Asana Demo and Vision
Asana, an interesting Human Interaction Management system (HIMS)
Asana Open House from Jerry Phillips on Vimeo.
The business process is the business
Toyota, what happens when you ignore the business process
Toyota’s woes are an example of what happens when you diverge from the process driven approach. It is an example of how the lack of focus on processes affects your market position and it is a reminder that the product is a result of the activities applied. If Toyota had stuck to its kaizen guns, perhaps this flight away from quality would not have occured. However, I am bullish that the process driven approach will ultimately prevail and so, it may be a stock buying opportunity for those of us who believe that process driven is the only way to competete and differentiate in a way which offers sustainable ROI.
Naming Business Processes and Activities
Business Process Definitions should be named as a transformation, for example, consider the titles
“Member Enrolment” and “Enrol Member” to describe the enroling of a member onto a pension scheme.
The process title”Member Enrolment” does not imply that a measurable and finite outcome will be produced. It implies that ”we are doing enrolments”, it however does not imply the achievement of any objective. It is therefore perceived as the perpetual act of enrolling a member. With such a title you cannot finitely answer the question “Have you enrolled the Member yet?”
The process title “Enrol Member“on the otherhand describes a transformation whose outcome implies a measurable achievement or milestone each time the process is carried out, in this case “Member is enrolled”. You can answer the question ”Have you enrolled the Member yet?”.
It could be argued that using a title like “Member Enrolment” in this context, is tantamount to a Freudian slip on efficiency, in as much as an organisation that defines a process as “member enrolment”, must see the processes as acts being carried out and not as means towards a measurable achievement milestone or getting things done. Without the milestone, the process remains unmeasurable and the people carrying it out unaccountable.
So far in my experience I have noticed that the less need to be commercially orientated an organisation is, the more likely it is to use “Member Enrolment” and not “Enrol Member”.
