When even Tom Davenport argues that a process based approach is limited you have to sit up and take notice. He needs to go a step further though. For complex issues and problems (Tom had a down on complexity theory a few years ago, but then he only saw it as modeling) we need to ambiguate not disambiguate problems to allow novel and innovate solutions to emerge. That would be a big step for Tom, but for the moment 2½ cheers.
PS - to repeat past postings before anyone thinks I am arguing against any formal or structured approach: there is nothing wrong withthese within boundaries, but anything you can legitimately do with Six Sigma you can do with cheaper, better proven BPR methods. No need for the cultism (elitism in Tom's language) of belts!
Comments (2)
From davenport's piece ...
I hope that when companies start getting excited again about process improvement, they resist one method for doing so. A hybrid, combined approach is really the only approach that makes any sense. In religion many people worship only one god, but in process management we should all be pantheists.
It's only a couple of steps, conceptually, from that stance to social computing combined with tools / services like Thingamy or hybridized CE approaches .. no ?
Posted by Jon Husband | January 7, 2008 8:33 PM
Posted on January 7, 2008 20:33
There is a process community that views processes as areas of concerns with defined goals and outcomes, with activities, work products etc in support, but where the emphasis is on the outcome. This approach is continually fighting reductionism from the US but is still clinging onto a number of ISO standards. There is the real hope that the next version of ISO 9000 will allow (?encourage) process improvement in the complex domain.
Posted by Brian Sherwood Jones | January 8, 2008 11:08 AM
Posted on January 8, 2008 11:08