BPM book extract 1
BPM book extract 1
Here is part of the first chapter of Mastering Your Organization's Processes: A Plain Guide to BPM, published in January 2006.
I wrote it with Jon Pyke, then Chief Technology Officer of Staffware PLC, and John O'Connell, then Staffware's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. (Staffware is now part of TIBCO Software Inc.)
If you'd like to read the whole chapter, you can download it in Adobe PDF form here. The large table that forms part of it is here.
The publisher's pages about the book are here, with links to local ordering details near the top.
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Chapter 1: a gentle introduction to systems and processes
Introduction
This chapter presents some of the major ideas in thinking about systems and processes. It does so by looking at two non-business topics -- the Marble Arch, in London, and apple trees.
We take the discussion out of the business context for two reasons:
to help you think afresh about processes and systems and how they should be managed
to show that real systems are more complex and variable than computer specialists and software salespeople would sometimes have you believe.
Please use the chapter as a refresher if you are familiar with systems thinking. If you are not, we invite you to use it as an introduction to the subject.
Looking for processes
The first vows sworn by two creatures of flesh and blood were made at the foot of a rock that was crumbling to dust; they called as witness to their constancy a heaven which never stays the same for one moment; everything within them and around them was changing. (Oeuvres Romanesques, Denis Diderot, 1713-84)
Some entities might perhaps look permanent but this is only because the changes they are undergoing are invisible to normal view or are imperceptibly slow. As Diderot suggests, nothing in this world is unchanging.
We want to encourage you to see more of the processes that surround you and to be able to place them in a wider perspective. To get you into the swing of it, we examine two examples from outside the world of business.
Figure 1.1: Marble Arch, 1880
Our first example is Marble Arch in London. The engraving above shows it as it was over 120 years ago, when the arch was about 50 years old. The arch is still there today, as millions of visitors to London can testify. Looks permanent enough, doesn't it?
Appearances deceive. Not even the arch's position is permanent. It originally formed the main entrance to Buckingham Palace, nearly a mile away. When the palace was extended in 1851, the arch was moved to its current site at the top of Park Lane. It now causes such an obstacle to motorised traffic that there is talk of moving it again.
What you see when you look at this edifice is merely the present stage of a combination of processes.
The longest of these is a geological process. The arch is made of the famous white marble from Carrara in Tuscany. This began as limestone, a sedimentary rock laid down on a seabed 150 to 200 million years ago. About 100 million years later, the same intercontinental forces as were pushing the Alps skywards subjected the limestone to intense pressure and heat. This changed the rock's internal structure, producing the soft glassy result so prized by architects and sculptors.
The rock's story has not ended. Wind, frost and rain are slowly wearing away the stones of the arch, as they do any rock. The acid in raindrops is speeding this erosion by reacting with the calcium of which marble mainly consists. These granules and chemicals are blown and washed away, being deposited elsewhere. There, they make a small contribution to some river or lake bed, perhaps, that after more aeons will become new rock.
The second process, many times shorter, is an historical one -- quarrying the stone. People have been extracting marble at Carrara from before Roman times. What you also are seeing therefore, as you look at the Arch, is the output of an industrial tradition over 2,000 years old.
The third process is human. It is the career of its architect, John Nash. This is shorter still and lasted about 60 years. Nash lived from 1752 to 1835, beginning his architectural work in the 1770s. His career culminated in a contract from King George IV to develop the then Marylebone Park in west London. This project took 19 years and resulted in such landmarks as Regent's Park, Regent's Street, St James's Park, Buckingham Palace and, of course, Marble Arch. Nash built this in 1828, modelling it on the Arch of Constantine in Rome, which dates from 313 CE.
The diagram below, not to scale, shows Marble Arch as being at the intersection of these processes. (MYA means millions of years ago. BCE means Before Common Era and CE means Common Era, in which we live today.)
Figure 1.2: Processes at the building of Marble Arch
There are other processes under way besides these three. We have already touched on the development of road traffic management schemes in London. Another is the growth of the public arts around this time. John Nash was one among several architects whose careers flourished in the Georgian period. Others included Robert Adam, James Gibbs, Nicholas Hawksmoor, Sir John Soane and John Vanbrugh. All helped create the neo-classical style characteristic of the period. The development of 'schools' in design or music is a well-known process, as is the way they influence future generations of artists.
It is no coincidence that London was at the time the wealthiest city in the western world. Artists need patrons. There was clearly a process of vigorous economic development under way. Most of the great houses these architects designed were at the time country houses but not for long. London was also undergoing a process of urbanisation.
Selective vision
The more you think about it, the more dimensions and processes you can see intersecting during this period, as you can any period. We have touched on seven -- geological, historical, biographical, transportative, artistic, economic and developmental. Deciding which of these is to be representative or definitive is difficult. Can any single process do so? Clearly not, in this case. It is curious, then, that this question so seldom arises when looking at business.
The processes people notice in any situation will depend largely on their responsibilities, background, training and inclination. The three processes we charted above are, for instance, those you might expect a geologist, an industrial archaeologist and an architectural historian to concentrate on.
There is no reason someone from any of those disciplines should not think about the other two processes as well. Surprisingly, though, people's jobs and professions often blind them to other facets of a situation, to other ways of looking. You will see examples of this as we progress through the book.
It is remarkable how often people put on these wilful blinkers when viewing the systems and processes of organizations. It is a trap we wish you to avoid. The next example should also help with this.
[Extract ends]
For the entire chapter in Adobe PDF form, click here. The large table that forms part of it is here.
To read the extract from Chapter 2, go here.