process flow simplicity (even more on documents, forms and accounts)

Business is all about flows, and flows are all about data.

An IT supported flow has to work with data objects, and how these are designed will determine the complexity and scalability of the flow model:

Since old we've used comprehensive chunks of data for presentation which has led us to keep dissimilar rigid buckets for capture, storage and flow - documents, forms and accounts.

Thingamy sticks to finite data-objects for capture, storage and flow, then rearranges finite data into chunks for presentation later.

A bucket-passing line grows complex and error-prone fast.

A river of the smallest finite objects, like molecules of water, is not complex, only capacious.

Keep empty buckets of different size next to the river and fill when need be.

Comments

[John Dodds]

Or be in the expandable bucket business!

[sig]

Prexicely! That's where thingamy is too, but bettering the expandable ones:

Any kind of bucket, last minute my-kind-of-bucket, anything - much simpler when data is free and unaltered and not restricted to pre-set buckets!

Go DLM (Data Liberation Movement)! :D

[a]

I FINALLY GET IT!

Took about a year, but well worth it.

Thanks Sig . .. .

[sig]

a, apologies for not being better at explaining! :D

But as you will appreciate, when I'm "pushing limits & breaking rules" the force forward is mostly powered by intuition, my logic or even attempts to get "a clear mind" lags a tad... a lot actually!

But I'll get better with time, thanks for listening in the meantime ;)

[Poul Krogh]

Hello sig

Just looked at the Thingamy project - it looks very good.

Some questions though:
1. do you yourself use thingamy for selling/managing/developing thingamy
2. how? that is, how is the thingamy configured for YOUR business (i.e. software)

[sig]

Hi Poul!

Not my favourite question you have there ;), a sore point as we have not been good dog-food eaters at all!

For two reasons: 1) Until we have the back-end set (in two weeks about) any dataset would have to be ported thus we have delayed it to save resources. 2) So far not that much to organise - and this is in line with what I tell small potential users (ten guys in a room size and attitude): Thingamy is at it's best the moment your grow out of that single "room" with organisational charts, VPs and whatnot. Until then, stick to the simplest tool in the toolbox (even paper and pen).

So my answer would have been easier to answer if you asked me "how would you build a system to run a hospital" - that I can build (rough draft, minimum processes, for proof-of-concept) in about two hours. Or a system to handle issues for 2000 field guys including instant knowledge management. Or...

So allow me to describe shortly how I go about the hospital - building it's business model (very simple first, then build from there):
1) Define strategy (at least the "what value are you to deliver"): "Cure medical conditions".
2) That gives first class (template for objects) to be defined: "Condition", which I give properties like "short description", "date of occurrence", "physical examination" etc. But to "cure a condition" I would need some help-objects so I define some more classes: Medication, X-ray, Blood test...
3) Then I define some physical places for where to keep physical stuff: Warehouse, Ward 1, etc.
4) Ditto for tags that add knowledge to objects and is useful when setting rules for choices and reports: MD, Aches & Pains, Pain killer, etc.
5) Then the flows, where the main value-adding flow is "Patient reception" starting with reception, choice of existing patient or adding of new patient, choice of MD, setting time for appointment, appointment for examination, choices for medication, tests, loop back, more tests, new appointments or surgery etc. All in a no-glitches flow with loops and branches as choices are made.
With that main flow it would be good with some help/admin flows like: Procurement, HR, etc.
6) Accounts (templates): Here I can map from the template any happenings involving numbers and produce any numerical report like balance, P&L, medication given and so forth.
7) Reports: Here I can set templates that uses any property for any object to produce reports like Patient Journals, Inventory lists and so forth.

Run it and test, tweak, build further and so forth.

Sorry for the non-dog-food eating and that the example went long :)

[sig]

Poul,

just an addendum to your question "configured for YOUR business (i.e. software)".

As you saw above we always start with the "what value are you to deliver?" - this because "software" can be many things, if it is consultancy and support it could even be very much alike the hospital example!

So my company would be different from your company different from the next... all dependent on what I or you precisely see as "value delivered"!

If suppliers of IT backbone delivers same process flow for all in same "industry" then all will end up with same offers and no other way to compete than getting earlier up in the morning :)