Business Process Automation – Are we losing control?

The extensive capabilities of computers has allowed many business processes to be automated.  While automation may reduce manual labor costs, it can have a wide variety of unintended consequences.

A manual process can be observed, evaluated, determined to be efficient or flawed and easily changed or improved.  An automated process cannot easily be observed and evaluated.  Many of the documented business processes simply describe how a person interacts with a computer.  The people have no idea why or how the computer arrives at the decision or output and they have a limited understanding of the automated decision processes.  They become slaves to the computer and do not question the accuracy or logic of the automated processes. 

Automating a business process should not shield the users from the process.   It is important for the users to understand the decision logic in their applications and even to question the results.  Just because a computer produced the output doesn’t make it accurate or true!

What is a defect?

So many people debate a topic without first agreeing on the scope or meaning of the topic. As a management consultant, I believe that my role is to ask the “stupid question”.

So here is my stupid question to consider … What is a defect? I am not looking for answers but simply highlighting the fact that within any given organization there are differences of opinion about the nature of defects. In many cases the discussion of defects is defensive as people or organizations look to avoid responsibility for defects by denying their existence or deflecting blame to another group.

This is the human side of defect management which is difficult to address with scientific methods. Successful defects management must define a defect and use scientific methods to define and measure defects. If the information is used to punish individuals or groups, they will manipulate the measurement process and confuse the results.

Should the PMO be owned by IT or the “Business”?

Neither! We describe the “business” as if it is a single entity. The “business” is a collection of departments whose priorities and objectives frequently conflict. The functions of a PMO are best assigned to a corporate entity which spans the business departments and IT and is closely aligned with the overall business strategy.

The PMO should have oversight responsibilities for the entire life cycle of all projects (including non-IT). This will provide the best chance of addressing conflicting priorities, standarding across the enterprise, and aligning with the “business” objectives.