Recently I have started a series about Power, Process, Project and People. After I have touched Power, I now like to reflect a bit on Process and what I am doing with processes in my daily Enterprise Architecture work. Just to repeat the definition from the Oxford Dictionaries: A systematic series of mechanized or chemical operations that are performed in order to produce something. There of course exist way more definitions to frame what a process is, but I stick to this fairly simple definition.
Processes are found a lot in organizations when there are attempts to reuse a successful approach. In most cases they are somehow standardized and formalized by some form of documentation, be it very document centric or a more modern approach by using a business process management suite. Typically the structure of the information is Input > Process > Output with Roles and Responsibilities on the Process and references to other processes. It typically forces People to spin faster and faster and faster (work harder, not smarter) over time, because the Process Performance Indicators are supposed to increase year after year. Every now and then there usually is a massive process restructuring which allows to work smarter (or more accurate aligns Process to more or less strictly follow Power. Quite often process changes (no matter if it work harder or work smarter) lead to massive problems, especially if the people are forgotten in the process change.
So what am I doing with support of GLUE? First of all I am using the GLUE Disciplines to formulate a basic Process.
In the combination with the GLUE Decks and the GLUE Divisions the Disciplines form the GLUE Space. In that GLUE Space the flow of the Disciplines leads to the circulatory system.
So what am I doing with support of GLUE? First of all I am using the GLUE Disciplines to formulate a basic Process.
When I now look at any given change initiative I analyze how it fits into the GLUE circulatory system and my main focus is to secure that the information circles as fast as possible through the whole system to secure that information is available to everyone involved and can be interpreted and transformed therefore by everyone. The more it is a circulatory system the better, the more it is a one way road the worse. The product of this circulatory system is by that defined by all involved stakeholders and not just pushed (by power) down to the system or emerged pure to no other choice.
The main reason why I work like this is lies in the nature of the problems I work with. For really simple problems there might be one perfect answer, but in most cases the complexity prevents this: neither the problem at hand is truly simple nor the solution selected can be perfectly simple. A very simple approach would be to package one solution and implement it (or sell it) unchanged as often as possible. By not looking at the greater context this is indeed an approach which makes sense (and most likely generates quite some money). The damage created by this approach is quite often very high, even though due to the friction it also generates quite some innovative ideas (by accident). As always it is a matter of perspective. I do not know where this will lead me to in the future, but at the moment I mainly focus on people. For whatever reason it is the approach with the greatest rate of success so far, even though I constantly try other approaches, nothing has ever been close to beat my current approach. Collaboration with (many) others is by far the best tool for me.
As always comments more than welcome.
The main reason why I work like this is lies in the nature of the problems I work with. For really simple problems there might be one perfect answer, but in most cases the complexity prevents this: neither the problem at hand is truly simple nor the solution selected can be perfectly simple. A very simple approach would be to package one solution and implement it (or sell it) unchanged as often as possible. By not looking at the greater context this is indeed an approach which makes sense (and most likely generates quite some money). The damage created by this approach is quite often very high, even though due to the friction it also generates quite some innovative ideas (by accident). As always it is a matter of perspective. I do not know where this will lead me to in the future, but at the moment I mainly focus on people. For whatever reason it is the approach with the greatest rate of success so far, even though I constantly try other approaches, nothing has ever been close to beat my current approach. Collaboration with (many) others is by far the best tool for me.
As always comments more than welcome.
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