The End of Process

If a knowledge worker has the organization's information in a social context at their finger tips, and the organization is sufficiently connected to tap experts and form groups instantly to resolve exceptions -- is there a role for business process as we know it?

My favorite Clay Shirky quote is "process is an embedded reaction to prior stupidity." That is, there was an exception to process and an expert designed a way for people to work together in one context that should fit all prior contexts. The problem is, the process becomes calcified and accepted as the rule. After all, it's a rule, and in corporations we follow them, even if it fails us or simply doesn't make sense. Because of constant change in our environment, processes are outdated the immediately after they are designed. The 90s business process re-engineering model intended to introduce change, but was driven by experts which simply delivered another set of frozen processes. Because participants in process are not considered experts in theory, they are empowered to make decisions on their own when something fails.

Organizations are trapped in a spiral of declining innovation led by the false promise of efficiency. Workers are given firm guidelines and are trained to only draw within them. Managers have the false belief engineered process and hoarding information is a substitute for good leadership. Processes fail and silos persist despite dysfunctional matrices. Executives are so far removed from exceptions and objections that all they get are carefully packaged reports of good news and numbers that reveal the bad when it's too late.

John Seely Brown and John Hagel point out that while 95% of IT investment goes to support business process (to drive down costs), most employee time isn't spent on process -- but exceptions to process. Further, competitive advantage comes from how we innovate in handling exceptions. When something fails, informed and empowered employees turn to their social network. The informal network, or heterarchy, where most business gets done.

Today, some staid corporations are abandoning process all together (I wish I could quote the source for this). Google is a more public example, albeit an exceptionally new large enterprise, where wikis and weblogs enable a culture of working openly in a flatter and decentralized organization. This is data point helps plot the trend of decentralized organizations that realize economies of scale, as described by Thomas Malone in his book, Decentralization.

Assume for a moment that the 25% of GDP that is search costs falls. Or the 50% of GDP that is transaction costs similarly declines. Coordination costs fall with rising connectivity. The cost of personal publishing and easy group forming are rapidly falling to zero. If a knowledge worker has relevant information at their finger tips, can form the right group to handle an exception, leverage the social context of information and contribute to memory as a natural by-product of getting work done -- what is the role of process?

A process is like a standard. It provides a common definition for others to build upon. This is generally a good thing. In technical systems it helps resolve complexity so higher order abstractions can keep things simple. But even in technical systems, efficiency comes at a cost of adaptation. In social systems, especially where not everyone helps design what they participate in, the constraints against adaptation are compounded.

At best, a process should serve as a reference model. Something that others can reference when completing a task. Something that can be leveraged for innovation, a boundary condition for experimentation at the margin.

As with many things, gaining greater participation and innovation requires sharing control. I do not believe we are near the End of Process, yet. I do believe the arguments for engineering organizations are being trumped by new practices and simple tools.  The first organizations bringing it to an end will have a decided competitive advantage.

UPDATE: Comments are starting to get interesting.  Euan Semple nails it: Process is the sort of word that grown ups in suits use to throw their weight around and to convince others that they know what is going on and that it makes sense.