Free the desktop!

While virtualization is all the rage, making your word processor, spreadsheet and other day-to-day tools “virtual” still ain't solving your big problem. While your TCO can certainly be brought down, you aren't going to get a corresponding or greater return on productivity.

A brief history:

In the beginning, the application or program was the primary point of entry for the user. Then, as users installed more and more applications on their desktops (which begat more and more files), the file became the primary means for entry – click the file and the OS generally knew which program to launch. Today, we are in a hybrid environment of desktop apps, network client/server apps, files and URLs/URIs that connect to networked or remote hosted applications. And lets not forget "the cloud."

The problem with the desktop is simply that it is the wrong metaphor for the distributed enterprise. And, as illustrated by the floppy disk that represents “save,” software companies are loath to change “learned” metaphors. Great leaps are only made by taking risks (or at the very least stepping outside your comfort zone).

So how do you build a better desktop? By reinventing how you interact with business content and business process. Business process can provide a crystal clear lens into the enterprise that reflects and communicates exactly what an employee could, should or must do.

Imagine:

No matter where you are, or what device you are using (laptop, smart phone, kiosk, toaster), you log into your “workspace,” where you see the processes and tasks that define your job. As each task is selected, the relevant content, regulations and policies, subject matter experts and yes, the software systems, are exposed. Clicking on any one of them links to, contacts, or logs you into that thing. You in turn print, download or upload work files, enter data and collaborate with peers.

Bottom line – while virtualization is not solving the productivity puzzle, it certainly does provide some critical, enabling pieces. But the rest, well, is yet to come.

The imperative to reinvent business process

Why am I so keen on the idea of reinventing business process?

Because an amazing thing happens when an enterprise's business processes leverage the distributed nature of the Web.

Productivity...increases.

Unfortunately, this is not what traditional business process methods, tools and techniques were created to enable. Originally, they were developed to do essentially two things – one, to analyze how an organization operates and determine areas for improvement (which might or might not have resulted in a technology implementation); and two, identify resource types and definitions so that database schemas could be designed. Thus the tools created to do this are generally expensive and complicated, with steep learning curves. And the result, or output of these tools are diagrams either too large and complex to comprehend, or so granular and precise that they fail to communicate any understanding of, or relationship to, the enterprise as a whole.

For an enterprise to see dramatic productivity gains, the tools to do so must be in the hands of, and usable by, the business user – the person actually doing the work.

So what about business process needs reinventing? Four things:

1. Anyone should be able to document, or model, a business process with little or no training.
   
2. Anyone should be able to use the result, or representation, of a documented process to navigate the tasks and activities that define their role within the organization.
   
3. The documented process should directly connect process activities to all relevant content.
   
4. Human interactions with a process should act as feedback into the process, either validating it or indicating areas for improvement.

Process power to the people!

There are two kinds of business processes in the enterprise – consistently executable processes (deviation will not be tolerated!) and ad hoc processes, which guide, advise and recommend. The first are ideal for automation as they are tangible in their output, the second, not so much. The first have an entire class of tools and software to support them (BPM in its many forms), the second, very few. Ironically, this seems backward, as only 10-20% of the enterprise is automatable, while the majority consists of ad hoc, or “knowledge” processes.

Why aren't traditional process tools used for ad hoc processes? Process thinking is hard, it is not natural nor intuitive as it is a man-made thing created to describe man-made things (people brought together to produce goods and services for less than the market will bear) – thus the tools developed are hard to learn, hard to use and hard to understand by humans (but relatively easy to use as business rules for software code, thus the connection to automation).

For the benefits of business process to be realized throughout the enterprise, the tools to capture and communicate process must be easily utilized by anyone, anywhere, anytime with little or no training.
Is it possible for process tools to be created to do this? Sure it is, but it is hard. It takes time, experimentation and investment. And process tool vendors don't even consider it a requirement to do so as they have used the same metaphors for decades and assume rigorous training is a given, not an option.

While the Web freed the interface, web-based tools are only as good as the effort put into the design. And, while process tool vendors are bringing browser-based process tools to market, they have only done so now that the technology has made it easy for them to reproduce the same interfaces they have always used.

Of course, since these vendors now have browser-based tools, they seem to think this makes them inherently more useful and that they can now support and enable ad hoc processes.

But they simply don't get it.

While the Web provides a powerful means of distribution, it is not the medium that matters most – it is usability and usefulness. Only then will the power of business process truly be brought to all people.