Understanding what system you need to build or buy is typically based on a definition of business processes. Business processes are typically defined as the optimal sequence of decisions and actions in support of efficiency goals and positive effect on the bottom line. However, this is an incomplete picture.
The communities of human beings who will execute these business processes have their own set of information to contribute to the project definition. The effectiveness of a business system is directly tied to the likelihood of its human performers engaging effectively in the execution, and the best laid plans for system efficiency can run terribly awry unless we understand the potential, the abilities, the experiences, and the goals of the human beings responsible for delivering on these plans. What every business needs is a system that will support its human workforce in efficiently and effectively delivering. Instead, what we have most of the time is technology that wrongly believes it can make that workforce deliver efficiency and effectiveness.
To define what’s needed from a new system, it’s important to look at what you have. Existing processes, systems—and people—can reveal a great deal about what is good, and not so good, in the currentlandscape. It’s important to look at the right things in the right way so that we understand the present but are not limited by it. Unfortunately, too many efforts to design business systems are an exercise in replicating the present.
