notes and views on crm, social media, and the human side of information technology

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)

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March 12, 2007 | Filed Under Open Source 

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