying to charge Bolivians for water, Kathy Lee and Nike employing child labor, a market research outfit counseling retailers to increase sales by teaching children how to nag, and IBM colluding with Nazis. Noam Chomsky tells us it doesn't have to be this way. Michael Moore cuts up and tells us the only thing the corporation cares about is the bottom line. Milton Friedman agrees. 
Effectiveness
