Every layer of the enterprise
has its tools to help it perform its duties and meet its
responsibilities. Many of the tools nowadays, in all layers, are pure
software – processes and procedures that are executed through data
input and calculation.
The great task is to integrate all
the tools across all the layers; to convert into tool-governed
processes those procedures that remain ungoverned; and to distil
real-time intelligence into actionable views of the entire state of the
enterprise for executive leadership. The last part will be the hardest.
To see how many tools exist, and how detailed it all gets, step into some of the layers with their particular concerns.
Business
Process Management (BPM) is one of those fields in which technology, as
the IT layer, comes together with business process, as the management
layer of the enterprise. BPM aims at the continual improvement of the business through continuous evolution of its processes.
For
example, a new billing method, with its human component and its
software component, and its integration into the data management of the
entire enterprise, will fall within the province of BPM’s
design, execution, and monitoring. When the methods prove sound,
subsequent performance data will channel into the business intelligence
system.
Here’s one consultant’s summary of BPM’s characteristics.
“1) BPM has to be driven by business objectives. BPM cannot work without a strong top level backing.
2) Process is understood well and modified in case required (Process Analysis & Implementation)
3)
The process management approach should be implementable in the
organization which might be used to a specific way of working
(Organization Change & Governance). You need process owners with
cross functional reporting structure/visibility.
4) Success is repeatable across organization – Directly linked to top level support
5) BPM
is considered a ‘Process’ way of thinking with business objectives in
mind and is aided by technology and not the other way round – BPM - Where Art Thou?
As we move from the business layer into the technology layer, we find within IT different concerns. IT worries about everything, including its portfolio management. While the technical people often have a more intimate understanding of the business processes than the business people do, they still have a difficult time communicating with the business people.
The
great tragedy of the failure in communication between business and IT
is that IT has a lot of good ideas to offer to business: the technical
people become aware of new developments that improve the process end,
where the people performing the tasks rarely hear about such things;
they merely wish there was an easier way.
In the executive layer, enterprise decision management comes into play, with its values and tools, and its subprograms such as adaptive control.
These tools are predicated on the belief – and generally adopted by
those holding the belief – that the organization wants to improve its
decision-making continually.
With all these tools and
formal practices at work within the enterprise, why is it still such a
tricky business to run it right? Why do management teams fail to take the correct action – what is the tool that is still missing?
Perhaps
the answer comes out of perfect communication. Perhaps the answer IS
perfect communication. Can perfect communication exist? The answer
probably comes down to presence in real time. All communication is a
continuing process of course, and the drive towards perfection probably
involves all participants being up-to-date simultaneously.
So
as the enterprise strives towards the goal of perfect knowledge,
probably in order to make use of that knowledge it should also be
striving towards the goal of perfect communication.
At the
top decision-making levels, the printed reports and surveys published
by analysts such as Gartner and Forrester have given way to downloaded
pdf files, which in turn are tending to turn into HTML pages studied in more immediate time. Accurately, we should call them XML files, since they come more from the RSS feeds of blogs.
The
distributed conversation happening though blogs and other media on the
Web is less about the original author, it is often said, and more about
the republishers and their comments. Only a fraction of the published content is originally authored, and yet it goes a long way.
As XML,
this distributed conversation has the ability to enter the enterprise
knowledge management system, and to be shared and retrieved. Perhaps
the blog, and other social media, as we suggest from time to time here
in this blog, are the final tools that executives have been looking
for, to enable them to take soundings, and check bearings, and make the right decisions.
