Beyond predictable workflows: Enhancing productivity in artful business processes

Until now, the greatest productivity gains in business processes have been achieved by formalizing the processes into computer-managed workflows. However, many processes have not yielded to this approach, and in its stead, users have depended on ad hoc collaboration tools, such as e-mail and instant messaging, to coordinate their work. While undeniably useful, these tools are disconnected from process methods and can become overloaded and unproductive. Through use cases, we show that many business people are, of necessity, integrators of information technology (IT), but receive inadequate support from centralized IT. We maintain that productivity will be increased by better enabling users to select and integrate IT services as their needs evolve, promoting a shift that we call the democratization of process. With the organizing principles of activity-centric computing and the arrival of valuable online services and decentralized methods for integrating them into existing applications, such a shift is now becoming technically feasible—a goal that enterprises should pursue.