a blog

Open Source Processes

EVER NOTICED THIS IRONY? The office ghettoes are built from glass, like the one in Prague 4 where I find myself often: you can see through the walls and if had a spyglass, you could watch much of what’s going on inside. You would if there’s an element of order in this undecipherable chaos of people sitting, staring at computers, chatting in kitchenettes and seemingly doing nothing. And many times, there wouldn’t be one.

The inner workings of a company is hidden to you, an uninvolved bystander.

But, unless you’re role-playing after having seen too many Bond movies, would you even be interested in knowing what’s going on there? Who would benefit from opensourcing of processes?

We can standardise technology, and continue to do so. We can and should standardise processes, see what happens when we apply opensource thinking to service processes.

After all, it’s not the technology that will differentiate us. It’s not the process either, though there might be a short-term imbalance.

JP Rangaswami writes that companies have been poor at documenting their processes, so they would benefit from letting the sun shine on them so that they could be measured and improved. Makes sense. And I am all for making business more transparent and honest. The line I wouldn’t cross, and please let me take this farther than JP’s post goes, is that of boredom.

I as a customer don’t really need to know what different activities led to the delivery of the service I requested. Ideally, I wouldn’t even notice the process; it’s one of those things that best work unnoticed. What I usually want to know about a company is her character, her culture that’s influencing my relationship to her. Processes, technologies…? Yawn. I am not going to partake in this conversation.

Which leaves me wondering if companies should open their processes up to each other; subject them to a community examination.

And while I wouldn’t put too much value in processes themselves, they still are part of the company’s market advantage. They can be a trade secret, and if technologies are going open-source and innovations rendered obsolete in no time and people constantly on the move, what’s left to differentiate yourself from the competition? It can be a process, one that’s just a bit quicker, just a bit more agile than your next door’s rival.

(via iface thoughts)

Technorati Tags: , ,

March 12, 2007 | Filed Under Open Source 

comments

Comments are closed.

Additional comments powered by BackType

  • subscribe

  • One man's microISV

    Playground - an on-demand requirements management tool helping you get the right things done.

  • Lifestream

    • ... problem is they are already there about 23 days ago
    • So the Taliban stoned some adulterers recently. I wish US/NATO would bomb them back to the Stone Age but the problems about 23 days ago
    • Not sure that Wave is gone altogether. I can imagine it creeping into Gmail eventually. But why didn't they kill Buzz instead? about 33 days ago
    • Rooting for Uruguay. Still bad memories of CZ vs NL a couple years back. Plus I really like URU's game. #worldcup about 64 days ago
    • @ktorn what kind of app are you going to make for your Samsung? about 65 days ago
    • Firefox 4 nighly looks pretty good to me. But I still have to restart it after installing add-ons? Hope they'll fix that one day soon. about 70 days ago
    • I love that I can put MY photo on friggin Google HOMEPAGE! about 90 days ago
    • Or more precisely, it does seem a bit smarter AFTER you've visited a given URL that corresponds with the query about 93 days ago
    • Safari 5 doesn't seem to have a "smart" location bar. Enter "Google Reader" and it tries to navigate to http://google%20reader/. #fail about 93 days ago