By: Thei Geurts, presales consultant
Just received a confirmation from the McKinsey Quaterly that they have accepted and published my comment on the article of Thomas H. Davenport on "Rethinking knowledge work: A strategic approach".
In this February 2011 article Thomas Davenport argues that: "We live in a world where knowledge-based work is expanding rapidly. So is the application of technology to almost every business process and job. But to date, high-end knowledge workers have largely remained free to use only the technology they personally find useful. It's time to think about how to make them more productive by imposing a bit more structure. This combination of technology and structure, along with a bit of managerial discretion in applying them to knowledge work, may well produce a revolution in the jobs that cost and matter the most to contemporary organizations." Mr. Davenport gives some limited examples for this, in his own words, radically different approach to the productivity of knowledge workers.
In my comment I focus on the approach and results of Be Informed clients in realizing this line of thought. The comment was published on the 7th of February under the name: Thei Geurts, Be Informed, Netherlands. This is the link: McKinsey Quarterly - Rethinking_knowledge_work_A_strategic_approach.
For the readers that don't want to register to the McKinsey Quarterly, here is the text of my comment:
Indeed, what is required is a change of perspective. A change from a control point of view or a granting maximum freedom point of view, towards a view that looks for a synthesis between control and freedom. It is the era of the 'AND.'
In various recent projects, I have seen how it is possible to realize substantial productivity improvements by an approach that separates 'the know' from 'the flow.'
The know stands for the business logic, rules, concepts and relations, and references to their authentic sources. The flow stands for the dynamic process of a case in which the know is infused. Knowledge workers are engaged in a goal-driven decision making process in which they have a high level of autonomy in how to organize their work. The decision prevails over the path towards the decision. Contextual information is provided based upon the case and phase at hand and actionable information has been made executable by instruments like decision trees, checklists, interactive forms, and calculators.
The process offers at the same time support to conform to operating standards and to leverage knowledge and methodologies for managing the life cycle of a case effectively. This includes facilities for coordination, planning, assigning tasks and time, and for embedded logging and history trails to serve audit and compliance purposes.
Examples of achieved productivity gains are: implementing a change in government regulations within 2-3 days instead of in 9 months, operational cost reduction for environmental licensing of 96 million Euro in year 1, reduction of TCO-costs with 50%.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Walk the walk if you talk the talk
By: Rik Hoogenberg, chief executive officer
Recently, the Innovation Union Scoreboard 2010 was published by the European Commission. The Netherlands is characterized as an ‘innovation follower’, ranking 8th among EU member states. Analysts fear that the Netherlands will fall back even further in the coming years.
The Dutch Government, however, maintains its ambition the be among the top 5 of knowledge driven economies worldwide. Why is it so hard to reach this goal?
The answer is found in Michael Porters ‘The Competitive Advantage of Nations’, in which he rightly argues that success factors of enterprises are created by a country or region. Porter comes increasingly to the conclusion that ultimately the environment of the organization is the source of sustainable competitive advantage.
Entrepreneurship in the Netherlands has developed considerably on the officially formulated Dutch ambition, only to find government hesitant to apply this approach in practice. Had a government wide vision on smart solutions, innovation and education been implemented, then private initiatives would have met with a more favorable climate.
Now, smart solutions for agile and efficient public services depend on the personal conviction of visionary leaders, often having to fight fierce battles in order to pursue their innovative goals. This leads to unnecessary delay in adopting innovative solutions and creating a fertile climate for a knowledge based economy.
Recently, the Innovation Union Scoreboard 2010 was published by the European Commission. The Netherlands is characterized as an ‘innovation follower’, ranking 8th among EU member states. Analysts fear that the Netherlands will fall back even further in the coming years.
The Dutch Government, however, maintains its ambition the be among the top 5 of knowledge driven economies worldwide. Why is it so hard to reach this goal?
The answer is found in Michael Porters ‘The Competitive Advantage of Nations’, in which he rightly argues that success factors of enterprises are created by a country or region. Porter comes increasingly to the conclusion that ultimately the environment of the organization is the source of sustainable competitive advantage.
Entrepreneurship in the Netherlands has developed considerably on the officially formulated Dutch ambition, only to find government hesitant to apply this approach in practice. Had a government wide vision on smart solutions, innovation and education been implemented, then private initiatives would have met with a more favorable climate.
Now, smart solutions for agile and efficient public services depend on the personal conviction of visionary leaders, often having to fight fierce battles in order to pursue their innovative goals. This leads to unnecessary delay in adopting innovative solutions and creating a fertile climate for a knowledge based economy.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Good news and bad news
By: Frank Buytendijk, chief marketing officer
I joined Be Informed a little bit over three months ago now. The first thing I noticed, and what drew me to the world of business processes was the enormous growth potential, it is one of the few best-of-breed enterprise software markets left. There is ample room for innovation.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that I have the feeling that the business process discipline is terribly lacking behind other software markets. I think I can make the comparison, most of my own background comes from the business intelligence market. Let me explain.
In the management information systems world (MIS), close to twenty years ago it became clear that sending a programmer around, asking all users which reports they needed, and then program them all, is not the smartest approach. It leads to extremely expensive reports, no reusability and a heavy TCO burden. In the early 1990s the business intelligence query and reporting tools came up offering a different solution. Users and developers shouldn't put the report in the middle, but the data domain. If, using a metadata layer in between the reporting tool and the database, you can abstract from both the data model and the reporting layout, users can create all the necessary reports themselves. And you know all of those reports are right, because the metadata model describes the guardrails of what you can do very well.
How different the world of process still is. It is still pretty normal to send developers with little Visio schemas to all the users, and let them document, describe and build every single process. It is still accepted that business process specialists claim that "of course the process is always the starting point." Why, I wonder? It is the domain in which processes run that should be the starting point.
Be Informed has understood that fundamental principle, and basically built what is already the accepted paradigm in business intelligence. The only thing Be Informed does is describing the nature of all activities, and their mutual relationships. This is a metadata model, or in slightly more formal terms, an ontology. After doing that, users can go through processes every which way they want. And they know that whatever they do is perfectly right, because the ontology provides the guardrails.
Same thing!
If you look deep into the hearts of the people who develop Be Informed, they want nothing more than making sure that this process paradigm becomes the norm. The accepted best practice.
That would benefit Be Informed enormously. Most of our competitors have old-paradigm technologies, and it will take years to migrate to the new way of thinking. This is where I believe where Be Informed has the true lead in the market. Not the ontological approach per se, but how the idea of the ontology is consequently extrapolated and with extreme discipline is implemented throughout every aspect of the Be Informed Business Process Platform.
Hard to copy.
Interested? Would you like to know more? Let me know.
Be good,
frank
I joined Be Informed a little bit over three months ago now. The first thing I noticed, and what drew me to the world of business processes was the enormous growth potential, it is one of the few best-of-breed enterprise software markets left. There is ample room for innovation.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that I have the feeling that the business process discipline is terribly lacking behind other software markets. I think I can make the comparison, most of my own background comes from the business intelligence market. Let me explain.
In the management information systems world (MIS), close to twenty years ago it became clear that sending a programmer around, asking all users which reports they needed, and then program them all, is not the smartest approach. It leads to extremely expensive reports, no reusability and a heavy TCO burden. In the early 1990s the business intelligence query and reporting tools came up offering a different solution. Users and developers shouldn't put the report in the middle, but the data domain. If, using a metadata layer in between the reporting tool and the database, you can abstract from both the data model and the reporting layout, users can create all the necessary reports themselves. And you know all of those reports are right, because the metadata model describes the guardrails of what you can do very well.
How different the world of process still is. It is still pretty normal to send developers with little Visio schemas to all the users, and let them document, describe and build every single process. It is still accepted that business process specialists claim that "of course the process is always the starting point." Why, I wonder? It is the domain in which processes run that should be the starting point.
Be Informed has understood that fundamental principle, and basically built what is already the accepted paradigm in business intelligence. The only thing Be Informed does is describing the nature of all activities, and their mutual relationships. This is a metadata model, or in slightly more formal terms, an ontology. After doing that, users can go through processes every which way they want. And they know that whatever they do is perfectly right, because the ontology provides the guardrails.
Same thing!
If you look deep into the hearts of the people who develop Be Informed, they want nothing more than making sure that this process paradigm becomes the norm. The accepted best practice.
That would benefit Be Informed enormously. Most of our competitors have old-paradigm technologies, and it will take years to migrate to the new way of thinking. This is where I believe where Be Informed has the true lead in the market. Not the ontological approach per se, but how the idea of the ontology is consequently extrapolated and with extreme discipline is implemented throughout every aspect of the Be Informed Business Process Platform.
Hard to copy.
Interested? Would you like to know more? Let me know.
Be good,
frank
Monday, February 7, 2011
Ich bin ein Innovator
By: Rik Hoogenberg, chief executive officer
Dutch government officials frequently emphasize the importance of innovation. They urge companies to step up their R&D budgets and call for entrepreneurship that will yield fast growing start-ups.
I think innovation is a question of co-makership. I am convinced that innovation will flourish when government and companies operate as partners, instead of maintaining the principal/client dogma. It is important for government to create the right conditions for innovation, to share responsibility with companies.
At Be Informed, we are involved in various tenders for government projects. The costs of these tenders are huge, where the outcome is always uncertain. Investments done by many parties are lost in these proceedings, where synergy would have been relatively easy to achieve. Too often, government aims for the lowest price in these proceedings, instead of value creation.
So when it comes to innovation, I shamelessly quote John F. Kennedy to encourage our government towards a joint effort in a shared concern: 'Ask not what your private sector can do for you, ask what you can do for your private sector.'
Dutch government officials frequently emphasize the importance of innovation. They urge companies to step up their R&D budgets and call for entrepreneurship that will yield fast growing start-ups.
I think innovation is a question of co-makership. I am convinced that innovation will flourish when government and companies operate as partners, instead of maintaining the principal/client dogma. It is important for government to create the right conditions for innovation, to share responsibility with companies.
At Be Informed, we are involved in various tenders for government projects. The costs of these tenders are huge, where the outcome is always uncertain. Investments done by many parties are lost in these proceedings, where synergy would have been relatively easy to achieve. Too often, government aims for the lowest price in these proceedings, instead of value creation.
So when it comes to innovation, I shamelessly quote John F. Kennedy to encourage our government towards a joint effort in a shared concern: 'Ask not what your private sector can do for you, ask what you can do for your private sector.'
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