The Process vs Data Debate: Really?

I watched one of the more disconcerting debates in email recently. People were lining up on oppositie sides of the process versus data driven disuccsion. This is such an old saw and so off the mark. We are living in a world of convergence where collaborative drives to met to create a better technology experience. Like Gartner's Nexus that brings together social, mobile, cloud and information, we need to think about synergy; not division.

I think the discussion should be around bringing business process, business rules, information and algorythms to create the synergy that generates intelligence in business operations. We live in a world that demands "smarter, faster and goal directed" to keep customers, markets and reputations in harmony.  The organizations and vendors who truely deliver the intelligent operations platforms will win the day going forward.

Innovation Envy Can be Cured with Process

Like it or not top executives have innovation envy. Executives consistently rate innovation high on their list of desirable outcomes. They are keenly interested in the most admired companies and the best places to work. The problem is that there is no common definition of innovation. The interesting phenomena is that you automatically know innovation when you see it.

I have seen some pretty interesting innovation with process implmentations. Here are some of my favorites, but there are many more out on my Gartner blog:

Air Operations at Heathrow
Optimal Time Surgi-Center Management
Optimal Traffic Management in Sydney
Aggressive Mergers with Core Processes
Revenue Uplift
Balancing People and Profits
Time to Market Adaptation for Wealth Management
Process Mining for Resource Optimization
40% Increase in Farm Yields Through Moisture Management
Incremental Transformation Yields Business Growth with a Better Customer Experience
Business Lead Transformation Yielding Business Expansion

Net; Net:

Process is one of the great ways to scratch the innovation itch

Days are Numbered for Rigid Processes

The name BPM generally conjures up preplanned and well modeled processes, but things are changing fast. In July, 2011 I introduced the concept of designing processes by doing and that was near the beginning of more flexible process design at Gartner. The idea of flexible/unstructured processes started to become popular. Now the worm has turned and inflexible/structured processes appear to be on the way out. Rigid processes are becoming a bit like a dinosaur.

 

Processes have to be dynamic and ad-hoc to chase the changing business outcomes in today's world. Like gymnast on floor exercise, she pursues excellence within the constraints of the floor mat and varies her paths and adjusts the routine as the music, pressure and mounting scores dictate. Processes have to do the same. Proceses  have to be dynamic with explicit rules and dynamic orchestration. Proceses have to be ad-hoc with events, case mangement and social collaboration. Processes have to be intelligent with constraints, adaptive case management and goal directed.  Processes of the future will contain various aspects of process adaptability and intelligence.

Net; Net:

Processes in the future will leverage rigid snippets (portions of fixed proceses) or processes will exhibt great adaptbility with the contraints of some rigid policies, but the days of pure rigid processes are numbered.

New Official Blog Site for Jim Sinur

As you may or may not know, I am retiring from Gartner on May 1st, 2013. This blog now becomes my offical blog site. Gartner has promised to keep my old site up for a while for reference material.

I hope to continue serving my followers with insights and case studies. If you are a committed follower, I would like to thank you for your loyal readership. If you are new, I hope you find helpful information here. I hope to shed light on various business and technology topics. Welcome to my newest blog :)