Workflow systems as they currently exist seem to me to be completely inside-out. Having automated process flows parcelling out repetitive tasks to humans is the worst of all worlds. An automated process flow can never have the nuance or adaptability of a human worker; the complex conditionals and even more complex exception handling of automated process flows are the very antithesis of agile process - taking an age to design correctly and half as long for each subsequent modification. And for the human task operators, why are wasting them on repetitive tasks that should themselves be automated?
Perhaps a better model would be human decision-maker choreographing a sequence of automated tasks? Perhaps we could mashup a context-driven selection of available business processes on a screen and allow a human to sequence the stateful interactions between them?
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
I finally get Government 2.0.
The penny has dropped. I finally get Enterprise and Government 2.0.
Social media are great professional and political networking tools that enable people to maintain semi-formal discussions of topical issues across organisational boundaries. Transient communities of interest form around issues and their deliberations are subsequently folded back into official decision-making processes.
The theory is that these self-directed collaborations dissolve silos, improve access to relevant information/expertise and generate a better quality of decision making. Enterprises have been doing this for some time - we might see it as a human anaolog of the decentralising tendencies of SOA. A new and agile way of managing discussions, negotiating positions, gathering support - in other words, a new way of doing business.
There is an additional requirement for democratic government. If social networking is a new mode of discussing and formulating policy - then it should be public and open in the same way that a town hall meeting or a session of parliament is public and open.
Of course there should be constraints around disclosure of private information - managing appropriate disclosure has always been a fact of professional life - but the new media raise some interesting questions as to what is meant by 'identity' and what is meant by 'privacy'. I'd like to have a look at those in a separate post.
Social media are great professional and political networking tools that enable people to maintain semi-formal discussions of topical issues across organisational boundaries. Transient communities of interest form around issues and their deliberations are subsequently folded back into official decision-making processes.
The theory is that these self-directed collaborations dissolve silos, improve access to relevant information/expertise and generate a better quality of decision making. Enterprises have been doing this for some time - we might see it as a human anaolog of the decentralising tendencies of SOA. A new and agile way of managing discussions, negotiating positions, gathering support - in other words, a new way of doing business.
There is an additional requirement for democratic government. If social networking is a new mode of discussing and formulating policy - then it should be public and open in the same way that a town hall meeting or a session of parliament is public and open.
Of course there should be constraints around disclosure of private information - managing appropriate disclosure has always been a fact of professional life - but the new media raise some interesting questions as to what is meant by 'identity' and what is meant by 'privacy'. I'd like to have a look at those in a separate post.
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