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.