Say it aint Silo May 4, 2009
Posted by workflow in BPM, BPM Applications, Business Silo Management, Business Silos, workflow.Tags: Business Silos, Silos, workflow
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Much of what we do in the BPM/Workflow space has to due with bridging the gap between business silos within organizations. All businesses of a certain size have them, and in the majority of cases they contribute to inefficiency. However since all businesses have them, are business silos not always a bad thing. Therefore what should you look for to determine when bridging a silo is just, a bridge to far.
Silos come into being for a number of reasons like: companies or generally hierarchical in nature, they may have had mergers and acquisitions, poor planning or just different requirements. Sometimes silos are formed instantly but generally they form over a period of time.
So when is a silo a good thing or at least not all bad?
Well in some cases similar IT systems may be replicated in various degrees within an organization but due to different requirements these may be a requirement. This could be related to the general cultural or geographic requirements of a silo.
Silos provide a level of security. They intrinsically act like firewalls.
Finally there is the possibility of information overload. Putting all the information in one place when the majority of information and features might be visible but inapplicable across the business silos is unwise.
It is important to consider when developing BPM applications what the negative effects will be for technology with respect to silo bridging. It is also important to consider the political effects as well but that is a blog for a different day.
Can business users make their own Workflow/BPM Applications August 29, 2006
Posted by workflow in 3GL, BPM Applications, Business Users, Kontinuum, Microsoft Excel, Programming, Programming Languages, Spreadsheet, Third Generation Languages, workflow.4 comments
This is in reference to the following article:
http://kswenson.wordpress.com/2006/07/09/what-bpm-can-learn-from-a-spreadsheet/
Can business users make their own workflow applications, well yes they can. My girlfriend’s father who is an accountant with zero programming training created a simple 3 or 4 step BPM application using Kontinuum. I think the key word here is simple. Programmers are more likely to see the problems a little bit differently and their concerns of maintainability, reuse etc would not be at the forefront of the mind of a business user. This would mean that as workflow systems tend towards greater complexity the non-programmer would create a less and less cost effective solution.
As for the first question of Business office workers will never program software well they are already doing so. Not only in excel type applications but also in creating BPM applications.
Another counter argument is that the application is purpose built. Well every language was built with a purpose. Take C and Prolog. Built for different purposes. Are neither of them programming languages? If you submit that they are because ultimately they could achieve all the functionality of the other albeit in an often convoluted way well then couldn’t a BPM system deliver such functionality albeit in a more convoluted way?
As a final though some people have said that 3gl is not programming. OK why? Because it is to easy? Because you don’t have to type? The important part of programming is logic. If you can deliver to a computer that same logic through dragging and dropping something as opposed to typing it out what should it matter. If not then isn’t 2gl not programming either? Should we real programmers go back to binary?
