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Enterprise 2.0 ‘Changes the Game’ for Business Process Management

by Joe McKendrick

July 2, 2009 at 8:37 pm · Filed under Enterprise 2.0

No matter how automated a workflow may get, there are always stages in which things need to stop for an exception, an approval or a quality check. The role of human interactions has always been a complicating factor in business processes. Introducing Enterprise 2.0 approaches may help shift the emphasis from business process re-engineering to business process re-energizing.

Pete Swabey has documented instances in which major companies started addressing critical business problems with enterprise 2.0 approaches. There is growing evidence that social software is changing the way companies design and execute business processes.

For example, at Aviva, a UK-based insurance company, employees have been collaborating online around “smart spaces” to come up with new ideas.

To quote Toby Redshaw, CIO of Aviva:

“A good, well-positioned Web 2.0 platform bypasses the obstacles in a hierarchy; it changes the game. You want expertise to be virally available. You want smart interactions to happen horizontally, not up a hierarchy, across a boundary and back down.”

Enterprise 2.0 approaches synch more closely with human interaction across enterprises — something traditional business process re-engineering misses. As Phil Gilbert of Lombardi Software put it, business process re-engineering is “a rigid sequence of events is one that does not suit human beings. The traditional notion of a business process comes from the manufacturing world where you can standardize the inputs and outputs of a given process.”

Harvard’s Andrew McAfee, the guru of Enterprise 2.0, pops up in Swabey’s article as well, explaining how typical business processes are too inflexible for exceptions. Enterprise 2.0 tools can “help employees work together to manage unexpected exceptions to business processes.”

You know organizations are getting serious about Enterprise 2.0 when people start talking about building social networking into business processes.

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David DaviesJuly 3rd, 2009 at 5:18 am

Great insight on a blind spot of BPM. Rigid, algorithmic processes are great for automation but when you need human judgment and interaction, you need a “fit for purpose” blend of guidance, freedom and information, coupled with the right collaboration tools. In my view, enterprise mashups are the key aspect of enterprise 2.0 that will bring these elements together by “orchestrating” the user interface in the manner appropriate to the process and user context.

AmyJuly 3rd, 2009 at 11:50 am

As you mention, social networks helps strengthen the connections among members of an organization and allows information to move freely among those members – if this information sharing reflects the real-life way a business process works, then social network tools add an important element to BPM systems.

I would argue, however, that the role of human interactions is not a complicating factor of BPM, rather it is the main argument for implementing a BPM system. BPM software is designed to close information gaps among people and systems, and any good BPM implementation takes into account all of the “rainy day” scenarios along with the “happy path” that a given case should follow. Factoring in all of the potential human responses is part of any successful process automation.

Jon HusbandJuly 3rd, 2009 at 4:25 pm

“A good, well-positioned Web 2.0 platform bypasses the obstacles in a hierarchy; it changes the game. You want expertise to be virally available. You want smart interactions to happen horizontally, not up a hierarchy, across a boundary and back down.”

Hey, Joe .. thanks for pointing to this .. and, you probably know what I think

Jon HusbandJuly 3rd, 2009 at 4:30 pm

As Phil Gilbert of Lombardi Software put it, business process re-engineering is “a rigid sequence of events is one that does not suit human beings. The traditional notion of a business process comes from the manufacturing world where you can standardize the inputs and outputs of a given process.”

Just like the assumptions underneath standard ROI calculations.

Just think of all the hundreds of millions spent pouring the “electronic concrete” of large ERP systems over business processes, just as those business processes started needing to become (much) more flexible.

Customers are often the “prisoners” of electronified business processes, unfortunately (yes, I know “electronified” is probably not a real word_.

Joe McKendrickJuly 4th, 2009 at 9:18 am

David: Thanks for the additional feedback. Indeed, user context is a blind spot of automated BPM scenarios. There are even scenarios where human input is legally mandated in a process — such as in healthcare information processing. BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) advocates have long recognized this blind spot, and have even proposed an alternative standard called “BPEL4People.” Mashups may be a more effective way to address this challenge.

Joe McKendrickJuly 4th, 2009 at 9:24 am

Amy: Thanks for your comments. I agree that BPM systems have come a long way in addressing human interactions and information gaps, the instantaneous access and collaboration enabled by Enterprise 2.0 approaches enriches these solutions. For too long, BPM has been seen as a cold efficiency approach — business process re-engineering is seen as a euphemism for layoffs and cutbacks that ignores the consequences on the rest of the organization. Let’s convert BPE to “business process re-energizing,” and get everyone on board with the approach. Broad participation and information-sharing will help that.

Joe McKendrickJuly 4th, 2009 at 9:26 am

Jon: ROII rules!

Amir DekelJuly 8th, 2009 at 10:43 am

Social networking solutions are still just trying to find ways to become another interaction channel for a company with its customers while internal social networks are also still in their infancy. I don’t think anyone is sure how it will all turn out in the end, but right now there is valuable information that is either ignored or lost.

When you look at today’s BPM and Enterprise 2.0 initiatives you need to remember that the multi-channel and cross-channel nature of doing business has become much more complex than just managing a call/contact center.

BTW, I love ‘business process re-energizing” a lot!

Jacob UkelsonJuly 14th, 2009 at 6:46 am

It is not that peopled don’t do these unstructured, ad-hoc, human processes today – it is just that they use email and documents as their defacto tools. I think we have a long way to go before web 2.0 tools start replacing those (email and documents) tools for getting the work done.

At ActionBase we looked at the problem from a different angle – how do we enhance email and documents to enable them with just enough structure to accelerate and manage unstructured processes without strangling them.