CTO Blog
I have been having an interesting dialogue with an ex colleague York whose own blog is well worth a read. The particular dialogue has been around what is essentially the changing, and expanded environment in which we are all increasingly working. It’s a World in which Web Services and traditional IT both exist, and therefore we need to start to be careful to discriminate about terms to ensure that we really understand what we mean.
The challenge that this produces is that if both exist in parallel then we need to get a whole load more carefully about terminology. What exactly do you mean by a process as an example? Is this part of an application, an orchestration of ‘services’ or even something achieved through REST? Some 18 months ago I wrote a white paper about using Web 2.0 and SOA in which I attempted to make some clarifications.
A month so back I asked for thoughts on how to define Middleware in the new World and sure enough after some great posts I think we got a really good and recognizable definition. Well I would like to try this again with the following; (I do believe that ‘crowd sourcing’ works, particularly when looking for an ‘open’ definition).
A Transaction is the outcome of a Procedure, which is a stable, and strongly managed, workflow that will result in a computational task to create or consume a set of data records.
A Procedure is a business definable set of tasks where the value lies in the stability and unchanging nature of the procedure in ensure that the Transaction produces consistent data.
The stability and consistency of the procedure is of importance to the enterprise, in particular its CxO level officers, and its auditors, to ensure core data is reliable in its creation and use.
An Interaction is an operational Process that has a repeatable path with a consistent outcome but the value is not derived from the transaction of and production of core enterprise data.
A Process is an orchestration of a set of individual business tasks that can be used in multiple Interactions to provide an agile environment that is easy to change.
Both Interactions and Transactions can be characterized as definable in their flow and repeatable in their outcomes, but an increasing amount of business activity is based on the need to innovate the answer to a specific event and leads to the last major definition.
A Collaboration is a people based ad hoc solution based on the ability to communicate and share content to arrive at an optimized, but individual Decision in response to an Event.
And just for completeness two terms which I do think are quite well understood, but am I right in thinking this?
An Orchestration is the combining of a number of individual predetermined (Business) Tasks represented by Services into an optimized flow that uses Rules for a predictable outcome.
Choreography is the definition of messages and protocols used to Exchange information between groups of peers requiring a Process or Procedure to ensure a predictable outcome.
So a challenge again to try to come up with some common agreed terms and definitions for the above to make sure that we don’t confuse ourselves with throw away comments about ‘process’ or ‘procedure’
PS – A quick note of thanks to those readers who nominated the CTOBlog to Computer Weekly for their best Blogs competition, I am deeply grateful to you and happy to tell you that we have been short listed as a finalist in the CIO / Director category. The competition is interesting in that it shows short lists for several categories of Blogs and has included several blogs I didn’t know about and, in my opinion are well worth reading. You can find the shortlists (and vote for your choices) at www.computerweekly.com/blogawards
About the author
Capgemini Global Chief Technology Officer, Andy is a member of the Capgemini Group management board and advises on all aspects of technology-driven market changes, together with being a member of the Policy Board for the British Computer Society. Andy is the author of many white papers, and the co-author three books that have charted the current changes in technology and its use by business starting in 2006 with ‘Mashup Corporations’ detailing how enterprises could make use of Web 2.0 to develop new go to market propositions. This was followed in May 2008 by Mesh Collaboration focussing on the impact of Web 2.0 on the enterprise front office and its working techniques, then in 2010 “Enterprise Cloud Computing: A Strategy Guide for Business and Technology leaders” co-authored with well-known academic Peter Fingar and one of the leading authorities on business process, John Pyke. The book describes the wider business implications of Cloud Computing with the promise of on-demand business innovation. It looks at how businesses trade differently on the web using mash-ups but also the challenges in managing more frequent change through social tools, and what happens when cloud comes into play in fully fledged operations. Andy was voted one of the top 25 most influential CTOs in the world in 2009 by InfoWorld and is grateful to readers of Computing Weekly who voted the Capgemini CTOblog the best Blog for Business Managers and CIOs each year for the last three years.
To me:
Transaction is a cost function and Interaction is a revenue function.
All Transactions ultimately get automated , while the goal of an Interaction is to lead to the germination of revenue stream.
I like your definition of “An Interaction is an operational Process that has a repeatable path with a consistent outcome but the value is not derived from the transaction of and production of core enterprise data”
but would like to extend this to -
the value is derived from Human intelligence and intuition in collaboration with the use of Enterprise Data.
IMHO: All transaction can ultimately get automated with IT and they will ultimately go to cheaper cost centers. Now smarter companies will get their cost per transaction down using IT and dumb companies will look at labour arbitrage.
Refer: link below to see how Amazon converted its transactions to lower costs.
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2008/05/understanding_a.php
I posted the amazon link above just to illustrate how a transaction(provisioning of hardware) thought to be human only type transaction could also be automated making my case around “all transactions can be automated”.
and why are transactions automable as compared to Interactions ? Because they are repeatable. Going back to Andy’s point about “Transaction – which is a stable, and strongly managed, workflow”
Interaction will have the same outcome – ultimately increased revenue of some sort, but their granular workflow(the way they are executed) can be very different.
Also Transaction quality increases by improving process while interaction quality increases by hiring better resources.
hi Niraj
I agree strongly with the point that Interactions are a) linked to people and b) to driving revenue. I have just written a series of two posts that will be out during my holiday at the end of july about how i see ‘interaction’ coupled with the Long Tail as a new business model derived from using the Web 2.0 technology. My thinking is that current business models are either ‘proactive’ or ‘reactive’ and after the act of change move to a steady state. I believe that successful web 2.0 business using ‘interactive’ as its model to match buyer and seller in establishing the optimised deal. Think low cost airlines.
Andy ,
A relevant link that talks about being in the middle of proactive and reactive – Intelligent Reaction.
https://admin.acrobat.com/_a13852757/intelligentreaction/
The point being – that that fine line between a big glorified strategy (Pro-active) and following the lead(reactive) is “Intelligent Reactions” to everyday business.
Thanks Niraj
good links to illustart a topic are always welcomed