mcetech2015
Description
Robots Don’t Innovate: Innovation vs. Automation in BPM. Ideas from the book: "When Thinking Matters in the Workplace"
Transcript
Keith D Swenson
May 2015
@swensonkeith
Robots Don’t Innovate –
Innovation vs automation in BPM
http:// www.slideshare.net / kswenson / mcetech2015
The End of Work?
We are being afflicted with a new disease … Technological
unemployment. This means unemployment due to our
discovery of means of economising the use of labour
outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.
Thus for the first time since his creation man will be faced with
his real, his permanent problem how to use his freedom from
pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which
science and compound interest will have won for him, to live
wisely and agreeably and well.
John Maynard Keynes, Economic Possibilities for our
Grandchildren (1930)
Knowledge workers
… high degree of expertise,
… involves the creation, distribution,
or application of knowledge.
– Thomas Davenport
Knowledge worker productivity
is the biggest of the
21st century management challenges.
In the developed countries
it is their first
survival
requirement.
– Peter F Drucker
By a number of estimates,
• intellectual property,
• brand value,
• process know-how, and
• other manifestations of brain power
generated more than 70% of all US
market value created over the past
three decades.
– “The Productivity Imperative”, McKinsey and Company
http://social-biz.org/2013/10/26/automation-elevating-workers-not-eliminating/
~ 1995
http://social-biz.org/2013/10/26/automation-elevating-workers-not-eliminating/
~ 2015
85% of the new jobs created in the
past decade required complex
knowledge skills:
• analyzing information,
• problem solving,
• rendering judgment and
• thinking creatively.
– “The Productivity Imperative”, McKinsey and Company
From the Czech word Robata,
referring to dull, repetitive labor
BPM
First … some definitions
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Definition of BPM
Business Process Management (BPM) is a
discipline involving any combination of
modeling, automation, execution,
control, measurement and optimization
of business activity flows,
in support of enterprise goals,
spanning systems, employees, customers and partners
within and beyond the enterprise boundaries.
*BPM.com, WFMC.org, The Complete Business Process Handbook (Dec 2014)
“The System”
Your
Organization
IT
System
&
People
Offices
Agreements
Skills
Expertise
Relationships
Hardware
Software
Data
Desire to
optimize
the entire
system
Let’stalkabout
…lying
Confer Tests
Do
Do
Do
Primary Doctor
Confer Tests
Do
Do
Do
The diagram is fiction!
why do we use examples that are false
on every level false?
partially enlightenment bias
partially that people “add” to a process
partially focus on routine processes
partially thinking people are like robots
partially just the need to tell a story
Fooled by Randomness
May 6, 2015
(CNBC) U.S. stocks closed lower on Wednesday, reversing a
positive open, as investors weighed higher bond yields and oil
prices ahead of Friday’s important jobs report
(Reuters) – Stocks on major world markets fell on Wednesday,
as European borrowing costs reached their highest level this
year, while the U.S. dollar slumped against major currencies
after weak American economic data
(MarketWatch) U.S. stocks declined after Federal Reserve
Chairwoman Janet Yellen spooked investors by warning of
potential pitfalls for investors, referring to stock values as
“quite high.”
Single Maximum Assumption
If you are going to monotonically
improve a business process, you have
to assume that there is a single
process that is optimal.
What if there no single model is optimal?
What if optimal is a variety of models?
Goal:
eliminate
variability
and find the
one best
shoe size.
Uniformity Assumption
For a single process to work across an
organization, you have to assume that
all the players of a role are identical.
What if they are not?
Maybe we should be looking
for a plurality of approaches.
What do Management Gurus say?
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Roger Martin
Dean of the
Rotman
School of
Management,
University of
Toronto
Eliminate sources of variation. Find the one
true way, and get everyone to master it. If
possible, automate those practices to
increase repeatability. Mastery requires
control of the situation.
Mastery without originality becomes rote. The
master who never tries to think in novel ways …
will produce the same kind of resolution even if
the context demands something different.
Mastery without originality becomes a cul-de-sac.
Michael E. Porter
Harvard
Business
School
Get a business analyst to find your best
business process and then institute it across
the company. Thorough planning helps you
avoid needless changes.
Companies have to be very schizophrenic.
On one hand, they have to maintain
continuity of strategy. But they also have to
be good at continuously improving.
Change brings Opportunities.
Lynda Gratton
London
Business
School
Try to anticipate and plan for success.
Based on the history of potential members,
teams should be crafted with a well known
and predictable ability to work together.
If a majority of the people on a team already
know each other, the team can become stale and
predictable.
It’s often through the unexpected insights of new
colleagues that innovation is sparked.
Marcus Buckingham
Author of
“First, Break
all the Rules:
What the
World’s
Greatest
Managers Do
Differently”
A manager should find the best expert on the
subject, and devise the most comprehensive
and detailed plan. Design once, execute
many times. Train people and measure them
against these consistent goals.
The true genius of a great manager is his or her
ability to individualize.
A great manager is one who understands how to
trip each person’s trigger.
Your strongest life is built through a continuous
practice of designing moment by moment.
Jim Collins
Author of
“Built to Last”,
and
“Good to Great”
Make a clear plan, consider carefully all of
the situations that your workers will face,
come up with the best responses, and teach
your employees to use those best responses
every time.
I don’t know where we should take this
company, but I do know that if I start with the
right people, ask them the right questions,
and engage them in vigorous debate, we will
find a way to make this company great.
Operations
Execution
Seeking
Decisions
Scientific
Mgmt
Holocracy
Centralized Decentralized
Styles of Business Architecture
Push
Self
Mgmt
Flow to
Work
Cybernetics
Sociocracy
Hyper-
Social
Wirearchy
Pull
Support for Innovation
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I’m happy to do innovative thinking. What are the guidelines?
Innovation
refers to the
introduction of
novel ideas or
methods.
Medical Emergency
This patient has a
combination of
symptoms that
requires us to do
something that
has never been
tried before!
I’m sorry
Dr. House,
I can’t allow
you to do that.
It would make
the process
invalid.
A knowledge worker is
“… someone who knows
more about his or her job
than anyone else in the
organization.”
– Peter F Drucker
Design Time
(Analyst)
Run Time
(User)
Routine Work Expert
x1
Less Expert
x100 or x1000
Knowledge Work Expert
x1
?
What does it mean to “assure the correctness” of the knowledge work process?
Enforcement:
Guardrails (on a road) prevent
deviation, but also prevent
anything not predicted.
Guidance:
Guidelines (on a road) show people
where to go, but do not prevent
deviations if they are necessary.
Enforcement vs. Guidance
Antifragility
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We know what
fragility is.
But what is
the opposite?
Fragile
?
Fragile Robust
Fragile Robust Antifragile
Muscles
are
Adaptive
The Body is
Antifragile
Forests are Adaptive
IT System PerfectionIT System Perfection
Protected Exposed
Craving Stress (Exercise)
Antifragile systems crave stress,
and if you withhold stress,
they wither or become
dangerously unstable
Running,
without getting
anywhere,
is a waste!
Efficiency
isn’t
everything
Character Lintilla
had a “Crisis Inducer”
a watch-like device
to create an
artificial crisis of
selectable severity
to keep wits sharp.
Organizational Exerciser
Maybe our BPM systems
should be occasionally throwing
‘curve balls’ at the users:
unexpected, and incorrect tasks
to keep the worker intellectually
healthy?
Enforcing a single best
practice on the organization,
can make it … fragile
A way forward
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Starling Murmuration
(Video)
Simple Rules to Emergent Behavior
1. Bunch
2. Swoop
3. Swirl
1. Avoid hitting each
other,
2. Stay near the flock,
3. Match velocity of
neighbors.
Deriving Rules is Difficult or Impossible
1. Avoid hitting each
other,
2. Stay near the flock,
3. Match velocity of
neighbors.
1. Bunch
2. Swoop
3. Swirl
?
Roles, and Etiquette
Purchasing Agent Product Development
Business Etiquette Modeling
For each role in an organization, determine:
each of the services that role might perform
what must be provided
what will be produced
what conditions will decide whether the task is accepted or not
what contexts all this is valid in
Use simulation across many roles in the organization to see if
the process is ‘optimal’
tweak the etiquette rules as necessary
Record history and track KPIs like normal
Respond if necessary by tweaking the etiquette rules
Cross Company Emergent Processes
Manufacturing Company
Consulting Firm
Summary
Knowledge workers are important, & growing
Current process models are very limited with
respect to knowledge work
Which assumptions are valid?
Organizations need exercise, not protection
Should we treat business as an
Emergent Epiphenomenon?
Business Etiquette Modeling
“The future is uncertain –
but this uncertainty is at
the very heart of human
creativity”
– Ilya Prigogine
“Nature loves small error, humans
don’t — hence when you rely on
human judgment you are at the
mercy of a mental bias that
disfavors antifragility.”
– Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile
Stability is a Time Bomb
– Nassim Nicholas Taleb,
Antifragile
http://social-biz.org/2011/08/30/living-with-complexity/
In an unpredictable world,
the best investments
are those that minimize
the importance of predictions.
– Sargut & McGrath
“The only sustainable
competitive advantage is an
organization’s ability to learn
faster than the competition.”
– Peter M. Senge,
The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice
of The Learning Organization
”A military force has
no constant formation,
water has no constant
shape:
the ability to gain victory by
changing and adapting according to
the opponent is called genius”
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Workflow Management Coalition
• Standards
• Books
• Awards
• Information
Q & A
http:// www.slideshare.net / kswenson / bpm2014
Recipes
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup raisins
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups butter
3 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 egg
1/2 cup water
NEW!
When Thinking Matters in
the Workplace: How
Executives and Leaders of
Knowledge Work Teams can
Innovate with Case
Management.
http:// ThinkingMattersBook.com
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