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Menu News & Events   Process: Art - Science - Culture March 27th 2009 When discussing processes with someone new to BPM, common responses include "...we are creative and really can't afford to be constrained by processes..." or "...our business must be agile and responsive so a standard approach will not work for us...". Apart from the standard "we are different" implication, such responses reflect a common belief that processes enforce standardisation at all costs. There is a real opportunity in these situations to change perceptions about processes from merely being a series of restrictive, rigid, and methodical steps to something that can actually liberate staff and provide greater flexibility to an enterprise. A recent HBR article titled "When Should a Process be Art, Not Science?" (HBR: March 2009) provides an excellent business-focused summary of this important distinction. By correlating the value of output variation to customers (from negative to positive) and the process environment (low to high variability), Joseph M. Hall and Eric Johnson explain that processes can be scientific, artistic, or a combination of both. This understanding that processes are not all the same has significant implications for their definition, management, measurement, improvement, and automation. Here are some additional guides to assist in determining the degree of art versus science: Market Disciplines - Customer Intimacy, Product Leadership, Operational Excellence The Treacy and Wiersema model describes a simple yet effective framework through which we can design and manage processes along the art-to-science continuum. While all processes should have elements of all three disciplines, the predominate discipline will influence process design to be more standard and efficient for operational excellence, more flexible and responsive to changing needs for customer intimacy, and more robust and modular for product leadership. For more on this see: The Discipline of Market Leaders and Customer Value: The Business Discipline of BPM Process Types - Core, Management, Support Categorising enterprise processes into different types such as Core, Management, and Support processes is something that is a relatively standard exercise and often undertaken early in a BPM deployment. The process type is an early clue indicating how you might design and manage your business processes. Support processes are often more science than art and Core and Management processes will be a mix of both. The precise mix being determined by the degree of customer interaction, the sorts of products and services being delivered, compliance and regulatory requirements, and degree of allowable tailoring of those products/services all influence the equation. Culture - Functional-Mechanistic, Process-Systemic The way in which processes are viewed and managed in an enterprise is the over-arching guide as to how they should be designed and integrated into the management system. Even with an understanding of their art versus science typology, it comes down to the people factors that determine how processes are actualy enacted in an enterprise All process design should have a 'scientific' design basis, the degree to which they become more of an artform and flexible in nature will be influenced by a number of elements. So, while we do need to be clear on our business processes, not all processes benefit from a standard approach to mapping, modelling, and measurement. While it is true that some processes need to be standardised - the design, measurement, and governance of business processes should vary according to a number of factors including the type of processes in question, the business goals being fulfilled, and the customer requirements being satisfied. Effective BPM is capable of delivering processes that are effective, efficient, and flexible - a good process professional will understand the artistic and scientific emphases that should be placed on particular processes. They will then interpret the organisational culture that will ultimately drive process performance and design a governance approach accordingly. For more on how to manage the art, science, and culture of BPM see: BPM: Insights and Practices for Sustained Transformation THIS TIME LAST YEAR... Technology ROI is a Business Issue

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