| | By Mick James
One of the two great
gifts of consultancy to
the world, the other
being the 2x2 matrix,
has been the elucidation
of the concept of the
business process. It is
so central to the
practice of consultancy
that I often forget
that, out in the real
world, “business
process” is a phrase
that rarely passes
anyone’s lips and often
has to be explained if
casually dropped in
conversation.
So I was intrigued
when ActionBase, a small
Israeli company,
followed up on a piece I
wrote on developments in
business process
management (BPM) and
software development to
suggest that I was
ignoring an equally
important part of the
picture – human process
management (HPM).
Human process
management – in
ActionBase’s view – is
required to manage all
the interactions that
occur outside the
carefully structured
world of the business
processes.
“It’s a bit like the
structured/unstructured
data issue,” explains
ActionBase’s chief
technology officer,
Jacob Ukelson. “Just as
the world came to
understand that most
data is unstructured so
there are structured and
unstructured processes –
we believe that human
process management will
be used to manage those
unstructured processes.”
In comparison to the | |
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| | regular and structured
processes that are often
embodied in heavy duty
IT systems, human
processes tend to be
dynamic and ad hoc and
involve relatively
lightweight IT artefacts
such as emails and Word
documents.
“People start these
processes but then the
requirements change, the
external environment
changes,” says Ukelson.
“You may be working
across various different
teams and silos, or you
may need people from
other departments and
organisations who won’t
have the tools.”
It’s a concept that’s
initially hard to sell
to those who believe
that everything in an
organisation can be
captured, for instance,
in an overarching ERP
system.
“They find it hard to
understand why we say
that 80% of the
processes are outside
the system,” says
Ukelson. “For them if
it’s not in the system,
it’s not a process.”
In fact, Ukelson
believes that some level
of HPM is entirely
complementary to – and
essential for – the
smooth running of BPM
and the systems that
embody it.
“Once you have found
out what your processes
are, then if it is
regular and structured
enough, you may want to
use BPM for it – and you
should,” he says. “But
if it’s not like that,
it’s very hard to
implement in a BPM | |
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| | email or ActionMail
gathers all the threads
together to make it
clear who is supposed to
be doing what and
whether they’ve done it
or not. Similarly a
passive document, such
as the minutes of a
board meeting, can be
used to initiate and
monitor multiple
processes.
“The way people have
used email has evolved
to be good for certain
things, but email breaks
down when you try to run
a process through it,”
says ActionBase
vice-president for
business solutions Eyal
Sherman. “It allows the
process to flow but
doesn’t manage it.
Similarly, the process
context tends to be
missing from document
management systems.
There are lots of things
for structured processes
and lots of things for
collaboration but very
few that merge the two.”
From a consultancy
viewpoint, the outputs
of a running HPM
approach may be as
interesting as its
initial implementation.
“You get an audit
trail – you can look at
how that process runs
through the business and
who is doing what,” says
Sherman. “There’s no
easy way of doing that
with just email –
there’s no easy way to
glue together all those
emails without some
amazing artificial
intelligence – which
doesn’t exist – or
asking everyone. Now we
can look at how the
actual process runs, not
how we would like it.”
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Clearly a system like
this is applicable in
many contexts, but
ActionBase says its plan
– which will involve a
major push into both the
US and Europe this year
– will be to exploit
vertical applications
and niche markets.
“Vendors that have a
particular niche
understand it very
well,” says Ukelson.
“So, for example, does
someone involved in
fraud escalation –
because if things get
lost, he’s the guy who
gets screamed at.”
Other uses that
ActionBase has already
seen are in internal and
external audit, and the
managing of tenders and
contracts, as well as in
verticals such as
engineering, environment
and utilities where
there are stringent
compliance requirements.
But the possibilities
are unlimited, and the
company is keen to work
with channel partners in
as wide a number of
contexts as possible.
“Because HPM deals
with all the stuff that
goes on outside their
systems they can
position it as a value
added to that product,”
says Sherman.
The approach can also
be easily used to
document and transmit
best practice in those
human processes. “At the
moment they are all lost
to the organisation,”
says Sherman. “They find
it very hard to struggle
for best practice
because they have no
idea what’s going on.” | |
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