(At least they've found a huge issue, but not so much a solution.)
Always a pleasure to read a blog post with "revelations" like this:
"...the hidden costs of unstructured processes: although a lot of focus of BPM efforts (time and money) is on structured processes, as much as 60% of an organization’s processes are unstructured – and probably also unmonitored, unmanaged, unknown and unruly."
Fellow Enterprise Irregular Sandy Kemsley wrote this yesterday following a presentation at Gartner BPM Summit by Elise Olding and Carol Rozwell.
The reason I'm quite pleased is of course that this is about what I've been chirping about for last few years, namely the volume of and complete lack of an IT framework for Barely Repeatable Processes.
The difference though is that Gartner, after seeing the issue, struggles with the solution. Despite their IT credentials they fall back to suggesting more of the existing (and thousands of year old) framework; more management. I, obviously for those who knows from where I come from, humbly suggests there is an IT solution. And it's not BPM.
"...a lot of focus of BPM efforts is on structured processes" is something I would dare to expand with "as BPM cannot do unstructured processes (BRPs)".
Pools and swimlanes and a nice palette of icons do not help much when the structure itself is too structured, limited to two dimensions and allows leftover structural beams like organisational hierarchies and business rules to add even more rigidity.
Hailing from colder climes I cannot but use a wintery metaphor - BPM is like cross-contry skiing; rather two-dimensional, sticking to clean tracks and clear intersections with limited choices.
BPM moment
BRP is snowboarding. You're on top of the hill and down there you've got the bottom of the lift. In between you have a piece of a mountain and on your feet you've got the tool ready to go. Exactly what happens between here and there is completely up to the participant. But if the environment is well laid out, the tools any good and the snowboarder worth his salt he'll get down in a fashion and in a time that cannot be bettered by any maps, plans, budgets or pestering by any "coach" on the sideline.
BRP'ish non-BPM situation
Impossible to model you say? Ah, well, that would be depending on the level of detail (read control) and if your mind is still in "automation" mode or not.
Actually, even Barely Repeatable Processes are repeatable big picture wise. Believe me, I've been to the mountains...
Good post, Sig. I abandoned cross-country skiing years ago. Dull dull dull to follow someone else's railway tracks through the snow. I haven't yet picked up snowboarding -- dreary old fashioned alpine skiing is fine by me. :-)
More to the point. Thank you for this and other posts on barely repeatable processes. Your "BRP" phrase is dead-on for what we here as a tax law firm do, day to day. Nothing runs on rails in the real world because humans are involved. Imagining that humans are in any way analogous to machines on a factory floor is lazy, at best.
@philiphodgen
Posted by: Phil Hodgen | October 06, 2009 at 19:46