Product Description

Despite advances in business automation over the past fifty years, the heart and soul of every organization is still its people--without whom the organization will stop dead in its tracks. Yet there is presently no complete way to manage the complex, continually changing work processes carried out by humans--and current work support technologies treat people as if they were cogs in a machine. Frankly, we need to do better.

This landmark book combines insights drawn from biology, psychology, social systems theory, and learning theory with a deep understanding of business process analysis to form a complete theory of human work. It’s about how we really work, and provides management and information technology techniques that will help us to work better. The book shows how to deal properly with human issues in the workplace, transform the working relationships on which success is founded, and leverage intangible assets. Government agencies need this in order to meet the demands of citizens, and commercial companies need this if they are to survive. In today’s world of globalization and extreme competition, it's not satisfied customers you are after--it’s never-satisfied customers. In the networked future, repeat business from loyal customers is no longer just the best business; it’s the only business. And to get it, you need Human Interaction Management--the breakthrough that changes the rules of business.

HUMAN INTERACTION: THE MISSING LINK IN BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT

There’s a new breed of competitor on the block. In today’s uncertain global business world, these fierce new competitors are dominating industries by leveraging the universal connectivity of the Internet with a new category of business technology, Business Process Management (BPM). But the BPM techniques currently available are suitable primarily for activities carried out by machines. What about the many processes centered on the very foundation of commercial success—human-driven processes?

After all processes don't do work, people do. Indeed, technology support for human interactions is the missing link in today’s BPM systems. Even the early process-based competitors are eager to reinvigorate human-centered work processes, for they know that these are the heart and soul of performance improvement and innovation.

So, what is work? What does an information worker actually do all day? Read and write emails, create documents, make phone calls, attend meetings, talk to people, research, think, decide, agree, reject, ... this is the process of work; it’s how real work works. But because little of real work is augmented by modern computer systems, how can it be properly managed for greater effectiveness? The solution is not to try and find systems that replace humans--to automate people out of the picture. We are nowhere near the (perhaps mythical) stage at which humans have become irrelevant to the daily functioning of the enterprise. To the contrary, we need to make the best use of human skills by facilitating how work actually gets done, by real people. Amplifying the work carried out by people not only benefits the enterprise as a whole, but also improves job satisfaction of the individuals who are its life-blood.

To amplify human-driven processes, we need to first understand how to formally describe such work, and then capture this understanding in a computer system. This calls for a change in kind in both business process modeling, and the BPM systems being proffered by today’s IT vendors. This book examines the true nature of work, and shows how it can be supported by the next generation of BPM systems. Drawn directly from first-hand experience, it’s a practical guide, not an exposition of abstract theory. In this groundbreaking book, a high-level discussion, written for business people, is supplemented with a technology focused discussion for enterprise architects and developers, providing them with detailed guidelines for implementing computer support for human-driven processes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #341617 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From the Inside Flap
Oh my, what can you say about the 20th century marvel, the World Wide Web? The Web presents an immense opportunity to connect every person, every computer, everywhere, across a company, across trading partners, across the globe. Such connectivity can revolutionize the very ways companies operate, the very ways they conduct business, leading to extreme efficiency and extreme effectiveness. But, even more revolutionary is that such connectivity can transform the very business a business is in.

Now, in the 21st century, Starbucks is no longer just in the coffee business, it’s also in the music and Internet services business. Exxon/Mobile is no longer just in the oil business, it’s also in the coffee business. IBM is no longer just in the information technology business, it’s also in the claims processing business in the insurance industry. The Virgin Group is no longer in just the music and airlines businesses, it’s also in the financial services, cell phone, wedding, train, book, gaming, wine, auto, cosmetics, health club, resort and experiences businesses—-Sir Richard Branson has been very busy knitting together this tapestry of diverse, customer-pleasing businesses by weaving innovative business processes throughout the fabric of the Web, to the delight of its loyal customers.

What business are you in? Indeed, Virgin and other companies that "get it" understand that they are in the "customer business," aggregating ever more complete solutions for their loyal customers who are, in turn, placing ever more trust in their brands. Industry boundaries have become a blur. Welcome to extreme competition in the 21st century, where customers are gaining supreme power over suppliers and getting what they want, when and where they want it, with greater and greater ease. If your company cannot make that happen, your customers are but a mouse click away from one of your competitors who can.

Yet, with all the opportunity, the Web also posses an immense challenge in that the humans, the very heart and soul of any company, can be overwhelmed by the sheer amounts of business information that can flow through the Web. To harness the Web for business innovation and transformation, breakthrough thinking and new systems will be needed to provide the freedom that workers need so that they are helped, and not hindered, by the system. That new way of thinking is Human Interaction Management, and the capability needed to harness the Web for helping people work better in the wired, flat world of global business is the Human Interaction Management System. In this groundbreaking work, Keith Harrison-Broninski instructs us in how people really work and how they can be helped to work better.

Today’s greatest business challenge is to offer total experiences that delight your customers, experiences that exceed their expectations. It’s no longer viable to offer commodities, or just the best products or services. Companies must now open a two-way dialog with their customers in order to meet their needs throughout the consumption process, for they don’t want your products and services in and of themselves, they want solutions to their needs. In today’s fiercely competitive business environment, you must provide the complete experience that delights each and every customer. If you don’t do that, you won’t be able to compete for the future. If you do do that, you will need the support of the Human Interaction Management System, the breakthrough that changes the rules of business, the breakthrough that changes your relationships with both almighty customers, and the trading partners you must band together with to meet the needs of your present and future customers.

Join Keith on a journey that will change your business, forever, by helping your people and your suppliers’ people work better to provide extreme value to your customers.

About the Author
Keith Harrison-Broninski is the CTO of Role Modellers Ltd., whose mission is to develop the ideas necessary to support human-driven processes, and implement software applications to support them. Keith spent many years as an independent IT and management consultant, working in a wide range of sectors, technologies and countries. His primary interest has always been to integrate advanced software implementations with social workplace issues. Keith designed the software RADRunner, a dynamic process enactment engine based on Roles and interactions. Keith also established the Web forum Role Based Process Support, whose purpose is to discuss and synthesize work on human-driven processes. Forum members are drawn from varied academic and industry backgrounds, and debate approaches to social analysis of business processes. If you are interested to take a look or enter the debate on how to advance computer support of human co-operative work, membership is open to all. Keith obtained a BA in Mathematics (starred double first, 1985) and MSc Computation (1986) from Oxford University.

Customer Reviews

Much Theory little practice
I am Senior Business Process Management Consultant with over 7 years of experience in the implementation of projects bpm. I bought this book hoping to find something new to resolve the problems that companies are struggling in the execution of business processes. Initially the book promises because attempts to uncover the importance of information technology in implementing business processes, trying to focus the reader that what really matters in process redesign is the way people interact with the nature of work. According to my experience, is precisely here where process performance can be improved. However after the introduction, the book fails to explain how to design and improve business processes, I think that even worse is the approach taken on the notation used - Role Activity Diagram, to analyze processes. In the book the author explains that this notation did not had the support because there were not software that could permit its use. I think that is the opposite: the notation is so complex and somewhat not intuitive thus it business users did not use it. Today, BPMN is becoming the standard represent business processes, because it gives a clear vision how activities are executed. In many books and some professionals advocate that looking to flowcharts you can find many improvement opportunities, but I believe exactly the opposite. In flowcharts you can to see gains changing tasks sequence (from series to parallel, for example), but the major changes in business processes can be obtained by observation at the place where the process is executed or by collecting and analysing data. Thus, it seems wrong that the focus of the book is also attempting to implement one more graphical representation, because BPMN is commonly used in the BPM community.
I would like to be wrong on the book review, but I can only give a low score. The type of writing also does not help much to understand the concepts (heavily focused on academics rather than for professional use). If you are looking for something new about BPM this book is not the right one.

Putting humans at the heart of BPM. Inspired!
My perspective on and appreciation of this book may be different from the majority of its readers because my interest is not based on expertise in BPM, RAD, UML or even systems design. My comments are based only on an interest in how to optimise organisational performance from an organisation development perspective.

I found Harrison-Broninski's book, Human Interactions, to be both challenging and thought provoking. In it, he convincingly argues that the current state and direction of business process design, implementation and management is sub-optimal because it is based on a mechanistic perspective that sees humans as components within a larger machine. He gives this the label, `machine-driven'. His view is that in doing so it not only makes work more arduous and less engaging than it could be but that it fails to tap into the most valuable aspects of how humans interact to get work done.

He believes that in order to improve productivity and performance this perspective which dominates the world of work needs to be turned on its head. In his view, business processes should be designed, implemented and managed in a way that supports and fits around how humans work best not the other way around. He gives this the label, `human-driven'.

Based on my own experiences of collaborative work both as a participant and as an HR/Learning and Development consultant, I found Harrison-Broninski's analysis of `The Problem of Work' to be intellectually sound and his proposed resolutions to be intuitively convincing. Perhaps this is because in constructing his framework of concepts he draws up the ideas of creative leadership, `The Experience Economy', complexity science and social learning, all of which I regard as essential to the future development of organisational productivity and performance.

I can easily imagine that anyone who is comfortable with the conventional thinking of business processes design, implementation and management may well find Harrison-Broninski's views and proposed solutions distinctly unsettling because, in essence, he proposes a fundamental change in the power dynamic between those that design and manage business processes and those that implement or execute them. There are two elements that, in my view, are likely to be particularly challenging. Firstly, the idea of `Support for Mental Work', where he states, `A large part of what humans do has little concrete output'. Secondly, the idea that `Processes change processes', where he states, `Hence actions and interactions in human-driven processes must be able to affect continual change to the process itself.' Conversely, if one agrees with the direction Harrison-Broninski is taking, these may constitute his most valuable insights.

For those individuals convinced by the fundamentals and the workability of Harrison-Broninski's ideas, as I am, this represents a robust and much needed articulation of a perspective based on the belief that there is much human potential that goes untapped in organisations. And that the best way to tap this human potential is to start with how humans work best and to design, implement and manage business processes accordingly, using software systems to support, facilitate and empower.

I found Harrison-Broninski's book both fascinating and inspiring. I for one would be delighted to work in any organisation that took his ideas and concepts to heart.

Given the challenging nature of his ideas and the level of commitment required from senior management for their successful implementation, I suspect it will be some time before there is a critical mass in their uptake. It's the inevitable downside of thinking that proposes a sea change, no matter how valuable the potential benefits.

I wish him every once of luck and good fortune.

Worth the read for the chapter on RAD
I got what I wanted from this book, which was a convincing account of RAD and why it is so different from "mechanistic" process languages like BPMN and BPEL. Although RAD diagrams resemble BPMN and UML activity diagrams (roles look like swim lanes, refinement looks like parallel or conditional branching, and so on), RAD runs much differently. While reading, I thought of the business rules connection, and sure enough KHB mentioned it explicitly a few pages later. As for KHB's recommended changes on Ould's classic RAD, I like them so much I think we should call this new RAD "KHB RAD."

Interesting take on Petri Nets and the Pi Calculus is too. It's different from what I had thought, but I buy it.

The more business-oriental material on how people work didn't strike me as something I would want to present in front of clients. Is everyone such a prima donna at work? How are REACT and AIM supposed to guide them? The discussion is generally long-winded, anemic, and poorly edited. As a management book, "Human Interactions" is abysmal. The RAD coverage saves the day.