Re: [service-orientated-architecture] Re: Keith on BPM, SOA, OO & Brown Paper

[Steve Jones]

I'm not saying that some things don't go horizontal. I'll try and dig the HBS/HBR article out (doubt if they do free links though, mine is a paper thing) that talked about horizontal optimisations but vertical specialisations (something like that), my understanding of the newer thinking is that being a real expert in supply chain/finance/sales etc is a good thing, and you also then need effective ways of linking things together.  The older works talked about having horizontal process based organisations.

The drive of the old style wasn't just to have horizontal optimisation, but to have horizontal _organisation_, what has been more successful (and yours could be one of those examples) is facing the fact that there are vertical specialisations and providing horizontal optimisations to enable those verticals to co-operate better together.

This is where I think IT can really deliver, but enabling those vertical organistions to be as good as they can be is one challenge, but the real reward is as one of the few bits that can really bring those elements together in a collaborative manner.

Does that make it clearer?

Steve

On 08/10/06, Ashley at Metamaxim <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote:

Steve

> You should also read some of the HBS and other business school paper on
> why actually that horizontal process effort wasn't actually useful after
> all....

A while back I worked on a project whose objective was to take a fragmented
workflow out of "siloed" functional systems and build a "horizontal"
business process layer across the top. The idea was to remove the
constraints imposed by the functional systems on the design of new business
processes that the company wanted to implement.

The project was successful, and the architecture used became a cornerstone
of their IT strategy.

I would be interested to know why HBS feels this idea is not useful. Can you
supply a link or reference?

(Or perhaps I have misunderstood what you are saying?)

Thanks
Ashley

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