The words “business process” used inside any sentence really do run the risk of causing most people to glaze over. It really does sound dull, geeky and boring.
Most of the language associate with it also has the same effect, efficiency, effectiveness, productivity, swim lane diagrams (really), there is a long list, but I’ll stop now. It really isn’t getting any better is it?
How can this be I wonder. How can it be that something so important can seem so dull? Does “business process” need some PR I wonder?
Business process, “so important” is this a fundamental contradiction, have I slipped out and put my geek head on?
Maybe, but indulge me for a few moments. Have a look at the list of processes here Process Classification. Without too much thinking it’s possible to see that there are some fantastic, creative stimulating roles here. Admittedly there are some that are less thrilling. BUT, and it needs to be a big BUT, the point is that these are what underpin business. Good businesses and bad ones, creative ones and dull ones. All of them, and really not just businesses, but that’s a track I don’t want to go down here.
My point is this, underlying the passion and the misery and the frustration and the success, all of the outcomes of business, of work, are processes. I would argue that when they work well and do what they can be crafted to do, the results are much more on the positive side of the outcomes. For everyone involved, customers, employees, the casually interested.
When processes are running poorly, it’s not so good. I often hear people with the miseries and can see how they have ended up being something of a victim to poor processes and systems.
Business process does sound dull, but when you know that they are the foundation of the way things work, and we surely all must think there is something interesting about the way the world humans have created works, it’s not so dull after all.
Is it?
