Unscripted, spontaneous, on the spot actions and decisions... Such are the bane of the Business Process automation control freak within me.
I'd love to be able to script every movement, anticipate every event and have a scripted answer for every situation before it arises, but that's just never going to happen in the business world. My carefully crafted BPMN process diagrams are never really going to guide any more than the "Happy Path" and a few obvious "Exception Paths" through my Business Process.
I can't anticipate everything that's going to happen, and quite frankly even if I could it's doubtful that the effort to plan for every eventuality would make business run any smoother. More likely I'd end up with an extremely brittle solution rather than the resilient process that I had intended.
What I have to accept is that Unscripted Things Happen - and deal with it.
For most Business Processes there is a natural order to the Activities that should be performed to produce the desired outcomes. For some (if not most) Activities there are definite prerequisites that must take place before the Activity can be started. Scripting the precedence of Activities and automating the transition from one to the next brings order and efficiency to the Business Process, and it often prevents a lot of errors.
What we mustn't forget is the difference between Natural Order and Required Order and the difference between Activities that Should Be Performed and Activities that Must Be Performed. In Business, almost everything is optional if the boss says it's optional.
More importantly, Unscripted Things Happen.
Business doesn't happen in a vacuum. Stuff that you didn't anticipate happens all the time, and stuff that you expected to happen either doesn't happen when you expected it or doesn't happen at all. Your people often have to "ad-lib" their lines to get things back on track.
With this reality is mind ... Every Activity in your Business Process is potentially an Ad Hoc Activity. Every Activity can potentially be performed at Any Time and in some cases it can be performed Multiple Times.
Activities really have to check their own prerequisites, and provide guidance to those who try to perform them "before they're ready". Activities also need to check to see if they've "already been done once" and make the proper adjustment. If work has already been done that needs to be "undone", then guidance on how to undo that work needs to be provided.
This "ad hoc" focus does go against the grain of those of us who strive for process efficiency... but it's often the difference between providing a "toy" solution and something the business can really rely on.
Start thinking of your Activities as "Tools for the Ad-Libber" and perhaps your business will be able to run a bit smoother when those unscripted things happen in the future.
I'd love to be able to script every movement, anticipate every event and have a scripted answer for every situation before it arises, but that's just never going to happen in the business world. My carefully crafted BPMN process diagrams are never really going to guide any more than the "Happy Path" and a few obvious "Exception Paths" through my Business Process.
I can't anticipate everything that's going to happen, and quite frankly even if I could it's doubtful that the effort to plan for every eventuality would make business run any smoother. More likely I'd end up with an extremely brittle solution rather than the resilient process that I had intended.
What I have to accept is that Unscripted Things Happen - and deal with it.
For most Business Processes there is a natural order to the Activities that should be performed to produce the desired outcomes. For some (if not most) Activities there are definite prerequisites that must take place before the Activity can be started. Scripting the precedence of Activities and automating the transition from one to the next brings order and efficiency to the Business Process, and it often prevents a lot of errors.
What we mustn't forget is the difference between Natural Order and Required Order and the difference between Activities that Should Be Performed and Activities that Must Be Performed. In Business, almost everything is optional if the boss says it's optional.
More importantly, Unscripted Things Happen.
Business doesn't happen in a vacuum. Stuff that you didn't anticipate happens all the time, and stuff that you expected to happen either doesn't happen when you expected it or doesn't happen at all. Your people often have to "ad-lib" their lines to get things back on track.
With this reality is mind ... Every Activity in your Business Process is potentially an Ad Hoc Activity. Every Activity can potentially be performed at Any Time and in some cases it can be performed Multiple Times.
Activities really have to check their own prerequisites, and provide guidance to those who try to perform them "before they're ready". Activities also need to check to see if they've "already been done once" and make the proper adjustment. If work has already been done that needs to be "undone", then guidance on how to undo that work needs to be provided.
This "ad hoc" focus does go against the grain of those of us who strive for process efficiency... but it's often the difference between providing a "toy" solution and something the business can really rely on.
Start thinking of your Activities as "Tools for the Ad-Libber" and perhaps your business will be able to run a bit smoother when those unscripted things happen in the future.
