Unstructured Business Process(es)

Recently I came across a blog post that discussed the concept of unstructured business processes. You can find it here.

So, what is an unstructured business process (I hear you thinking)... Read on.

Internally at my company, I've always talked about dividing business processes into two types: linear and collaborative. Linear processes have a set, pre-determined path of execution where one activity (step) is dependent upon the previous activity completing. In other words, the process is step-wise (and may loop or branch) and has a clearly delineated execution path from start to finish. Collaborative processes are ill-defined processes where the path of execution is non-deterministic, the order of execution is not defined and the only standard for completing the process is that all (required) activities have completed (either normally or abnormally, but 'done' nonetheless).

So, structured versus unstructured processes is the same set of concepts (with better names that are broader, more encompassing). It turns out, I'm not the only one that sees things this way (and, by the way, I know it is not the only way to segment business process types). There are several others that discuss the inherent differences between structured and unstructured processes (as the blog entry noted above discusses).

One idea that spurred some thought for me was the suggestion that the relative number of structured versus unstructured business processes is analogous to the amount of structured versus unstructured data in the corporate world, which by the way is about 1:10. That ratio suggests that there is *large* market opportunity of unstructured business processes for BPM vendors to tap.

But as I thought about it more, the idea of BPM vendors addressing unstructured business processes was potentially antithetical to the processes themselves. In other words, the idea of applying a BPMS to an unstructured business process would inherently change the unstructured process into a structured (or at least partially structured) business process. So, it seems to me, the nature of the business process is altered and the process is no longer unstructured - walls are built that the process must work within.

That may or may not be a good thing. As I thought about it more, a potential opportunity with unstructured business processes is to reign them in and move them towards a more formalized (structured) process. In fact, this is the very point for applying a BPMS to a business process - structured or not. Formalization of the business process provides the opportunity to make the process reliably repeatable which can be measured and analyzed. This in turn provides the opportunity to manage the process, possibly making it more efficient.

However, it seems to me that in this same group of unstructured business processes there are processes that won't lend themselves to the application of a BPMS. That their unstructured nature is exactly what makes them work - the process itself depends upon and is enhanced by the unstructured, dynamic application of the work.

So, while there may be a large market opportunity with unstructured business processes, it's smaller than the whole set by some amount. Not only that, when choosing which process to apply a BPMS to, care and consideration of the nature of the business process is critical to the success of the project.

Professional Development

This past December 2008, our company held an 'all-hands' meeting day. Basically, we all came together in our main office in Houston to get together before the holiday vacations and do a little internal training and networking.

I gave a presentation to all our consultants about professional development. While I believe there was interest in the topic, I think the presentation was received with bewilderment and a collective "huh?".

Have you ever volunteered for something and then been given the list of expectations after-the-fact (kinda like signing up to send out the church volunteer schedule only to find out that you are really responsible for managing the entire schedule - from finding the volunteers to facilitating communications to filling in for no-shows)? Yeah? That's the response I saw on the faces of our consultants.

I wasn't upset about the reaction. That's happened to me before - I used to be a corporate Java programming and software engineering instructor, and have seen worse reactions as I presented material. But, the reaction did make me think and assess ("inspect and adapt" as the agilists say).

So I did my own personal retrospective of sorts. It's taken me a couple of weeks to process what I can only describe as guarded "what the?" for what I had to say.

Here's my retrospective results:

We simply had mismatched expectations, and that is a communications failure - my communications failure.

I failed to adequately describe what the presentation was about. I just told everyone I would talk about professional development (like I just wrote above). That's it. So, miscommunication happened.

I believe the expectation of our consultants was that I would talk about "How to be professional as a consultant". You know, guidance on proper consultant behavior on and off a clients' site, and ways for managing your time and relationships with a client.

I certainly talked some about that, but my presentation was broader - I came ready to talk about "growing professionally" (not just as a consultant). I included discussion about proper consultant behavior, but also included skills training and company responsibilities as a professional.

Wow. That's really different perspectives. But, they can both be concluded from the same base idea, "talk about professional development". I really missed the mark communicating within my own organization.

So, what's the moral? "Don't let Bill present to our consultants anymore..."

I hope not. Or, maybe I do... Hm...

No, that's not my take-away.

My learning is that communication, whether formal or informal, whether verbal, written, or otherwise has a lot to do with success, especially as a consultant. It is one of the pillars of wisdom for consultants, and affects most, if not all best practices for consultants (and really, for professionals as a whole). Bad communication is the bane of professionals. We all need to develop and keep refining our ability to communicate. It's in our best interest and our customers' best interests too.

So, I'll add communication skills to my "Professional Development" presentation (and at the same time, try to come up with a better title!).

Do you have any good stories about miscommunication that lead to unexpected circumstances? I bet you do!

A Call for Agreement

Can the BPM industry please stop 'defining' what BPM is? Please? Pretty please?

Am I the only one who's noticed that every time someone - an individual or a software vendor or a consultant or a book writer or etc... - talks about BPM, the first thing that's discussed is "What is BPM?".

I even caught myself doing just that as I was drafting a newsletter article recently. Ugh!

I know why we do it. We hear different ideas about BPM all the time that oftentimes don't line up with what we think we know about BPM. So, before we delve into what we have to say about BPM, we feel we have to "set the stage" (so to speak).

Why don't we have one definition? Why don't we all agree? Presumably we are all trying to do the same thing, right? So, if we all have the same goal, then we should be able to state it.

From now on, can we all please reference ONE definition for BPM and reference it? May I suggest wikipedia? Here's the BPM entry.

Now, if you have something you want to add, do it there. Let's discuss it, agree to it, and start using it. I will be happy, you will be happy, and most importantly, clients/customers will be happy they have a centralized reference.

By the way, looking at this entry in wikipedia, does anyone know how to eliminate the proposed merger of BPM and BPI entries? Maybe I should define BPM and BPI for you...

Are we ready for a true paperless society?

Do you think technology is at the point where we can eliminate paper from our standard business process(es) and activities?

I recently had an experience with a company that claims to have done just that - moved entirely away from paper communications with its customers and now relies solely upon email for that correspondence.

Sounds good, and in principle should be a means for cutting some cost (not to mention the number of trees you can save)... That is, until you have a challenge.

Last year, I had a need to store some digital content in a location that I could access via the internet from any location. At the time, I didn't have a good, reliable solution in-house so I started looking at online storage solutions.

In my search for a solution, I ran across XDrive that, as fortune would have it, was offering a special deal to test drive their service for 30 days before you were actually billed for the service ($9.95 per month). And... one could cancel the service at any time in that 30 day window and never be charged.

Of course, I figured I could take advantage of this offer by using and cancelling the service before the end of 30 days. The one thing that bothered me slightly was that I had to provide a credit card number to activate the service. I figured that I would be able to handle the situation though and I signed up.

I used the service over a 2 day period with great success. Then, I went to the website to cancel and could not find ANY indication of HOW to cancel the service. So, I wrote an email to their support group indicating that my account should be cancelled. I forgot about it until I got an email from XDrive about 3 weeks later indicating that I needed to cancel my subscription through their telephone support system, not through their email support group.

So I called the telephone support group, miffed that I was now past the 30 day grace period of the offer. I asked for the service be terminated and that I be credited for the 1st month since I was unable to find the appropriate process for cancellation on their website, and because their email support organization could not "tell" their phone support organization that I wanted to have the service terminated.

The support tech I spoke with was courteous and friendly. I was assured that all would be handled, so I thought no more about it.

Three months later my wife came to me with our credit card bill and asked what the XDrive charges were for. It had been several months since I called the phone support desk to cancel and so I could not find the phone number (and it wasn't on the website). So, I asked the credit card company to refute the charges.

All seemed to go away until 3 more months later when I got a letter from XDrive indicating that there was a computer glitch in their system and all accounts had been tripled-billed. The letter assured all its customers that the problem had been fixed and their accounts credited, but my account had magically been re-activated.

I called the credit card company again to refute the charges and I got a phone number from the credit card company for XDrive support. I called the support desk AGAIN and asked that the service be cancelled, my account be credited for the past months charges, and that I get a confirmation that the transaction had been completed. I was given a confirmation number, told I would receive a confirmation email, and I felt satisfied that I had done my job as a conscientious consumer.

This past week, my wife brought me the credit card statement and sure enough there was an XDrive charge. I called XDrive again, livid that I cannot get this company to stop charging my credit card for a service I no longer wanted and only once ever used. When I got through to a support desk tech, I politely asked for a supervisor right away.

Here is where the story gets interesting and made me wonder if we are really ready for a paperless business environment.

After much wrangling over how my account had been handled, we got to the point where the supervisor told me the account had finally been cancelled, gave me another confirmation number, and suggested that all was well and that I'd receive a confirmation email shortly for my records.

I informed him that this was exactly what I had been told the previous encounter with his company and I asked that I be sent a certified confirmation letter since the process had failed the previous time. The supervisor told me that he "could not do that", that his company only handled business via email. He suggested that I go look in my inbox and that he was sure I'd find the confirmation email.

I did just that while still on the phone, and lo and behold, no email... I told him it had not arrived and that I was not confident this process would work since it had not worked the first time and appeared to still not be working. Again the supervisor refused to send me a snail-mail confirmation letter.

I suggested that maybe there was something wrong with my email address and that he and I should review it and update it if necessary. He politely informed me that he could not do that either. Then he hung up on me. I called back and went over the same issues and he hung up on me again.

To date, no email has arrived. I am uncertain if the account has been closed. What do I do if I get charged again next month? How can a business that charges a consumer's credit card without the consumer's permission get away with that?

In my opinion, these charges are theft. I have notified the company's only representatives I can contact and I have told them in no uncertain terms that I do not want their service.

So, how do we as IT professionals handle a circumstance like this from a technical perspective? With the business constraint that no paper mail will be sent to customers, how can a business ensure that important communications are delivered, in this case, via email?

Well, it can't. The email delivery process has many places where it can fail and none of the exising protocols guarantees email delivery. In fact, with the rise of spammers and other forms of email exploits, email has an even higher chance of being rejected. And, there are no other alternatives to employ at this point.

So, I don't think we're collectively ready to switch business processes to rely completely upon our technologies such as email to create the paperless business. In my opinion, it is only a matter of time until we see legal proceedings calling into question business practices such as the one I encountered (and could possibly still be dealing with, ugh...).

What's your take?