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May 19, 2005
Remix the Intranet!
In the last few weeks I've been looking more into what is commonly called "BPM" - or business process management (here's a link to get you started).
I just don't get it. Whenever I hear people talking about "BPM" or any of it's other acronyms they all emphasize how I can use a neat visual tool to click together my business processes that have become "services". The tool-thing seems to be one of the main selling points - along with XML based "languages" that let you program your process "flow". Program. Yeah right. "The tool is so cool, because it lets you orchestrate your business process easily and business-people can do it". Really?
Ok, so let me get this - there are these business people (used to "programming in Word or Powerpoint") who are now going to use a nice funky GUI-thing to re-orchestrate a business process - what - one a day? Once a week? Once a month? How often does a business process need re-orchestrating once it's set up?
So, unless I'm missing something - and please do fill me in - why not use some scripting glue like Python, PERL or even Cocoon Flow to chain my services together as I need them - add some logic and that's it. After all - isn't that what these languages were built for?
And it seems to me that outside the firewall, people are doing some pretty amazing things chaining services together and remixing the Web. A lot simpler (and cheaper).
So shouldn't the enterprise be adopting this methodology and remixing the Intranet?
Posted by Matthew at May 19, 2005 07:12 PM
Comments
That's why consultants are so well paid ;)
Actually, the problem starts way before the technology: most business people won't even know what their business processes look like, let alone be able to "remix" them. The last company I worked with needed more than 6 weeks to come up with org charts - go figure...
Posted by: Frank Koehntopp at May 20, 2005 08:42 AM