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![C H A P T E R 1
Business Processes—More Important
Than Ever
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
(The more things change, the more it’s all the same.)
Fosdick’s Thesis
The first edition of this book began with the sentence: “Just when process orienta-
tion has become mainstream thinking for business people and systems people alike,
it seems that the flow of process-oriented literature has pretty well stopped.” That is
hardly the case now, with a barrage of process-oriented books, articles, and confer-
ences upon us. However, the comment is still relevant, so let us continue with what
we wrote in 2000, which seems an eternity ago:
So here we are, thousands of us, up to our necks in process improvement and infor-
mation systems projects, finding that there is a real shortage of practical, how-to
information. The irony of this situation was described in Howard Fosdick’s terrific
1992 article, “The Sociology of Technology Adaptation” [1]. Our book isn’t a
book about technology, but there is a connection—the article dealt with the adop-
tion of new technologies, and this book deals with the adoption of new methods
and approaches for solving business problems.
The article begins with the observation that when any significant new technology
appears on the scene, it receives widespread publicity in the information technology
(IT) arena. This attention could be displayed graphically [see Figure 1.1] in a public-
ity vector measured by such attributes as the number of articles on the technology in
the trade press, the frequency of conferences on the topic, how many industry ana-
lysts discuss the technology, to what degree vendor sales pieces and ads employ the
technology’s terminology, and similar measurements. This curve initially rises
steeply, but the high degree of publicity received by the technology is completely
disproportionate to the usability of the technology and the number of people and
organizations doing anything more than just talking about it. However, if the new
technology takes hold and becomes widely used, as depicted by the rising usability
curve, it seems to fall off the collective radar screen of the various publicity
machines, and the publicity vector moves back toward zero.
This happens, of course, because it’s no longer a hot, new topic. Bluntly put, once
the technology is widely installed, it is evidently time to focus on the next big
thing—the consultants and IT advisory services have made their money, and the
3](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/850464-250602132503-80ff3154/85/Workflow-Modeling-Tools-For-Process-Improvement-And-Application-Development-2nd-Edition-2nd-Edition-Alec-Sharp-28-320.jpg)
![And real work is being done. Enterprises of all sizes and types—commercial,
government, and not-for-profit—realize that business processes are the mechanism
by which they deliver value, externally to the marketplace and their partners, and
internally to their own organizations. Second, with the reality of the extended enter-
prise, the complexity and visibility of processes are rising because they now do not
just span functional boundaries within an enterprise, they cross the boundaries
between enterprises. In supply chain management, it’s not unusual to see a business
process with activities performed by the customer’s customer, the customer, the
enterprise, the supplier, and the supplier’s supplier. In the face of this reality, organi-
zations have made major investments of time and resources in the redesign of their
processes and in the implementation of information systems to support them. Fre-
quently, the order is reversed—an enterprise purchases an information system,
often an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application, and then adapts its pro-
cesses to take the best advantage of it. Either way, “process” is the focus of
attention.
These developments mean that thousands of professionals from both business
and information systems (IS) disciplines are engaged in the design and implementa-
tion of new business processes and systems. In spite of all this, we are regularly
reminded that people and organizations need practical guidance in how to work
with their business processes. That is where Mr. Fosdick’s observation again proves
to be true—there is a lot of literature available, but still very little to guide profes-
sionals through the day-to-day work of completing a project focused on business
processes.
The Need for Practical Guidance
The need has been demonstrated in two ways. First, in our consulting and education
assignments, we are continually asked by professionals working on process redesign
and system implementation projects to suggest a reference book that will get past
the theory of processes, or the management of processes, and into the practical mat-
ters they are struggling with. They want answers to questions such as the following:
The Need for Practical Guidance 5
Hype
Phase
Early
Adopter
Phase
Usability
Curve
Publicity
Vector
Maturity
Phase
Figure 1.1 Usability versus publicity for new technologies. (After: [1].)](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/850464-250602132503-80ff3154/85/Workflow-Modeling-Tools-For-Process-Improvement-And-Application-Development-2nd-Edition-2nd-Edition-Alec-Sharp-30-320.jpg)
![What to Expect
As we noted in the preface, the goal of this book was, and remains, to provide a
practical exposition of methods that actually work in the real world, written by
practitioners for practitioners. Alec still remembers how useful the classic textbook
Structured Systems Analysis [2] was in 1979 when he was coping with his first
major analysis assignment. He’d go through a chapter or two in the evening and put
the material to work the very next day. The next night, another chapter, and the day
after that, more progress on his project. And, wonder of wonders, the project was
very successful. We have heard many times, from readers around the world, that the
first edition met that goal, so we have tried to make that aspect even stronger by
having the core three parts of the book organized around the three phases of our
methodology:
• Part I—Background, Principles, Overview;
• Part II—Phase 1: Establish Process Context, Scope, and Goals;
• Part III—Phase 2: Understand the As-Is Process;
• Part IV—Phase 3: Design the To-Be Process;
• Part V—Related Requirements Definition Techniques.
Part I provides the necessary underpinnings; Parts II, III, and IV cover our
three-phase, project-oriented methodology; and Part V introduces the requirements
modeling techniques you will employ if you carry on into specifying information
systems requirements.
Whatever you do, please don’t leap immediately into Part II. Chapter 3 answers
the question “what is a business process?” and is essential reading. It lays the
groundwork of terms, definitions, and methods that will be critical when you
undertake the discovery of processes using the techniques in Chapter 5. The entire
approach is summarized in Chapter 4, “The Approach in a Nutshell,” which pro-
vides context for individual phases and steps. After you read those two chapters,
you will be able to read a later chapter and immediately apply it to your project,
read the next chapter or two, apply them, and so on.
Who Are “You”?
We have tried to make the book suitable for a broad audience that includes business
people responsible for improving their business processes and systems personnel
working on a development or implementation project with a process focus. The
book has to address both perspectives, because successful process redesign projects
usually involve major information systems efforts, and the implementation of a sig-
nificant information system usually involves redesigned processes.
The three specific audiences we aim to satisfy are as follows:
• Process analysts or study/implementation team members whose job or project
responsibilities include process improvement. This is the primary audience,
the people “in the trenches,” and we aim to provide a toolkit for discovering,
What to Expect 9](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/850464-250602132503-80ff3154/85/Workflow-Modeling-Tools-For-Process-Improvement-And-Application-Development-2nd-Edition-2nd-Edition-Alec-Sharp-34-320.jpg)
![modeling, analyzing, and improving business processes. This group includes
those whose ongoing job is process analysis and those with a temporary
assignment to a process improvement project.
• Business analysts, systems analysts, and project leaders who have responsibil-
ity for requirements definition, possibly associated with purchased software
selection and configuration. We will demonstrate how to work with business
processes, how to use “process” as a means for getting the attention of the
business, and how to use it as framework for requirements definition, whether
the intent is system development or system selection and configuration.
• Business executives and managers who have been given responsibility for pro-
cess improvement. In addition to showing how to work with processes, we’ll
show how to link business strategy and business processes.
In closing, a caveat—we describe an overall methodology and the details of spe-
cific steps, but this isn’t a cookbook. It’s close, but not quite. Every project we have
worked on has unique issues, and yours will be no different. Use these methods and
techniques as a starting point, but please adjust and experiment as you see fit—that
is how we developed many of our methods and continue to evolve them. Remember,
though, that experience shows unequivocally that if you skip steps like “framing the
process” or “characterizing the to-be process,” you will regret it—“adjust and
experiment” does not imply “short-circuit and eliminate.”
That point about not skipping steps, strangely enough, brings us back to
Howard Fosdick, whose description of the publicity vector introduced this chapter.
While writing this chapter, it seemed appropriate to do a Web search to see what
Mr. Fosdick was up to these days. We found an article he had written on “Reincar-
nating a Discarded Laptop with Linux” [3], which is interesting in its own right but
also included an observation that perfectly backed up the point about not skipping
steps. Late in the process of making a discarded laptop useable, probably anxious to
see the fruits of his labors rewarded, Mr. Fosdick skipped a small step in the installa-
tion of new memory. Just as it is on a process improvement project, skipping a sim-
ple but vital step caused no end of grief. He wrote, “This one error cost me two days
of mystery and consternation (as much time as the entire planning and install pro-
cess). I had proved the hard way that jumping ahead too quickly—instead of
patiently working through procedures one step at a time—is often the most costly
error you can make.” That is profoundly true in the world of process improvement,
so once again Mr. Fosdick provides a touchstone for our book.
Before moving on to the methods, the next chapter offers a brief history lesson
of how enterprises have come to be process oriented. This will set the stage for
Chapter 3, which clarifies what we mean by “business process,” which in turn sets
the stage for Chapter 4’s overview of our methodology for working with business
processes.
References
[1] Fosdick, H., “The Sociology of Technology Adaptation,” Enterprise Systems Journal, Sep-
tember 1992.
10 Business Processes—More Important Than Ever](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/850464-250602132503-80ff3154/85/Workflow-Modeling-Tools-For-Process-Improvement-And-Application-Development-2nd-Edition-2nd-Edition-Alec-Sharp-35-320.jpg)
![[2] Gane, C., and T. Sarson, Structured Systems Analysis: Tools and Techniques, New York:
Improved Systems Technologies, 1977.
[3] Fosdick, H., “Reincarnating a Discarded Laptop with Linux,” http://www.desktoplinux
.com/articles/AT6185716632.html, August 1, 2006.
Who Are “You”? 11](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/850464-250602132503-80ff3154/85/Workflow-Modeling-Tools-For-Process-Improvement-And-Application-Development-2nd-Edition-2nd-Edition-Alec-Sharp-36-320.jpg)
![• Positives:
• It was clearly understood who the customer was, what the product or ser-
vice was, and what needed to be measured—the output of the finished
product.
• The craftsworker, who knew the whole process from beginning to end,
was the single point of contact for the customer.
• Products and services could be customized relatively easily.
• With a single contact, there could be no miscommunication or handoffs
between specialties.
• Negatives:
• There was very limited output, and scaling up was extremely difficult.
• The work essentially stopped during the transitions from one task to
another, resulting in high overhead.
• There was no entry-level workforce available, as a new craftsworker
required an extended apprenticeship.
• There was a single point of failure with no backup or synergies.
• Quality could be erratic, because the individual was not necessarily
expert in all aspects of the process.
Many of the negatives (and positives) were swept away with the Industrial Rev-
olution and the advent of factories.
The Advent of the Specialist
In 1776, Adam Smith heralded the Industrial Revolution in The Wealth of Nations
[1]. James Watt’s invention of the steam engine provided power that only a new
industrial organization could harness. To be supported by newly available mechani-
cal power, this new organization called for the division of labor into specialized
tasks. The simple pin provides a classic example of the power of specialization.
Before this advance, pins were made individually by craftsworkers. This made them
such expensive luxuries that money for frivolities was called “pin money,” since
only people with money to squander bought pins. Smith describes in detail how this
changed when the manufacture of pins was divided among many workers, each per-
forming a specialized task: “One man draws out the wire, another straightens it, a
third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to
make the head requires three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business,
to whiten the pins another; it is even a trade unto itself to put them into the paper.”
This specialization allowed a fantastic increase in the number of pins produced,
making pins readily available to anyone. Smith notes how 10 men, who, individu-
ally, could not make even 20 pins in a day, were collectively able to make 48,000
pins in a day by dividing the labor and specializing.
Popularly, the Industrial Revolution is associated with the arrival of the steam
engine, but its real legacy was the division of complex work into simpler tasks. The
success of this approach during the age of the factory gave rise to further division
The Advent of the Specialist 15](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/850464-250602132503-80ff3154/85/Workflow-Modeling-Tools-For-Process-Improvement-And-Application-Development-2nd-Edition-2nd-Edition-Alec-Sharp-40-320.jpg)
![As none of this is intended to imply that these problems were the product of
some deliberate malfeasance, we’ll take a moment to address a couple of important
points:
1. In practice, we avoid the use of the term functional silo because it has such
negative connotations. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a functionally
based organization, and using the term can alienate the people who manage
or work within them. As we’ll start to explore in Chapter 3, it’s arguably the
best way to organize resources.
2. The people that were optimizing their functions at the expense of the overall
process were not lazy, stupid, malicious, or anything of the sort. As previ-
ously noted, everyone in a healthy organization is typically doing their best,
usually within in the constraints of a structure they had no part in designing.
What was becoming apparent by the mid-1980s, however, and is still happen-
ing in many enterprises, was that over two centuries the pendulum had swung too
far from generalization toward specialization. This led, not surprisingly, to a reac-
tion, which was, of course, business process reengineering. Just as the age of the
craftsworker gave rise to the age of the factory, the rise of functional specialties led
to the reengineering revolution.
Enter Reengineering: 1990–1993
The insight of reengineering, profound at the time, was that by identifying, making
visible, understanding, rethinking, and then radically redesigning end-to-end busi-
ness processes, they could be dramatically improved. The process-centered organi-
zation would focus on the whole and see accumulated inefficiencies and
irrationalities eliminated. Measurement would shift from individual tasks, such as
checking the most forms or stamping the greatest number of fenders, to the achieve-
ment of value, such as the acquisition of a desirable new customer or the timely
delivery of a high-quality product or service. The innovative use of information
technology was a crucial factor, but so was rethinking the flow of work, the mea-
surements that motivated performance, the underlying policies of the enterprise,
and other enabling (or disabling!) factors.
The “shot heard ’round the world” of the reengineering revolution was the late
Michael Hammer’s article, “Reengineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate” [2].
Hammer introduced BPR and called it “undoing the Industrial Revolution,” because
it undid overspecialization and reunified tasks into coherent, visible processes. Actu-
ally, reengineering was well under way before the term was coined by Hammer and
then promoted by newly minted BPR consulting organizations. For example:
• The auto industry was using concurrent engineering and team-based assembly
well before BPR burst onto the stage.
• Financial services organizations had learned to completely transform excruci-
atingly sequential and fragmented processes such as granting a loan along
lines we’d later describe as “end-to-end business processes.”
Enter Reengineering: 1990–1993 19](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/850464-250602132503-80ff3154/85/Workflow-Modeling-Tools-For-Process-Improvement-And-Application-Development-2nd-Edition-2nd-Edition-Alec-Sharp-44-320.jpg)
![literature and education that began appearing after Hammer’s article didn’t really
describe how to work with business processes. Instead, it breathlessly explained the
theory and recirculated the popular case studies, all the while ignoring the motiva-
tional, human resource, and other factors that, as we’ll see, are so important. In
many cases, advice was given that was just plain bad. The classic example—“don’t
worry about analyzing the as-is process, because you’re just going to abandon it
anyway.” Another common problem (which Hammer had explicitly warned
against!)5
was “reengineering” something that wasn’t actually a process. It’s
astounding how many reengineering efforts applied to a “business process” that,
strangely, exactly fit within the boundaries of a department or function. Of course,
this only exacerbated the problems of isolation and specialization.
The Wonder Years: 1996–2000
On the heels of the reengineering backlash, the mid- to late 1990s saw focus on
information technology to an extent that caused us to wonder just what everyone
could have been thinking (hence the term the wonder years). Attention shifted from
the silver bullet of reengineering processes through IT to IT itself as a silver bullet.
“Process” as a discipline fell by the wayside, along with other skills and practices.
Some of the IT topics getting the most attention and money included the following:
• All things Internet-related, such as e-business, e-commerce, e-procurement,
and e-recruiting, to name but a few. We’ve somewhat uncharitably referred to
this as the “e-whatever” phenomenon—take any struggling project, put “e-”
in front of its name, and suddenly it’s revived.
• Y2K remediation, with which, unlike some post-2000 commentators, we
have no problem. At many organizations, we saw these efforts head off seri-
ous problems. Of course, the fact that the problems then failed to occur was
grist for the cynic’s mill. Our interest, for this discussion, is that it did divert a
lot of time and resources, and the avenue chosen by many firms was to imple-
ment an ERP package, as per the next point.
• ERP applications from providers like SAP, Oracle, and PeopleSoft (before its
acquisition by Oracle). ERP was the name given to families of very large, com-
mercial software packages intended to integrate mainstream business data
and functions (e.g., sales, human resources, finance, and manufacturing)
across the enterprise, which likely has a familiar ring to it.
Unfortunately, many of these initiatives weren’t any more successful than the
previous BPR initiatives, such as the following:
• A manufacturer’s e-business project receives a chilly reception from its
intended beneficiaries—clients who would use the facility to submit design
The Wonder Years: 1996–2000 21
5. Hammer was on record as saying “Reengineering a department is an oxymoron.” The upshot was that
reengineering efforts worked out much less well than hoped, and within a few short years of the ascendancy
of BPR, reports of high-profile failures spread. There was shock in reengineering circles when articles
appeared [3] citing a failure rate among BPR projects of 70 to 80 percent! BPR began fading from the con-
sciousness of the enterprise, and interest shifted to other bright and shiny objects.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/850464-250602132503-80ff3154/85/Workflow-Modeling-Tools-For-Process-Improvement-And-Application-Development-2nd-Edition-2nd-Edition-Alec-Sharp-46-320.jpg)
![validation requests. The process required substantially more effort on the
manufacturer’s part than anticipated and didn’t fit well with its development
process.
• At an engineering firm specializing in oil exploration, an expensive
intranet-based program combines best practices from the disciplines of data
management and knowledge management, but the firm finds the results
unused.
• A beer distributor decides that typical development practices such as business
analysis and systems architecture were anachronistic and trusts the develop-
ment of a major new distribution application to a hot-shot Web design com-
pany. When we were called in to look at the unfolding disaster, we were
stunned to find that the developers thought they were going to prototype their
way to a successful implementation across a complex supply chain and that
they really (really!) didn’t know what a database was.
• The costs of an ERP implementation at a global retailer spiral ever-upward,
with configuration becoming increasingly complex; the results are met with
hostility by the primary users, and no net benefit is realized.
A common denominator in all of these examples was that they failed in large
part because they didn’t adequately take “business process” into account, a realiza-
tion that was soon to take hold.
Business Process Rides Again!: 2000–Present
Readers of the first edition of this book might wonder at this point if we’ve engaged
in a little revisionist history. In that edition our timeline went directly from “Exit
Reengineering: 1994–1995” to “The Reengineering Aftermath: 1996–Present,” in
which we offered the rosy view that we’d seen the merging of continuous improve-
ment and reengineering into what we called process management. But what about
“the wonder years”? Well, we wrote our process history in 1999, and, in hindsight,
we were a little optimistic about that post-1995 period. Being heads-down at organi-
zations that had embraced a process perspective, we weren’t paying a lot of atten-
tion to some of the “wonder years” hysteria or IT disasters unfolding throughout the
economy. The dot-com meltdown of 2000 and the subsequent economic contrac-
tion were followed by a flood of analysts’ reports and “true confessions” articles
about what had really been going on, which led us to look at the preceding years
more critically.
A consequence of the “dot-bomb” bust was that money was no longer falling
from the skies, and many companies suddenly had to pay intense attention to expen-
ditures. Some individuals found that “after years of being asked to do more with
more, [they were] being asked in a serious way to do more with less,” as Richard
Hunter, a research fellow at Gartner, Inc., so aptly put it. Boards of directors started
asking about previous expenditures, and a common avenue of inquiry was “What
was the return on investment for our ERP implementation?” Bear in mind that these
projects had price tags that extended into the tens and even hundreds of millions of
dollars! Perhaps these execs had been listening to John Parkinson, VP and chief tech-
22 A Brief History—How the Enterprise Came to Be Process Oriented](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/850464-250602132503-80ff3154/85/Workflow-Modeling-Tools-For-Process-Improvement-And-Application-Development-2nd-Edition-2nd-Edition-Alec-Sharp-47-320.jpg)
![and pragmatic than it was in the reengineering era. Rather than proclaiming that
they are “doing reengineering,” organizations understand that dealing with their
business processes is normal behavior. We’ll now touch on some of the evidence that
“process is normal” but please (please!) bear in mind that this is by no means
intended to be a compete survey of “the state of business process”—it’s just a quick
overview of the current environment with some references for readers interested in
following up on specific topics.
Process-Oriented Products
Products and services are available in a growing number of process-oriented areas,
such as the following:
• Supply chain management (SCM) and reverse SCM for dealing with returns;
• Customer relationship management (CRM);
• Product lifecycle management (PLM).
Note that each of these is an example of what we’ll later define as a “process
area,” a named collection of interrelated business processes. A quick Web search
will uncover a wealth of information on these and other areas.
Process Frameworks
Vendor-neutral bodies have made available a number of process frameworks that
provide a variety of resources, including standard process descriptions and terminol-
ogy, benchmarks, and best practices. The best-known are probably the following:
• ITIL—The Information Technology Infrastructure Library, which was origi-
nally developed under the leadership of the U.K.’s Office of Government Com-
merce (OGC) but is now used globally as a baseline for IT service
management. See http://www.itil.co.uk or www.itsmf.org.
• SCOR—The supply-chain operations reference model provides a rich frame-
work, covering plan, source, make, deliver, and return process types. See also
the design-chain operations reference (DCOR) model from the same organiza-
tion, covering plan, research, design, integrate, and amend process types. See
http://www.supply-chain.org.
• APQC process classification framework—quoting from it, “the APQC Process
Classification FrameworkSM
(PCF) serves as a high-level, industry-neutral
enterprise model that allows organizations to see their activities from a
cross-industry process viewpoint.” See http://www.apqc.org, then “Frame-
works and Models.”
• VRM—The value-chain reference model. See www.value-chain.org, then
select “VRM.”
Tom Davenport, in a Harvard Business Review article [4], has observed that the
standardization and benchmarking of certain business processes will accelerate.
Standard process definitions and performance measures will in turn allow busi-
24 A Brief History—How the Enterprise Came to Be Process Oriented](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/850464-250602132503-80ff3154/85/Workflow-Modeling-Tools-For-Process-Improvement-And-Application-Development-2nd-Edition-2nd-Edition-Alec-Sharp-49-320.jpg)
![nesses to choose more objectively among alternate business process outsourcing ser-
vice providers. And this, as the title implies, will lead to the commoditization of
outsourced business processes, which surely demonstrates how much process orien-
tation is part of the landscape.
Less Polarization
Currently, we see much less tension between perspectives previously at odds with
one another:
1. Process and function;
2. Continuous improvement and radical redesign;
3. Systems development and process reengineering.
Let’s take a look, in turn, at the rapprochement that’s occurred in each of these.
Process and function: In the rush to embrace the new, writers and consultants
often fail to take note of the benefits of whatever they want to leave behind. This
was certainly true during the heyday of reengineering, when there was a steady
stream of commentary about the flaws of functional orientation and the virtues of
process orientation. However, if functional orientation did not have some benefits,
it would not have prevailed for most of the twentieth century. The benefits became
evident, belatedly, at some companies that took process orientation to the extreme
of implementing organization structures based on processes rather than functional
specialties. It seemed like a great idea at the time, but, in most cases, didn’t work out
very well. The new structures were hard to manage and inefficient in sharing skilled
resources. Worst of all, skill levels in functional specialties declined. More recently,
there is general awareness that functional specialties are a great way to develop high
levels of skill in a pool of resources that can be used efficiently across multiple pro-
cesses. The processes, of course, must be designed to flow smoothly through the
functions and focus effort around the end result.
Continuous improvement and radical redesign: Continuous process improve-
ment (CPI), and its cousin total quality management (TQM), are outgrowths of
Deming’s work, especially in Japan, where the term kaizen originates. Kaizen [5] is
the concept of continuous improvement, its central tenet being that you must con-
tinuously improve your processes to keep a quality product in production. When
reengineering first emerged, there was considerable tension between the
reengineering and kaizen (or CPI or TQM) communities. The reengineers wondered
why their kaizen-oriented counterparts were improving processes that ought to
have been scrapped. Those who espoused kaizen found the reengineers to be rash
and destructive, often throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Eventually, the
two were brought together under the milder terms process orientation or process
management, with the recognition that reengineering a process is done once (or
periodically), and improving it (kaizen) goes on forever (see Figure 2.3). Kaizen and
BPR have become less state of the art and more standard practice, even though the
terms are not used as widely as they once were. In recent years, the “official” term
has become business process management (BPM), which is the subject of numerous
books, service offerings, conferences, and courses. A quick Web search will reveal
From Fad to Business as Usual 25](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/850464-250602132503-80ff3154/85/Workflow-Modeling-Tools-For-Process-Improvement-And-Application-Development-2nd-Edition-2nd-Edition-Alec-Sharp-50-320.jpg)
![Process Orientation—The Best of All Worlds?
A process is a way to organize work, and over time different approaches to organiz-
ing work have prevailed. In the age of the craftsworker, work was organized around
a multiskilled individual who accomplished the entire process and was focused on
delivery of the end product to the customer. In the eras of the factory and functional
specialization, work was divided among individual and organizational specialties,
which internally became highly efficient and skilled, but often disconnected. Finally,
the reengineering era and the current process-oriented era have seen work organized
to expedite alignment among the various specialties participating in the overall pro-
cess, with a focus (again) on the end result for the customer. Each of these was an
advance over the previous era, and each had strengths and weaknesses. At organiza-
tions that have embraced a process-driven approach, we see that strengths from each
of the eras we’ve cited are in place:
• Appropriate focus is on the customer and on outcomes.
• Defined, repeatable processes can be measured, improved, and compared
against industry benchmarks. They can also be explicitly aligned with enter-
prise goals, which are not necessarily pure efficiency but might instead be flex-
ibility or innovation.
• There is much greater overall efficiency through streamlined flow and elimina-
tion of unnecessary, redundant, or counterproductive work.
• Functionally specialized organizations and individuals provide high levels of
expertise, but with their efforts aligned with the goals of the business processes
they participate in.
• We’ve moved away from excessively narrow job definitions, so jobs tend to be
richer and more satisfying. However, there’s no avoiding the fact that every-
one has to work very hard these days.
• Greater awareness of the whole leads to a healthier organizational ecology
and greater opportunities for employees to move into new areas.
That’s not to say everything’s perfect in the process-driven company, but, all in
all, it’s a pretty good state of affairs. Achieving this state depends on multiple fac-
tors, but certainly one of the most fundamental is a clear and shared understanding
of what a business process really is. That’s what we’ll look at in Chapter 3.
References
[1] Smith, A., An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, London: W.
Strahan and T. Cadell in the Strand, 1776.
[2] Hammer, M., “Reengineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate,” Harvard Business
Review, July–August 1990. At the same time, Tom Davenport and James Short published
the other seminal article, “The New Industrial Engineering: IT and Business Process Rede-
sign,” Sloan Management Review, Summer 1990. In 1993, Hammer’s article was expanded
with James Champy into the now classic book Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto
for Business Revolution (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), and Davenport published Pro-
28 A Brief History—How the Enterprise Came to Be Process Oriented](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/850464-250602132503-80ff3154/85/Workflow-Modeling-Tools-For-Process-Improvement-And-Application-Development-2nd-Edition-2nd-Edition-Alec-Sharp-53-320.jpg)
![cess Innovation: Reengineering Work Through Information Technology (Boston: Harvard
Business School Press, 1992).
[3] Hall, G., J. Rosenthal, and J. Wade, “How to Make Reengineering Really Work,” Harvard
Business Review, November–December 1993.
[4] Davenport, T. H., “The Coming Commoditization of Processes,” Harvard Business
Review, June 2005.
[5] Imai, M., Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success, New York: McGraw-Hill,
1989.
Process Orientation—The Best of All Worlds? 29](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/850464-250602132503-80ff3154/85/Workflow-Modeling-Tools-For-Process-Improvement-And-Application-Development-2nd-Edition-2nd-Edition-Alec-Sharp-54-320.jpg)
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- 8. Workflow Modeling Tools forProcess Improvement and Applications Development Second Edition Alec Sharp Patrick McDermott artechhouse.com
- 9. Library of CongressCataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the U.S. Library of Congress. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-59693-192-3 Cover design by Yekaterina Ratner © 2009 ARTECH HOUSE, INC. 685 Canton Street Norwood, MA 02062 All rights reserved. Printed and bound in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includ- ing photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks or service marks have been appropriately capitalized. Artech House cannot attest to the accuracy of this informa- tion. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trade- mark or service mark. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
- 10. Contents Preface xv PART I Background,Principles, Overview 1 CHAPTER 1 Business Processes—More Important Than Ever 3 Fosdick’s Thesis 3 And Now? 4 The Need for Practical Guidance 5 Building Methods to Meet the Need 8 What to Expect 9 Who Are “You”? 9 References 10 CHAPTER 2 A Brief History—How the Enterprise Came to Be Process Oriented 13 Learning from the Past 13 The Multiskilled Craftsworker 14 The Advent of the Specialist 15 The Rise of Functional Specialties 16 Function and Organization—What’s the Difference? 17 Losing the Process in the Functions 17 Enter Reengineering: 1990–1993 19 Exit Reengineering: 1994–1995 20 The Wonder Years: 1996–2000 21 Business Process Rides Again!: 2000–Present 22 From Fad to Business as Usual 23 Process-Oriented Products 24 Process Frameworks 24 Less Polarization 25 A Predictable Complaint 26 Process Orientation—The Best of All Worlds? 28 References 28 v
- 11. CHAPTER 3 Business Processes—WhatAre They, Anyway? 31 The Trouble with “Process”—Why We Need a Clear Definition 31 No Definitions, but Lots of Opinions 31 Is “Business Process” an Arbitrary Concept? 32 Does It Matter? 32 Trouble Controlling Scope and Producing Useful Deliverables 33 Problems Caused by Improperly Defined Processes 34 Your Scope Will Often Be Smaller Than a Business Process 35 Hasn’t This Problem Been Solved Already? 36 What Do Books in the “Business Process” Field Say? 36 What Does the Dictionary Say? 37 What Do Information Systems Dictionaries Say? 37 So What, Finally, Is a Business Process? 38 The Approach We’ll Take 39 Defining “Process” in General 39 Defining Business Process in Particular 46 A Test for Business Processes Boundaries 49 Applying the Guideline 53 So What? 55 Is Everything a Process? 55 Can All Processes Be Modeled? 56 Summary 56 Criteria for Business Processes 56 Other Business Process Characteristics 59 Measurable 59 Automation 59 Levels of Detail 60 Customers: Internal and External 60 Closing Advice 61 Processes Are Hidden 62 They’re Bigger Than You Think 62 Hidden Issues 63 What’s Next? 64 References 64 CHAPTER 4 The Approach in a Nutshell 65 This Chapter and Beyond… 65 Why It Works 66 Whom It’s For 67 Processes—Results, Not Work 67 Frameworks in General 68 A Framework for Process Enablers 69 A Framework for Putting Processes and Systems in Context 72 One Person’s Mission Is Another Person’s Objective 72 Expanding the Framework 73 vi Contents
- 12. A Closer Lookat the Three-Tier Architecture 74 Presentation Services 74 Business Services 75 Data Management 76 Models in General 76 The Modeling Techniques We Employ 77 Business Process: Process Workflow Models 77 Presentation Services: Use Cases and Use Case Scenarios 81 Business Services: Service Specification and Supporting Techniques 82 Data Management: Data Models 82 Five-Tier Thinking 82 A Workflow-Driven Methodology—The Process of Studying Processes 83 Establish Process Context, Scope, and Goals 84 Understand the As-Is Process 85 Design the To-Be Process 85 After the Three-Phase Method 87 Applications of the Approach 88 PART II Phase 1: Establish Process Context, Scope, and Goals 91 CHAPTER 5 Discover Business Processes 93 Process Discovery—What, Why, and How 93 The Goal: An Overall Process Map 95 The Approach 97 Questions You’ll Probably Have 99 Step 1: Get Started 101 Gathering Background Information 101 Meeting with the Sponsor 105 Step 2: Conduct Pre-Session Interviews 110 Step 3: Prepare for First Session 114 Step 4: Initiate First Session 118 Step 5: Analyze Terms and Find the Nouns 123 Step 6: Identify Activities 127 Step 7: Link the Activities and Determine Business Processes 129 Naming the Business Processes 132 Choose the First Process Project 133 Divine Intervention 134 Analytic Approach 135 References 136 CHAPTER 6 Establish Process Scope and Contents 137 Goals 137 Overview 137 How Specifically Do Scope and Contents Help? 139 Contents vii
- 13. Step 1: IdentifyTriggering Event(s) 139 Step 2: Identify Result for Each Stakeholder 142 Step 3: Identify Subprocesses 146 Step 4: Identify Cases 147 Step 5: Identify Participating Organizations 149 Step 6: Identify Individual Actors and Main Responsibilities 149 Step 7: Identify Supporting Mechanisms 149 Step 8: Identify Process Measures (Optional) 150 CHAPTER 7 Conduct Initial As-Is Process Assessment 151 Establishing Rationale and Direction 151 The Process Case for Action and Process Vision 153 Why Bother? Doesn’t Everyone Know This Already? 153 The Case for Action 154 Step 1: Stakeholder Assessment 154 Step 2: Context 155 Step 3: Consequences of Inaction 156 A Note on the Simplified Framework 156 The Vision 157 An Example 158 A Closer Look at Assessment by Stakeholder 159 Everyone’s a Critic… 159 Don’t Guess—Ask! 160 The Customer 161 The Performers 163 Owners and Managers 164 Suppliers 165 Other Groups 165 Process Differentiator 166 What Is a Differentiator, Improvement Dimension, or Strategic Discipline? 166 A Common Misconception 168 Differentiators in Action 169 The Relevance of the Concept 170 Faster, Cheaper, Better, or What? 172 Common Questions 173 Look at the Process in Terms of Enablers 174 Workflow Design 175 Information Systems 176 Motivation and Measurement 178 Human Resources 179 Policies and Rules 181 Facilities 182 All Enablers Matter 182 The Environment in Which the Process Operates 182 An Example 183 viii Contents
- 14. Topics in “theEnvironment” 184 Beliefs, Culture, and Management Style 185 Everything Stems from Beliefs 186 Other Cultural Traits 186 Core Competencies 188 What Are We Really Good At? 188 Measures 189 How Many? 190 Got the Time? 190 Who’s Involved? 192 Efficiency 192 Cost 193 Summary of Measures 193 Potential Improvements 194 One Poster Is Worth a Thousand Words 195 Summarizing Findings 195 It Matters! 195 References 197 PART III Phase 2: Understand the As-Is Process 199 CHAPTER 8 Process Workflow Models: The Essentials 201 Overview 201 The Real Purpose of This Section 201 The Practical Side 201 Swimlane Diagrams—What and Why 202 What’s the Attraction? 202 What Are They? 202 Example 1: The Essence of Workflow Modeling 205 Example 2: Getting to the Essence Without Diving into Detail 205 Question 1: “Who Gets the Work Next?” 207 Question 2: “How Does It Get There?” 209 Question 3: “Who Really Gets the Work Next?” 210 What Did We Learn from This Example? 211 Example 3: “How Do I Depict…?” 213 Customer Service… 213 Repair Service… 214 Service Analysis… 214 Telemarketing… 214 Market Database Research… 215 RB Tel—Questions Raised 215 Essential Elements of a Swimlane Diagram 216 The Details 216 Actors and Roles 216 Steps and Decisions 219 Contents ix
- 15. Flow 223 What’s Next?231 CHAPTER 9 Process Workflow Models—Managing Progressive Detail 233 The Curse of Detail 233 What’s the Problem? 233 Achieving a Controlled Descent 234 Three Levels of Workflow Diagrams 234 Level 1: The Handoff Diagram 235 Issues and Observations with the Handoff Diagram 237 Recap 239 Level 2: The Service Diagram 240 Level 3: The Task Diagram 243 Closing Thoughts 244 CHAPTER 10 Process Workflow Models—The Finer Points 245 Introduction 245 Actors and Other Characters 245 Every Actor? Really? 246 Jobs, Roles, and Committees 247 Systems as Actors 248 Passive Actors 252 Processes as Actors 254 Steps and Types of Steps 255 What Makes It Go? Flow! 255 Dealing with Complexity 258 Flowing On 261 CHAPTER 11 Develop As-Is Process Workflow Model 263 Introduction 263 Dealing with Resistance to As-Is Modeling 265 Assembling the Team 267 Management and Front-Line Participants? 267 Front-Line Workers or Representatives? 268 IT and Other Supporting Players? 268 External Participants 269 Preparing for the Modeling Session 269 Scheduling 269 The Kickoff 273 Approach 273 Question 1: What Are We Doing? 274 Question 2: Which Process Are We Modeling? 275 Building the Handoff-Level Diagram 275 The Mechanics and the Methods 275 x Contents
- 16. Option 1—Trace theFlow (The Three Questions Approach) 276 Option 2—Bottom Up (Gather Activities, Then Assemble) 280 Refining the Initial Model—The Five Key Questions 281 “Can We Stop Now?” 284 Producing the Service Diagram 288 Issues During As-Is Modeling 290 Misapplying Workflow Modeling 290 Modeling Different Versions of the Same Process 292 Inability to Model a Particular Situation 293 Facilitation Issues 294 Dealing with Disagreement 296 Conclusion 297 PART IV Phase 3: Design the To-Be Process 299 CHAPTER 12 Conduct Final As-Is Process Assessment 301 Introduction 301 Getting Ready 303 Confirm Initial Assessment and Goals 303 Capture First Impressions 304 Identify Leverage Points 304 Assessment by Enablers 306 Workflow Design 307 Information Systems 309 Motivation and Measurement 310 Human Resources 314 Policies and Rules 317 Facilities 317 Other Factors 318 Assess Individual Steps 319 Consolidate Improvement Ideas 320 Decide on Approach 320 References 321 CHAPTER 13 Determine To-Be Process Characteristics and Workflow 323 Look Before You Leap! 323 Goals 324 Philosophy/Approach 324 Post and Review Key Materials from Previous Phases 326 Collect Ideas—Getting Started 327 Build on Ideas Generated During Assessment 327 Generate Ideas That Specifically Address the “Leverage Points” 328 Steal Ideas by Reviewing “Best Practices” 328 “Best Practices” in General 328 Contents xi
- 17. Workflow Design 329 InformationSystems 330 Motivation and Measurement (“Reward and Punishment” Schemes) 331 Human Resources 332 Policies and Rules 333 Facilities Design (or Other Factors) 334 Brainstorming Additional Suggestions 334 Apply the Challenge Process 335 Assess Ideas in Context and Select 337 Develop Ideal To-Be Workflow 340 Develop To-Be Workflow 343 Road Trip 344 References 347 PART V Related Requirements Definition Techniques 349 CHAPTER 14 Business-Oriented Data Modeling 351 Data Modeling—What It Is, What It Isn’t 351 Basic Terms and Concepts 352 A Simple Example 353 The Narrative Component—the Entity Definitions 353 The Graphic Component—the Entity-Relationship Diagram 355 Levels of Detail 359 Contextual Data Model 362 Conceptual Data Model 362 Logical Data Model 363 The Components—Further Guidelines and Pitfalls 363 Entities 364 Attributes 366 Relationships 367 Starting Your Data Model 369 Starting Covertly 369 Starting Overtly 370 Starting by Reverse Engineering 372 From Conceptual to Logical 373 References 373 CHAPTER 15 Requirements Modeling with Use Cases and Services 375 From Workflow to Information System Requirements 375 A Time of Transition 375 Transition into Use Cases 376 Separation into Business Services and Use Cases 376 A Quick Example 380 Business Services—Why? 384 xii Contents
- 18. Disclaimer and Direction387 The Approach and How It’s Different 387 Business Services in General 390 Services and Events—A Point of Confusion 390 Business Services and Business Events 391 What Is an Event? 391 Types of Events 392 Services—Granularity 393 A Few More Guidelines 394 Want More? 395 Use Case Concepts 395 Use Cases in General 395 Extensions and Scenarios 396 The Methodology 397 Seven Steps to Success 397 Using Facilitated Sessions 398 Step 1: Identify Services (Scope) and Complete Initial Service Specifications (Concept) 399 Choose Your Primary Approach 399 Brainstorm for Events or Services 400 Refine the List of Events or Services 401 Finalize the Scope-Level List of Services 402 Describe Business Services 403 Confirm Business Services 404 Step 2: Identify Use Cases (Scope) and Complete Initial Use Case Descriptions (Concept) 404 Discover Use Cases 404 Describe the Use Cases 406 Step 3: Complete Final Service Specifications (Detail) 409 Step 4: Begin Final Use Case Descriptions (First Pass at Detail) 412 Create Use Case Dialogues 412 Step 5: Refine Final Use Case Descriptions (Final Pass at Detail) 415 Step 6: Identify and Describe Use Case Scenarios (Conditions and Outcomes) 418 Establish Use Case Scenarios 419 Step 7: Complete Use Case Scenario Descriptions (Dialogues); Refine Use Cases As Necessary 420 Closing Thoughts 420 More Uses of Use Cases 420 But Why Do They Work So Well? 422 Reference 422 Appendix 423 About the Authors 435 Index 437 Contents xiii
- 20. Preface How the FirstEdition Came to Be I’ve been asked many times why I decided to write a book, often in a tone that makes the question seem more like “What on earth possessed you to do that?” The truth is, I’ve asked myself the same question, in the same tone, more than once. Let’s start the second edition of Workflow Modeling by answering it. I met Patrick McDermott in October 1997, at a DAMA1 conference in Sacra- mento, California. We became coauthors of the first edition of this book, but when we met, neither of us had any idea that would happen. Both of us were speaking on topics that were relatively obscure at the time, but would get more attention in the coming years. Mine was business modeling in the world of packaged applications, and Patrick, whose book Solving the Year 2000 Crisis2 had just been published, nat- urally spoke about Y2K. I loved Patrick’s presentation and his easy way of involving everyone, and he apparently thought well of my presentation, so we ended up talk- ing about our interests and our work. Later, while we were out to dinner in Old Sac with a large group from the conference, I told Patrick how much I admired him for having a book published. I told him I wished I could say I’d written a book too. The conversation went roughly like this: Patrick: “Why would you like to write a book?” Alec: “I think my mother would be really pleased if I had a book published.” “What would you write about?” “Hmmm… I think I’d write a book about workflow modeling.” “Workflow modeling? Why workflow modeling?” (Patrick looked interested, not dubious.) “Well, with all the Internet hysteria these days, everyone seems to have forgot- ten how important business processes are. But companies are going to get into trou- ble, and business processes and workflow modeling and all that stuff will come back.” “Sounds interesting...” xv 1. Data Administration and Management Association. 2. An editorial comment: The media by and large sniggered that the world didn’t end on January 1, 2000, but the Year 2000 problem (Y2K, as it came to be known) certainly wasn’t a sham. I was in many companies whose Y2K remediation programs uncovered problems that would have stopped the business in its tracks. My favorite was the dairy that found its cows were not Y2K compliant because of the embedded ID tags that tracked their movements in and out of the barn—that would have left them legally unable to ship milk.
- 21. I don’t actuallyremember if Patrick said it sounded interesting or not. What I do remember is returning our attention to the matter at hand—dinner and some good West Coast microbrew. The next day, back at the conference, Patrick greeted me with a reminder of the previous night’s conversation: “Say, about that book you want to write…” “Book? What book?” “You know, the one on workflow modeling.” “Oh, yeah… that book.” “Well, I e-mailed my editor Jonathan Plant about it last night, and he says Artech wants it.” “Really?” “Yes. And if you want to write it, I’ll help.” I thought about it for roughly half a second and said “Sure—that sounds great.” A book seemed like a good idea, but I knew that without making a commitment to another person, I’d never be able to finish writing one. What I didn’t know was how hard it would be, but it would be a while before I was going to find that out. The publishing process being what it is, there were many things to be done before we would actually start writing the book, and our consult- ing schedules being what they were, these things were going to take a long time. Over the next 11 months we developed overviews and outlines, created a table of contents, wrote a sample chapter, completed a marketing proposal, responded to the comments of anonymous reviewers, and so on. Almost a year after we’d met, on September 24, 1998, I received a brief e-mail from Patrick: “Good news: looks like the book’s been accepted. Bad news: now we’ve got to write it.” Soon I found out just how much work writing is. Over the next two years, between autumn 1998 and summer 2000, I worked on the book—in hotel rooms, airplanes, restaurants, the library, and anywhere else I happened to be when a bit of time opened up. Patrick kept busy at his end, and because work took me to Northern California regularly, we were often able to arrange working sessions in San Fran- cisco or Sacramento. Throughout those two years, I was constantly grateful for Pat- rick’s ideas, writing, and great stories, and especially grateful to have a sounding board and someone to keep the project moving forward. This second edition has been a solo project, but without Patrick’s contribution, there never would have been a first edition to follow. Some Surprises Workflow Modeling was published in February 2001, at which point it was still a surprise to us that we had even finished the book. The real shocker came a little later, with the reception the book received. Sales were very good almost immediately, driven in large part by word-of-mouth referrals and Web searches on the topic, indi- cating an unmet need. Lucky timing was also part of it—as we explain in Chapter 2, interest in business processes was reignited in 2001, so we benefitted from a desire for up-to-date literature on the subject. Many readers e-mailed to thank us for pro- viding it and let us know exactly why they liked the book. The words or phrases that xvi Preface
- 22. came up mostoften were “practical,” “clear,” “step-by-step,” and “real world.” Our stated goal was to provide a practical guide, by practitioners for practitioners, so this feedback was especially gratifying. Later, the book was picked up by universities as a text for both undergraduate and MBA courses, which was another nice surprise. (I have to confess it was a real thrill the first time a participant in one of my workshops introduced themselves by saying “I signed up for this course because your book was a text in my MBA pro- gram.”) We even heard from employees at the major management consulting firms and ERP3 software vendors that the book was being used internally as a consulting guide. A final bonus was that the book led to some very interesting consulting assignments during which we were able to work with the methods in new environ- ments and refine and extend them. The first edition had been a lot of work, but at this point it certainly seemed to have been worth it! How the Second Edition Came to Be In mid-2005, Wayne Yuhasz, our acquisitions editor at Artech House, burst the bubble of complacency by suggesting that it was time for a second edition of Workflow Modeling. Sensing that work would be involved, I resisted. Laziness isn’t an impressive excuse, so I took a different tack and pointed out that even though there had been major developments in the technologies supporting business pro- cesses, in particular the appearance of Business Process Management Systems (BPMS), our book was focused on methods, not the supporting technologies. We were still getting positive feedback on the first edition, and besides, there was noth- ing actually wrong with it—the methods were still sound, since we hadn’t included anything that didn’t work in real life. I think I even (another embarrassing admis- sion) suggested that it was “sort of timeless.” Wayne, however, is a good guy and a persuasive guy, which is a tough combina- tion to deal with. And persist he did. He pointed out that sales would inevitably decline, if for no other reason than the 2001 publication date. I had to agree that the world was a very different place than it was in early 2001, and a book published then would seem to have come from a different era. I ran this reasoning past my friend Roger Burlton, whose book Business Process Management4 was also pub- lished in 2001. Like a good friend, he gave clear advice that wasn’t necessarily what I wanted to hear. He agreed with Wayne that in our field, no matter how “timeless” I thought it was, a book published five or six years ago was going to be viewed suspiciously. Evidently, I needed to rethink my arguments, so I had a closer look at the first edition, my workshop materials, and the stacks of notes on methods and techniques that I had accumulated from consulting jobs, developing conference presentations, How the Second Edition Came to Be xvii 3. Enterprise Resource Planning is the umbrella term used to describe large, multimodule, commercial soft- ware packages that integrate and automate the core functions of an enterprise, such as product planning, purchasing, material management, manufacturing planning, order fulfillment, human resources, customer relations, finance and accounting, and so on. 4. Burlton, Roger, Business Process Management, Indianapolis, IN: SAMS, 2001.
- 23. and the questionsand comments of thousands of workshop participants. Sure enough, even though the overall methodology was largely the same, many refine- ments had been made over the intervening six or seven years, and I had a host of new how-to tips and techniques that were working well for me and for others. It turned out Wayne was right, and there was more than enough new material to justify a new edition, so I agreed to get to work on it. Once again, I found out how much work it is! In fact, it was much harder the second time around. As my friends have pointed out, being a bit ADD and a bit of a perfectionist is a bad combination. Without a writing partner to keep me on track, it was that much worse. Patrick’s participation would have been a wonderful help this time around, but my travel schedule just didn’t permit it. Do We Really Need a Second Edition? When we wrote the first edition, we had the luxury of a wide open field. No books had appeared in the business process arena for quite some time, although there were terrific works in progress concurrent with our first edition. Roger’s book Business Process Management, as noted earlier, was published shortly after ours, in 2001. Paul Harmon’s book Business Process Change5 was published a couple of years later, in December 2002. Within a year or two of that, many more process-oriented books were appearing on the market. Ours had a different emphasis than the others, being aimed more at the “in the trenches” analyst, but in the larger scheme of things, all were “process books.” This was apparently a field that was gathering interest. Now, in 2008, the field is quite a bit more crowded, especially if you’re looking for titles on Business Process Management, Lean methods, or Six Sigma. That being the case, a reasonable question is “Aren’t there already many books covering what yours does?” Surprisingly, the answer is no. Let’s explain that by first establishing what this second edition doesn’t cover. For starters, this is not a book on Business Process Management, Lean, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, or any other widely used methodology. Practitioners in those areas told us they found the first edition useful, and I hope this one is as well, but if you want coverage of those topics there are already several fine titles to choose from. What else isn’t it? Well, it’s not a collection of case studies, nor is it a call to action exhorting you to get serious about business processes, nor is it a book on the necessary standards and supporting technologies such as BPMS, BAM, BPMN, BPEL, XPDL,6 or any others. So, what’s left? Is there a market segment for business process books that isn’t getting crowded? Yes, and it turns out to be the same one we set out to address over 10 years ago—anyone who has to undertake a process-oriented project, whether it’s focused on business process redesign, information system implementation, or both. We still get feedback that Workflow Modeling is the only book that explains, in step-by-step fashion, how to carry out a complete project, from process discovery, scoping, and assessment, through modeling, analysis, and redesign, and on to cap- xviii Preface 5. Harmon, Paul, Business Process Change, San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, 2002. 6. Respectively, Business Process Management System, Business Activity Monitoring, Business Process Model- ing Notation, Business Process Execution Language, and XML Process Definition Language.
- 24. turing information systemsrequirements with use cases, services, and data models. Messing with that would be a thoroughly bad idea, so the purpose of the second edi- tion is to provide an updated work that is even more useful and more practical than the first edition for people who are trying to get the job done on real projects. Sounds good, but what will the specific differences be? What’s Different This Time? The first difference that a reader of the first edition is likely to notice is that the sec- ond edition has much more content than the first and is almost twice as large. That’s because a substantial amount of additional material is included to address the issues that seem to bedevil people everywhere when they work on business processes: • How to identify a true business process and convincingly demonstrate where one process ends and another begins; • How to maintain focus on what a workflow model is really for and avoid the “deep dive into excruciating detail”; • How to separate “business modeling” from “implementation modeling”; • How to prepare for and facilitate a process modeling session; • How to assess a process, before and after mapping it, without casting blame or building resentment; • How to generate “out of the box” ideas for the to-be process; • How to assess those brilliant ideas so the process isn’t inadvertently made worse than it was before; • How to transition from the to-be process model to information systems requirements. Questions like these arise again and again, on projects in every sort of commer- cial or government enterprise, so they have received particular attention. The over- all changes that readers of the first edition will notice include: • The book is even more practical and how-to than the original; that’s what people liked before, so now there’s more emphasis on techniques, tips, tricks, traps, and advice. • There’s a refined overall structure that supports a clearer, three-phase meth- odology reflecting how successful projects are structured. • It provides useful materials and samples to educate others on the key concepts and issues for business processes, which is necessary because “business pro- cess” is a widely used but misunderstood phrase. • Timeframes are tighter and sessions are harder to organize than ever before, so there is greater emphasis on techniques for preparation and facilitation of highly productive sessions; specific methods are provided for process discov- ery, assessment, and mapping sessions. What’s Different This Time? xix
- 25. • The refinedtechniques are supported by better and more (over 110) illustrations. • An integrated example, included as an appendix, provides a sample of each key deliverable from a process-oriented project. Regarding that last point, we were surprised after the first edition that we never received any comments that a single integrated case study should have been used throughout the book. Perhaps readers felt, as we did, that one case study couldn’t cover the range of situations that had to be demonstrated. We were also reluctant to take a single client’s project, “dirty laundry” and all, and share it with the world. Still, it seemed like a good idea to be able to demonstrate, all in one place, each of the key deliverables from a typical project. That has been accomplished with the help of my friends Brianna Knox and Dennis Korevitski, both of whom work in the BPM practice at Covestic, Inc. (www.covestic.com). Brianna and Dennis have a wealth of experience working with business processes, and all of us have completed assign- ments in the workplace safety and health field for various national and state or pro- vincial agencies. We’ve used our experiences at these and similar regulatory agencies to create a realistic, composite example that studies the Inspect Employer process. We hope it will give you a better sense of the activities you’ll go through as a project unfolds. We’ll look more closely at some of the updates in Chapter 1, but that summa- rizes what’s different, which is substantial. In fact, the book has been almost com- pletely rewritten, and we’re optimistic that readers of the first edition will find this a worthwhile update. What hasn’t changed are the intended audience and the goal. The book is still directed at the needs of business analysts and process analysts for whom process modeling and analysis is a core responsibility. It is also meant to be useful for others, such as business managers and project team members, whose inter- est in business processes might temporary but who nonetheless need clear explana- tions and practical techniques comprehensible to mere mortals. The goal is still to provide a set of methods and techniques that actually work in the real world, written by practitioners for practitioners, but augmented by close to a decade of additional experience. So, for new and returning readers, I hope this book hits the mark. Either way, I look forward to hearing from you. xx Preface
- 26. P A RT I Background, Principles, Overview
- 28. C H AP T E R 1 Business Processes—More Important Than Ever Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. (The more things change, the more it’s all the same.) Fosdick’s Thesis The first edition of this book began with the sentence: “Just when process orienta- tion has become mainstream thinking for business people and systems people alike, it seems that the flow of process-oriented literature has pretty well stopped.” That is hardly the case now, with a barrage of process-oriented books, articles, and confer- ences upon us. However, the comment is still relevant, so let us continue with what we wrote in 2000, which seems an eternity ago: So here we are, thousands of us, up to our necks in process improvement and infor- mation systems projects, finding that there is a real shortage of practical, how-to information. The irony of this situation was described in Howard Fosdick’s terrific 1992 article, “The Sociology of Technology Adaptation” [1]. Our book isn’t a book about technology, but there is a connection—the article dealt with the adop- tion of new technologies, and this book deals with the adoption of new methods and approaches for solving business problems. The article begins with the observation that when any significant new technology appears on the scene, it receives widespread publicity in the information technology (IT) arena. This attention could be displayed graphically [see Figure 1.1] in a public- ity vector measured by such attributes as the number of articles on the technology in the trade press, the frequency of conferences on the topic, how many industry ana- lysts discuss the technology, to what degree vendor sales pieces and ads employ the technology’s terminology, and similar measurements. This curve initially rises steeply, but the high degree of publicity received by the technology is completely disproportionate to the usability of the technology and the number of people and organizations doing anything more than just talking about it. However, if the new technology takes hold and becomes widely used, as depicted by the rising usability curve, it seems to fall off the collective radar screen of the various publicity machines, and the publicity vector moves back toward zero. This happens, of course, because it’s no longer a hot, new topic. Bluntly put, once the technology is widely installed, it is evidently time to focus on the next big thing—the consultants and IT advisory services have made their money, and the 3
- 29. vendors have arevenue stream in place. The consequence is that just at the point when the most people need practical information on the technology, the attention paid to it in publications becomes negligible. We always, it seems, are provided with a glut of material on the next big thing and not enough on how to make the last big thing actually work. Or, as Fosdick put it, “Ironically, once the technologies achieve full maturity, supporting hundreds or even thousands of shops on a daily basis, they receive much less attention in the media and other publicity forums.” Fosdick made his case using examples such as relational databases and expert sys- tems, but the relevant example in our case is, of course, the emergence of business processes and business process reengineering (BPR) as important topics. The first references to cross-functional business processes appeared in the mid-1980s, and, by the early 1990s, BPR was without question the next big thing. It was attracting the attention of executives, managers, consultants, pundits, academics, IS professionals, and, of course, writers of books and articles from both business and IS orientations. These first publications covered the problems encountered by functionally oriented organizations, the justification for becoming process-oriented, a few soon-to-be- familiar examples, some introductory process concepts and terminology, and, if we were lucky, some actual how-to advice. Some of this how-to-do-it material was really just an attempt—sometimes sincere, sometimes a bit cynical—to capitalize on BPR by recasting older methods such as business systems planning or information engineering with a process-oriented spin. This was a familiar pattern, and, as usual, the results were not terribly useful. The other how-to material really tried to describe the new BPx1 approach, but in the end provided little more than a high-level or broad-brush outline. The focus was on what had to be done, but the method was unproven and there was precious little guidance on how to actually do it. Practitio- ners the world over read about identifying the core business processes, mapping the as-is process, or creatively rethinking the process, but when they tried to put this guidance into practice, all manner of issues and problems arose. However, those early works did serve a purpose. In fact, they were invaluable. They paved the way for widespread adoption by promoting process orientation with a key audience of early adopters—executives and other decision makers—and mak- ing it familiar and acceptable to the rest of us. Besides, how much practical advice could we realistically expect? At that point, there simply wasn’t a large enough base of experience to draw on, and, without those books and articles to promote the con- cepts, there might never have been. And Now? On the surface, it seems that the situation is very different now. We can hardly say that the flow of information has dried up, because “business process” currently has a very high profile. Countless organizations have adopted business process manage- ment (BPM), which is supported by myriad books, courses, consulting organiza- tions, and conferences. And of course, process improvement approaches that have their roots in manufacturing, like Lean and Six Sigma, have entered the daily busi- ness vocabulary and are backed up by books, courses, consulting organizations, and conferences. 4 Business Processes—More Important Than Ever 1. There are several variations of the term “business process reengineering.” We like the one given in a presen- tation by Jerry Huchzermeier of ProForma Corp. He refers to BPx where “x” is “management,” “engineer- ing,” “reengineering,” “design,” “redesign,” “improvement,” “innovation,” and so forth.
- 30. And real workis being done. Enterprises of all sizes and types—commercial, government, and not-for-profit—realize that business processes are the mechanism by which they deliver value, externally to the marketplace and their partners, and internally to their own organizations. Second, with the reality of the extended enter- prise, the complexity and visibility of processes are rising because they now do not just span functional boundaries within an enterprise, they cross the boundaries between enterprises. In supply chain management, it’s not unusual to see a business process with activities performed by the customer’s customer, the customer, the enterprise, the supplier, and the supplier’s supplier. In the face of this reality, organi- zations have made major investments of time and resources in the redesign of their processes and in the implementation of information systems to support them. Fre- quently, the order is reversed—an enterprise purchases an information system, often an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application, and then adapts its pro- cesses to take the best advantage of it. Either way, “process” is the focus of attention. These developments mean that thousands of professionals from both business and information systems (IS) disciplines are engaged in the design and implementa- tion of new business processes and systems. In spite of all this, we are regularly reminded that people and organizations need practical guidance in how to work with their business processes. That is where Mr. Fosdick’s observation again proves to be true—there is a lot of literature available, but still very little to guide profes- sionals through the day-to-day work of completing a project focused on business processes. The Need for Practical Guidance The need has been demonstrated in two ways. First, in our consulting and education assignments, we are continually asked by professionals working on process redesign and system implementation projects to suggest a reference book that will get past the theory of processes, or the management of processes, and into the practical mat- ters they are struggling with. They want answers to questions such as the following: The Need for Practical Guidance 5 Hype Phase Early Adopter Phase Usability Curve Publicity Vector Maturity Phase Figure 1.1 Usability versus publicity for new technologies. (After: [1].)
- 31. • How doI discover my business processes? • How do I get my organization interested in business processes? • How do I clarify process scope? • How do I assess them and establish appropriate goals and objectives? • How do I model business processes in a way that is understandable to my busi- ness partners but is useful to my implementation teams? Yes, BPM texts will advise on implementing and managing processes, Six Sigma texts will advise you on precisely how to analyze an activity within a business pro- cess, and the Lean literature provides marvelous techniques on eliminating waste and expediting flow within a process, but there is still precious little that really explains how to figure out what those end-to-end processes are and how to make them visible and vital to the enterprise. What people look for is a book that addresses the issues they encounter when studying a complete business process and then makes the transition into the business analysis techniques that are the next step. We’ve heard repeatedly that the first edi- tion of this book is the only one that focuses on these needs. In fact, one of our favor- ite reviews from Amazon.com begins simply, “At last, a how-to.” It seems strange, though, that there aren’t more books available offering a practical methodology. The second kind of evidence of the need for this book comes from troubled pro- jects. Many of our consulting engagements come about because a project has run into problems, often verging on outright failure. Our assignment, should we decide to accept it, is to determine what’s gone wrong and set it right. The same issues show up so often that we have to conclude that people aren’t getting the advice they need to help avoid these recurring problems. How could this be, given the number of peo- ple and organizations promoting business process management? This situation became so commonplace that Alec, somewhat in frustration, developed a conference presentation entitled “Getting Traction for Process—What the Experts Forget.” The motivation was reading the literature and sitting in presentations that demonstrated that many business process experts had lost touch with the basic problems faced by professionals in the field. The first delivery of the presentation, at a BPM conference in San Diego, was very well received, and has since been delivered in various forms several times on three continents. The reaction has consistently been “Yes! Those are the issues I’m dealing with. Thanks for some ideas on how to move forward.” Ironically, the issues addressed in the presentation were largely the same ones we cited in the first edition of the book: 1. Right from the earliest stages of a project, the wrong body of work is identi- fied as a business process. This is common to virtually every troubled project we encounter. The “process” might be some activities that are actually just a piece of a process, the work performed by a specific department, or what we call a “process area” such as customer relationship management that com- prises many processes. The result is that the scope balloons, the project drifts, and the potential benefits associated with improving a specific, com- plete business process are never realized. The alternative is that a single activ- ity within a process is optimized without regard to other activities, and the entire process performs worse. 6 Business Processes—More Important Than Ever
- 32. 2. The complicationsthat inevitably arise with a true, cross-functional business process are not addressed. Because the typical business process crosses many organizational and enterprise boundaries, issues around ownership, control, and objectives have to be expected and dealt with from the outset. The most important factor is that the goals and objectives of the process have to be put in context with the goals and objectives of the organizations involved, and they must be aligned. At a higher level, the goal of the process must match the goals of the enterprise. By default, it is usually assumed that the goal is to make the process more efficient (faster and cheaper) but this is not always, or even usually, a good assumption. Every organization doesn’t choose to compete as the faster, cheaper provider, and every process customer doesn’t choose the faster, cheaper alternative. We have a host of case studies where speed and cost were not the important variables, and new processes that met the fast and cheap criteria ended up failing. 3. Once the team begins to map or model the current (“as-is”) process, the work gets bogged down in excruciating detail while, ironically, missing im- portant participants and steps. Modeling leaps ahead from scope (which might not be all that clearly specified, either) directly to implementation is- sues, bypassing a business-oriented view. In extreme cases, so much time is wasted on excessively detailed as-is modeling that the project is canceled be- fore any improvements can be identified, much less implemented. In any case, the true dynamics of the business process are not revealed, as they are buried in models depicting detailed rules and logic. An additional downside is that the organization learns that studying a process means engaging in a “death march” of sorts, and “process” gets a bad name. 4. Business processes and information systems are treated as two different worlds. This is becoming less common, but we still see major applications or technologies implemented without regard to the impact on end-to-end busi- ness processes, and new processes are designed and redesigned without tak- ing into account how innovative use of IT could transform them. The result: the system impedes rather than supports the process, the wrong activities are automated, or a system that supports individual tasks as they are currently understood is developed but doesn’t expedite the entire process. 5. The assessment of the current process and the design of the new process don’t take a holistic view. The most common issue is that all of the factors that constitute a successful business process—the six enablers that we intro- duce in Chapter 4—aren’t considered. Another issue is that the needs of indi- vidual stakeholders, including customers, performers, and owners, aren’t addressed. This leads to incorrect assumptions about what aspects of the process are causing problems and need to be changed, which in turn leads to process “improvements” that are, unbelievably, detrimental to the overall process. Obviously, there was a need when the first edition was written, and many peo- ple, projects, and organizations are still using and presumably benefiting from it. We’ve worked with a number of groups that refer to it simply as “the bible” (or “the The Need for Practical Guidance 7
- 33. green book”) andhave seen many copies that positively bristled with Post-it notes where someone had marked key points. We hope that a new edition, incorporating even more practical guidelines and techniques, with a shiny new 2008 publication date, will attract new and returning readers. Building Methods to Meet the Need At this point, you might well ask, “How did you figure this out?” Probably much the same way that you would—we had to piece techniques together ourselves, drawing on multiple sources, experimenting on the job, and learning from colleagues and cli- ents. For example, when we wrote the first edition, there was no Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) standard for swimlane diagramming, and not a single text provided any guidelines for the techniques; they provided just a few examples. In fact, there still isn’t a text that provides guidelines—the closest we’ve seen are descriptions of the standards, but nothing that answers many of the questions peo- ple have when they draw their first workflow model. We had no choice but to “make it up.” This has continued over the almost 10 years since the first edition, and many new techniques and lessons have been incorporated. As before, we are grateful to our clients and associates for helping us develop our methods, by trial and error, on real projects. In return, we will preserve their anonymity. Much of our experience comes from dealing with projects that have gone off the rails, so we refer to these cases throughout the book because people learn just as much from the stories of what not to do as from advice about what to do. However, we will not refer to any organizations by name, and in some cases we will even disguise the industry or build an example that is an amalgam. We do not want a client to read this and suddenly realize in horror, “Oh, no! They’re talking about my project!” If you were worried, you can breathe a sigh of relief and get back to reading the book! Another important factor has been the two-day “Workflow Process Modeling” workshop that Alec conducts globally for business and IT participants and was the basis for the first edition of this book. During the initial development, almost 15 years ago, it provided the incentive to look back over past projects and document what had worked well and what hadn’t. Sometimes, it was a surprise—it’s amazing what can be learned by looking objectively at your own experience! Since then, the workshop has been a great vehicle for keeping our methods up to date. First, it moti- vates us to constantly keep an eye out for what is working in practice so it can be reflected in the workshop, as well as watch for methods that used to work well but are less effective now. Obvious factors that have changed the business environment include outsourcing, globalization, and time pressures, each of which has led to changes in our approach. Second, it puts us in direct contact with hundreds of pro- fessionals per year who tell us exactly what issues they face, what works and doesn’t work for them, and, if they’re already using our techniques, what their organiza- tion’s experience has been. Their questions are a great source of insight into the problems faced in the field. Sometimes we wonder who is teaching whom. 8 Business Processes—More Important Than Ever
- 34. What to Expect Aswe noted in the preface, the goal of this book was, and remains, to provide a practical exposition of methods that actually work in the real world, written by practitioners for practitioners. Alec still remembers how useful the classic textbook Structured Systems Analysis [2] was in 1979 when he was coping with his first major analysis assignment. He’d go through a chapter or two in the evening and put the material to work the very next day. The next night, another chapter, and the day after that, more progress on his project. And, wonder of wonders, the project was very successful. We have heard many times, from readers around the world, that the first edition met that goal, so we have tried to make that aspect even stronger by having the core three parts of the book organized around the three phases of our methodology: • Part I—Background, Principles, Overview; • Part II—Phase 1: Establish Process Context, Scope, and Goals; • Part III—Phase 2: Understand the As-Is Process; • Part IV—Phase 3: Design the To-Be Process; • Part V—Related Requirements Definition Techniques. Part I provides the necessary underpinnings; Parts II, III, and IV cover our three-phase, project-oriented methodology; and Part V introduces the requirements modeling techniques you will employ if you carry on into specifying information systems requirements. Whatever you do, please don’t leap immediately into Part II. Chapter 3 answers the question “what is a business process?” and is essential reading. It lays the groundwork of terms, definitions, and methods that will be critical when you undertake the discovery of processes using the techniques in Chapter 5. The entire approach is summarized in Chapter 4, “The Approach in a Nutshell,” which pro- vides context for individual phases and steps. After you read those two chapters, you will be able to read a later chapter and immediately apply it to your project, read the next chapter or two, apply them, and so on. Who Are “You”? We have tried to make the book suitable for a broad audience that includes business people responsible for improving their business processes and systems personnel working on a development or implementation project with a process focus. The book has to address both perspectives, because successful process redesign projects usually involve major information systems efforts, and the implementation of a sig- nificant information system usually involves redesigned processes. The three specific audiences we aim to satisfy are as follows: • Process analysts or study/implementation team members whose job or project responsibilities include process improvement. This is the primary audience, the people “in the trenches,” and we aim to provide a toolkit for discovering, What to Expect 9
- 35. modeling, analyzing, andimproving business processes. This group includes those whose ongoing job is process analysis and those with a temporary assignment to a process improvement project. • Business analysts, systems analysts, and project leaders who have responsibil- ity for requirements definition, possibly associated with purchased software selection and configuration. We will demonstrate how to work with business processes, how to use “process” as a means for getting the attention of the business, and how to use it as framework for requirements definition, whether the intent is system development or system selection and configuration. • Business executives and managers who have been given responsibility for pro- cess improvement. In addition to showing how to work with processes, we’ll show how to link business strategy and business processes. In closing, a caveat—we describe an overall methodology and the details of spe- cific steps, but this isn’t a cookbook. It’s close, but not quite. Every project we have worked on has unique issues, and yours will be no different. Use these methods and techniques as a starting point, but please adjust and experiment as you see fit—that is how we developed many of our methods and continue to evolve them. Remember, though, that experience shows unequivocally that if you skip steps like “framing the process” or “characterizing the to-be process,” you will regret it—“adjust and experiment” does not imply “short-circuit and eliminate.” That point about not skipping steps, strangely enough, brings us back to Howard Fosdick, whose description of the publicity vector introduced this chapter. While writing this chapter, it seemed appropriate to do a Web search to see what Mr. Fosdick was up to these days. We found an article he had written on “Reincar- nating a Discarded Laptop with Linux” [3], which is interesting in its own right but also included an observation that perfectly backed up the point about not skipping steps. Late in the process of making a discarded laptop useable, probably anxious to see the fruits of his labors rewarded, Mr. Fosdick skipped a small step in the installa- tion of new memory. Just as it is on a process improvement project, skipping a sim- ple but vital step caused no end of grief. He wrote, “This one error cost me two days of mystery and consternation (as much time as the entire planning and install pro- cess). I had proved the hard way that jumping ahead too quickly—instead of patiently working through procedures one step at a time—is often the most costly error you can make.” That is profoundly true in the world of process improvement, so once again Mr. Fosdick provides a touchstone for our book. Before moving on to the methods, the next chapter offers a brief history lesson of how enterprises have come to be process oriented. This will set the stage for Chapter 3, which clarifies what we mean by “business process,” which in turn sets the stage for Chapter 4’s overview of our methodology for working with business processes. References [1] Fosdick, H., “The Sociology of Technology Adaptation,” Enterprise Systems Journal, Sep- tember 1992. 10 Business Processes—More Important Than Ever
- 36. [2] Gane, C.,and T. Sarson, Structured Systems Analysis: Tools and Techniques, New York: Improved Systems Technologies, 1977. [3] Fosdick, H., “Reincarnating a Discarded Laptop with Linux,” http://www.desktoplinux .com/articles/AT6185716632.html, August 1, 2006. Who Are “You”? 11
- 38. C H AP T E R 2 A Brief History—How the Enterprise Came to Be Process Oriented Those who are ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it. —George Santayana Learning from the Past Within less than 20 years, the improvement of enterprise performance through the identification, assessment, and improvement of the enterprise’s business processes has become standard practice at organizations all over the world. More than stan- dard practice, it has become a recognized discipline, known less formally as process orientation and more formally as business process management. You can even get a master’s degree in it. Now, “process” seems so intrinsic to the management of cor- porations, government agencies, and other institutions that it’s easy to forget that it’s still a relatively new field. In fact, for most of the twentieth century, until about 1990, there was virtually no discussion of the concept of business processes. Deming is a notable exception, but his seminal work on quality was largely ignored (except in Japan) for decades. At the dawn of the century, the scientific management revolution1 began the quest to find the best way to design manufacturing processes, but the focus was on individual tasks, not on improving what we have come to know as an end-to-end business process. This focus on individual tasks remained in place for most of the century, and didn’t start to change until the mid-1980s, when references to “cross-functional work” first started to appear widely. Then, in the early 1990s, BPR burst onto the scene with an explosion of interest in business pro- cesses. This was accompanied by a massive transfer of wealth from large enterprises to BPR consulting firms, which played no small part in our interest in the field. And then, almost as quickly as it had arrived, BPR went from “silver bullet” to “pariah” status. By the mid-1990s, apologetic books and articles were common, explaining what had gone wrong and even how misguided the notion of BPR had been. Reengineering fell off the list of hot topics. At many organizations, reengineering went from badge of honor to forbidden term, and consultants moved on to greener pastures (ERP and Y2K,2 anyone?). 13 1. By Frederick Taylor and others. See Robert Kanigel, The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), for a good story about the dawn of management consulting. Although he is often criticized for a focus on tasks, Taylor clearly understood the principles of end-to-end processes and may have been the first reengineer. 2. As the Year 2000 crisis was popularly known.
- 39. Fast forward tothe present, and we see another surprising about-face—“busi- ness process” is again very much a hot topic, and even the term reengineering has been rehabilitated and is serving a useful, albeit fringe, role in business. What brought about this roller coaster ride? How can a concept like “business process” go from silver bullet to pariah to fact of life? To understand this, we first have to recog- nize that “business process” has taken on a specific meaning—a complete end-to-end set of activities that provide value, through the delivery of a product or service, to the customer of the process. End-to-end means that the process is wide—it crosses organizational and functional boundaries (a critical aspect of most true business processes!), encompassing activities all the way from the triggering event right through to the end result expected by the customer.3 So what’s the big deal? To take the most common example, wasn’t it obvious that there was a Fulfill Order process that began when a customer placed an order, and ended when it was delivered and paid for? How could this simple discovery have been a breakthrough in the organization of work and the cause of a virtual rev- olution in management thinking? To understand, we need to take a brief, simplified look at the history and forces that led to the reengineering revolution, and what has happened since then. This certainly won’t be an exhaustive account, and probably not even a linear account, but that’s not our purpose—we just want to help put the current state of affairs in context by illustrating the themes, phases, and trends that got us here. With apologies to Stephen Hawking, author of A Brief History of Time, let’s start our Brief History of Process by going back to a time before we worried about functions and processes—before the Industrial Revolution. The Multiskilled Craftsworker Prior to the Industrial Revolution of the mid-1700s, most products were produced by individuals we’ll call craftsworkers—highly skilled people like weavers, black- smiths, or jewelers who were responsible for all phases of making a complete, fin- ished product. To them, you might say that process and product were the same thing. It was possible to stand at one spot in their workshops and observe the con- struction of a product in its entirety. In fact, one person often accomplished the entire process—and not just the manufacturing, but the marketing, sales, design, and service as well. Today, a small proportion of workers are directly involved in making the products or delivering the services their companies provide, and those few typically see only a small part of the process. For many products and services today, you would have to visit multiple locations, on two or more continents, to view the complete process of building or providing it, unlike the process that had been visible from one spot in the craftsworker’s shop. The age of the craftsworker was characterized by an expert individual perform- ing most or all of the activities comprising a central production process, and exhib- ited the following: 14 A Brief History—How the Enterprise Came to Be Process Oriented 3. When discussing business processes, “customer” isn’t restricted to its usual interpretation as an external, paying (usually) client of the enterprise. Customer can be any internal or external stakeholder expecting a result from a process.
- 40. • Positives: • Itwas clearly understood who the customer was, what the product or ser- vice was, and what needed to be measured—the output of the finished product. • The craftsworker, who knew the whole process from beginning to end, was the single point of contact for the customer. • Products and services could be customized relatively easily. • With a single contact, there could be no miscommunication or handoffs between specialties. • Negatives: • There was very limited output, and scaling up was extremely difficult. • The work essentially stopped during the transitions from one task to another, resulting in high overhead. • There was no entry-level workforce available, as a new craftsworker required an extended apprenticeship. • There was a single point of failure with no backup or synergies. • Quality could be erratic, because the individual was not necessarily expert in all aspects of the process. Many of the negatives (and positives) were swept away with the Industrial Rev- olution and the advent of factories. The Advent of the Specialist In 1776, Adam Smith heralded the Industrial Revolution in The Wealth of Nations [1]. James Watt’s invention of the steam engine provided power that only a new industrial organization could harness. To be supported by newly available mechani- cal power, this new organization called for the division of labor into specialized tasks. The simple pin provides a classic example of the power of specialization. Before this advance, pins were made individually by craftsworkers. This made them such expensive luxuries that money for frivolities was called “pin money,” since only people with money to squander bought pins. Smith describes in detail how this changed when the manufacture of pins was divided among many workers, each per- forming a specialized task: “One man draws out the wire, another straightens it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins another; it is even a trade unto itself to put them into the paper.” This specialization allowed a fantastic increase in the number of pins produced, making pins readily available to anyone. Smith notes how 10 men, who, individu- ally, could not make even 20 pins in a day, were collectively able to make 48,000 pins in a day by dividing the labor and specializing. Popularly, the Industrial Revolution is associated with the arrival of the steam engine, but its real legacy was the division of complex work into simpler tasks. The success of this approach during the age of the factory gave rise to further division The Advent of the Specialist 15
- 41. and narrower specialties,leading to the emergence of large organizations structured around functional specialties. The Rise of Functional Specialties As the successes arising from the Industrial Revolution took hold, organizations grew and required personnel not just in manufacturing, but in such diverse areas as finance, accounting, legal, human resources, and facilities. More sophisticated prod- ucts and customers necessitated growth in other areas as well, among them market- ing, research and development, engineering, purchasing, stores, logistics, manufacturing planning, and sales. Equally important was the emergence of profes- sional managers to “plan, organize, and control” all those various activities. Since specialization worked spectacularly well in the factories, it seemed likely to apply equally well in the growing field of office work. Consequently, white-collar (profes- sional, technical, and managerial) employment levels rose steeply, with a corre- sponding decrease in the proportion of employees actually doing the work that produced the product. A cynic might argue that many, if not most, white-collar workers were concerned with increasing the efficiency of the few remaining blue-collar workers, but that misses the point. While the resulting bureaucracy has often been criticized, it was the glue that allowed large organizations to come into existence and thrive.4 It is fair to ask how this new breed of professional manager was to manage all of the additional work. Well, for one thing, it’s easier to manage people and their activ- ities if they are grouped into specialized fields such as finance, engineering, and man- ufacturing, each with its own skills, language, tools, and outlook. The strengths of specialization were already well known, so the path of least resistance led to further specialization and the “functionally oriented” organization that dominated most of the twentieth century. While this specialization has been widely condemned, it has certain advantages, and the large enterprises of the twentieth century simply would not have emerged without this style of organization. Positives of specialization include: • Vastly increased output and economies of scale, often with a consistent and surprisingly high level of quality; • Easier management of personnel, as they were doing a specific kind of work (“birds of a feather”); • Development of very high skill levels that were constantly increasing; • Ability to scale up or down relatively easily (add, subtract, or reassign specialists); • Building around recognized fields allowing educational institutions to supply entry-level recruits who then have a career path. 16 A Brief History—How the Enterprise Came to Be Process Oriented 4. Although our discussion so far has centered on manufacturing organizations, the same happened in ser- vice-providing organizations—banks, insurance companies, hospitals, utilities, government agencies, and so on.
- 42. All in all,the functionally oriented organization was a spectacular success, although obviously not without its problems. Otherwise, reengineering would never have had any reason to emerge. Before looking at the downsides, however, we need to clarify a common point of confusion, which is that function and organiza- tion are the same thing. Function and Organization—What’s the Difference? The distinction between function and organization can be subtle. Take a moment to think about the functions of your company—what are the specialties that make up the whole? You would probably list the major divisions or departments comprising the higher reaches of your organizational chart. The functions of an organization are usually so similar to the structure of the organization that most people think organization and function are synonymous, with the manufacturing function being carried out by the manufacturing organization, the logistics function carried out by the logistics organization, the customer care function carried out by the customer service organization, and so on. However, as noted, function and organization are actually different concepts. An organization is a mechanism for grouping people and other resources to achieve a common purpose. The purpose could be to provide not only a function, but also to support a particular customer segment or product line or geography, or even to carry out a complete process. A function, on the other hand, is a specialized field of endeavor involving work of a similar nature, employ- ing particular skills and knowledge. They’re often treated interchangeably because it’s so common for major organizational units to be defined along functional lines. These definitions provide an important clue to the central problem with organiza- tions based on functional specialties—what was the common purpose that these functional organizations sought to achieve? Not surprisingly, it turns out that com- mon purpose was to provide a function, which can be quite a different orientation than to provide some end product or service. Losing the Process in the Functions In general, workers and departments in a healthy organization do the best they can to contribute to the organization’s success, so they optimize the work they do. But optimizing the individual parts does not optimize the whole. For one thing, if you can’t see the whole, you might inadvertently be damaging the end result when opti- mizing a piece of the process. What’s good for sales might not be best for the entire company. Immediate considerations, such as getting the order, might conflict with financial considerations, such as “collect all necessary information to cost and bill the transaction.” Consider the steps of the process to fill an order for a customized widget, illustrated in Figure 2.1. Take Order should collect all the information to make, ship, and collect pay- ment for the widget, even if it slows down taking the order. If manufacturing must be tracked in sufficient detail to bill costs to the customer and to analyze the process for improvement, wouldn’t that also introduce delays? While the billing and ship- Function and Organization—What’s the Difference? 17
- 43. ping functions mightprefer to batch transactions for efficiency, that might not be best for the customer or the enterprise. So the limited perspective of each part might lose us the opportunity to improve the whole. We’ll explore this phenomenon much more closely later on, beginning in Chapter 3. In many cases, the measurements underpinning the reward system further exac- erbate this situation. A manufacturing function trying to maximize equipment utili- zation by minimizing setup or changeover time might schedule production runs in a way that meets these targets. The problem is that the schedule might not take into account the dollar value or profitability of the order, the importance of the cus- tomer, or any number of other factors that are ultimately just as, or more, important than equipment utilization. To summarize, while specialization yielded huge efficiency gains, it introduced problems as well. Many have been documented, but they are usually variations of the following: • The overall process became so fragmented that it was no longer visible and thus couldn’t be measured or improved. Remember, the process was always there, it was just hidden by a focus on functions and specialties. No one could see the big (end-to-end) picture, and narrow specialization often led to inad- vertent narrow-mindedness. The terminology introduced with business pro- cess reengineering to describe functional departments—the functional silo or functional stovepipe—graphically conveys an image of a vertical structure that you can’t see into or out of. • Activities and methods optimized the function to the detriment of the overall process and the customer. The common purpose driving organizational units (divisions, departments, and so on) became inwardly focused. If they were doing well, it was assumed that so was the entire enterprise. Similarly, “cus- tomer” became such a distant concept as to be irrelevant to many groups. • There was a lack of communication, and sometimes there was even outright conflict, between functions, and these cross-functional disputes were difficult to resolve, typically requiring executive involvement. • As a work item or transaction winds its way through the fragmented process, the handoffs between specialized individuals and groups cause delay, errors, expense, and frustration. Two common examples that made the function more efficient but had a negative impact on the overall process: 1. For the function to handle a specific work item as efficiently as possible, it was common to batch several items up before work was started so that many similar pieces of work could be done at once. 2. To further improve processing efficiency, the item was transformed in some way—for instance, by translating, formatting, and reentering data into another system. 18 A Brief History—How the Enterprise Came to Be Process Oriented Take Order Make Widget Collect Payment Ship Widget Take Order Make Widget Collect Payment Ship Widget Figure 2.1 Main steps in the Fulfill Order process.
- 44. As none ofthis is intended to imply that these problems were the product of some deliberate malfeasance, we’ll take a moment to address a couple of important points: 1. In practice, we avoid the use of the term functional silo because it has such negative connotations. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a functionally based organization, and using the term can alienate the people who manage or work within them. As we’ll start to explore in Chapter 3, it’s arguably the best way to organize resources. 2. The people that were optimizing their functions at the expense of the overall process were not lazy, stupid, malicious, or anything of the sort. As previ- ously noted, everyone in a healthy organization is typically doing their best, usually within in the constraints of a structure they had no part in designing. What was becoming apparent by the mid-1980s, however, and is still happen- ing in many enterprises, was that over two centuries the pendulum had swung too far from generalization toward specialization. This led, not surprisingly, to a reac- tion, which was, of course, business process reengineering. Just as the age of the craftsworker gave rise to the age of the factory, the rise of functional specialties led to the reengineering revolution. Enter Reengineering: 1990–1993 The insight of reengineering, profound at the time, was that by identifying, making visible, understanding, rethinking, and then radically redesigning end-to-end busi- ness processes, they could be dramatically improved. The process-centered organi- zation would focus on the whole and see accumulated inefficiencies and irrationalities eliminated. Measurement would shift from individual tasks, such as checking the most forms or stamping the greatest number of fenders, to the achieve- ment of value, such as the acquisition of a desirable new customer or the timely delivery of a high-quality product or service. The innovative use of information technology was a crucial factor, but so was rethinking the flow of work, the mea- surements that motivated performance, the underlying policies of the enterprise, and other enabling (or disabling!) factors. The “shot heard ’round the world” of the reengineering revolution was the late Michael Hammer’s article, “Reengineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate” [2]. Hammer introduced BPR and called it “undoing the Industrial Revolution,” because it undid overspecialization and reunified tasks into coherent, visible processes. Actu- ally, reengineering was well under way before the term was coined by Hammer and then promoted by newly minted BPR consulting organizations. For example: • The auto industry was using concurrent engineering and team-based assembly well before BPR burst onto the stage. • Financial services organizations had learned to completely transform excruci- atingly sequential and fragmented processes such as granting a loan along lines we’d later describe as “end-to-end business processes.” Enter Reengineering: 1990–1993 19
- 45. • Deming hadfor many years stressed that “everyone doing their best is not the answer; rather, the system must be changed.” In other words, understand and improve your business processes. • By the mid-1980s, Michael Porter had introduced value chains, and Tom Peters, famous for coauthoring “In Search of Excellence,” had predicted that the coming decade would see a focus on cross-functional work. Michael Hammer, though, performed the invaluable service of identifying the approach, describing it, and, possibly most important, giving it a great name—busi- ness process reengineering. That name instantly appealed to the frustrated engineer in many of us. The credit given to Hammer seems to drive some observers crazy, because they feel that Porter, Deming, Rummler and Brache, and others deserve wider recognition for their contributions in the area. This is true, but it was Hammer who moved the concept of “reengineering end-to-end cross-functional business pro- cesses” into the limelight. After that, the improved performance of some early adopters drove home the point that process orientation was the way to go. It’s hard to convey, almost 20 years later, the impact this had. The concept of looking at end-to-end processes made so much sense—it was so “intuitively obvi- ous”—and there was so much shared frustration from working in or with the oft-cited functional silos that BPR just had to take off. And take off it did. Reengineering took the management world by storm in a way no trend before it had. And in that rapid rise were the beginnings of its downfall a few short years later. Exit Reengineering: 1994–1995 By the mid-1990s, so many organizations were claiming to be “doing BPR” that a 1995 “Devil’s Dictionary” in Fortune magazine defined reengineering as “the prin- cipal slogan of the ’90s, used to describe any and all corporate strategies.” And therein lay the root cause of BPR’s demise—it became a buzzword, subject to mis- use, as buzzwords always are. Consider some statements we actually heard at the time: • “I reengineered my department by putting our forms on an imaging-based workflow system.” • “We reengineered our customer service operation by laying off 30 percent of the staff.” • “Our logistics process was reengineered by outsourcing it to a low-cost provider.” Reengineering became a euphemism for the thoughtless application of IT, for slash-and-burn downsizing, restructuring, and outsourcing. Reengineer went from something you do, to something that’s done to you, as in “I was reengineered out of my job.” On top of outright misuse of the term, the principles at the heart of true reengineering proved to be difficult to implement and widely misunderstood. This isn’t all that surprising, given that we now know how complex it can be. Most of the 20 A Brief History—How the Enterprise Came to Be Process Oriented
- 46. literature and educationthat began appearing after Hammer’s article didn’t really describe how to work with business processes. Instead, it breathlessly explained the theory and recirculated the popular case studies, all the while ignoring the motiva- tional, human resource, and other factors that, as we’ll see, are so important. In many cases, advice was given that was just plain bad. The classic example—“don’t worry about analyzing the as-is process, because you’re just going to abandon it anyway.” Another common problem (which Hammer had explicitly warned against!)5 was “reengineering” something that wasn’t actually a process. It’s astounding how many reengineering efforts applied to a “business process” that, strangely, exactly fit within the boundaries of a department or function. Of course, this only exacerbated the problems of isolation and specialization. The Wonder Years: 1996–2000 On the heels of the reengineering backlash, the mid- to late 1990s saw focus on information technology to an extent that caused us to wonder just what everyone could have been thinking (hence the term the wonder years). Attention shifted from the silver bullet of reengineering processes through IT to IT itself as a silver bullet. “Process” as a discipline fell by the wayside, along with other skills and practices. Some of the IT topics getting the most attention and money included the following: • All things Internet-related, such as e-business, e-commerce, e-procurement, and e-recruiting, to name but a few. We’ve somewhat uncharitably referred to this as the “e-whatever” phenomenon—take any struggling project, put “e-” in front of its name, and suddenly it’s revived. • Y2K remediation, with which, unlike some post-2000 commentators, we have no problem. At many organizations, we saw these efforts head off seri- ous problems. Of course, the fact that the problems then failed to occur was grist for the cynic’s mill. Our interest, for this discussion, is that it did divert a lot of time and resources, and the avenue chosen by many firms was to imple- ment an ERP package, as per the next point. • ERP applications from providers like SAP, Oracle, and PeopleSoft (before its acquisition by Oracle). ERP was the name given to families of very large, com- mercial software packages intended to integrate mainstream business data and functions (e.g., sales, human resources, finance, and manufacturing) across the enterprise, which likely has a familiar ring to it. Unfortunately, many of these initiatives weren’t any more successful than the previous BPR initiatives, such as the following: • A manufacturer’s e-business project receives a chilly reception from its intended beneficiaries—clients who would use the facility to submit design The Wonder Years: 1996–2000 21 5. Hammer was on record as saying “Reengineering a department is an oxymoron.” The upshot was that reengineering efforts worked out much less well than hoped, and within a few short years of the ascendancy of BPR, reports of high-profile failures spread. There was shock in reengineering circles when articles appeared [3] citing a failure rate among BPR projects of 70 to 80 percent! BPR began fading from the con- sciousness of the enterprise, and interest shifted to other bright and shiny objects.
- 47. validation requests. Theprocess required substantially more effort on the manufacturer’s part than anticipated and didn’t fit well with its development process. • At an engineering firm specializing in oil exploration, an expensive intranet-based program combines best practices from the disciplines of data management and knowledge management, but the firm finds the results unused. • A beer distributor decides that typical development practices such as business analysis and systems architecture were anachronistic and trusts the develop- ment of a major new distribution application to a hot-shot Web design com- pany. When we were called in to look at the unfolding disaster, we were stunned to find that the developers thought they were going to prototype their way to a successful implementation across a complex supply chain and that they really (really!) didn’t know what a database was. • The costs of an ERP implementation at a global retailer spiral ever-upward, with configuration becoming increasingly complex; the results are met with hostility by the primary users, and no net benefit is realized. A common denominator in all of these examples was that they failed in large part because they didn’t adequately take “business process” into account, a realiza- tion that was soon to take hold. Business Process Rides Again!: 2000–Present Readers of the first edition of this book might wonder at this point if we’ve engaged in a little revisionist history. In that edition our timeline went directly from “Exit Reengineering: 1994–1995” to “The Reengineering Aftermath: 1996–Present,” in which we offered the rosy view that we’d seen the merging of continuous improve- ment and reengineering into what we called process management. But what about “the wonder years”? Well, we wrote our process history in 1999, and, in hindsight, we were a little optimistic about that post-1995 period. Being heads-down at organi- zations that had embraced a process perspective, we weren’t paying a lot of atten- tion to some of the “wonder years” hysteria or IT disasters unfolding throughout the economy. The dot-com meltdown of 2000 and the subsequent economic contrac- tion were followed by a flood of analysts’ reports and “true confessions” articles about what had really been going on, which led us to look at the preceding years more critically. A consequence of the “dot-bomb” bust was that money was no longer falling from the skies, and many companies suddenly had to pay intense attention to expen- ditures. Some individuals found that “after years of being asked to do more with more, [they were] being asked in a serious way to do more with less,” as Richard Hunter, a research fellow at Gartner, Inc., so aptly put it. Boards of directors started asking about previous expenditures, and a common avenue of inquiry was “What was the return on investment for our ERP implementation?” Bear in mind that these projects had price tags that extended into the tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars! Perhaps these execs had been listening to John Parkinson, VP and chief tech- 22 A Brief History—How the Enterprise Came to Be Process Oriented
- 48. nologist at CapGemini Ernst & Young. In an April 2003 Fast Company article he said, “Between 1997 and 2000, the North American economy bought 40% more technology than it needed. It wasn’t entirely irrational, but it wasn’t all that smart either.” He continued: “I believe the $300 billion we spent on ERP systems was the biggest waste of money in the last century.” Much of the executive curiosity about ROI was driven by our old friend Michael Hammer, who concluded in a significant and widely publicized study that implementations of a certain large ERP application fell into either the “winners” or “losers” category. That is, the enterprise either did really well, or not very well at all, with little middle ground. What accounted for the difference? Of course, it seems self-serving, but it turned out that the winners treated their ERP implementa- tion as primarily a business process improvement undertaking, supported in part by new technology but with due attention to the other important factors. The losers, on the other hand, treated it primarily as a technology undertaking, without regard for the all-important business process issues. Observations such as this one spread and, together with regulatory developments like Sarbanes-Oxley and BASEL II, high- lighted the need for organizations to understand and control their business pro- cesses. As Ed Yourdon, the longtime IT leader and commentator pointed out at a conference around this time, “You process folks just got a whole new lease on life.” Figure 2.2 summarizes the path process orientation has taken. From Fad to Business as Usual Process orientation is part of the organizational landscape, and part of the reason for this is that best practices and a balanced perspective with some middle ground have emerged—the focus on business processes is less faddish and more reasoned From Fad to Business as Usual 23 1990: Hammer unleashes not that long ago! Business Process Reengineering (BPR) — 1990–1993: BPR hysteria, largely misapplied 1993–1995: BPR backlash 1995–2000: Intense focus on expensive investments; issues largely ignored The Wonder Years: –“We wonder what everyone was thinking?” – technology business process 2000: Tech meltdown Post–2000: BPx returns! –do more with less –disappointment with “wonder years” ROI 1985: First references to “ - work; little or no mention of “business process” cross functional” 1980s: “Quality” becomes a major driver and “business as a system” view is promoted Figure 2.2 The rise and fall and rise again of continuous process improvement.
- 49. and pragmatic thanit was in the reengineering era. Rather than proclaiming that they are “doing reengineering,” organizations understand that dealing with their business processes is normal behavior. We’ll now touch on some of the evidence that “process is normal” but please (please!) bear in mind that this is by no means intended to be a compete survey of “the state of business process”—it’s just a quick overview of the current environment with some references for readers interested in following up on specific topics. Process-Oriented Products Products and services are available in a growing number of process-oriented areas, such as the following: • Supply chain management (SCM) and reverse SCM for dealing with returns; • Customer relationship management (CRM); • Product lifecycle management (PLM). Note that each of these is an example of what we’ll later define as a “process area,” a named collection of interrelated business processes. A quick Web search will uncover a wealth of information on these and other areas. Process Frameworks Vendor-neutral bodies have made available a number of process frameworks that provide a variety of resources, including standard process descriptions and terminol- ogy, benchmarks, and best practices. The best-known are probably the following: • ITIL—The Information Technology Infrastructure Library, which was origi- nally developed under the leadership of the U.K.’s Office of Government Com- merce (OGC) but is now used globally as a baseline for IT service management. See http://www.itil.co.uk or www.itsmf.org. • SCOR—The supply-chain operations reference model provides a rich frame- work, covering plan, source, make, deliver, and return process types. See also the design-chain operations reference (DCOR) model from the same organiza- tion, covering plan, research, design, integrate, and amend process types. See http://www.supply-chain.org. • APQC process classification framework—quoting from it, “the APQC Process Classification FrameworkSM (PCF) serves as a high-level, industry-neutral enterprise model that allows organizations to see their activities from a cross-industry process viewpoint.” See http://www.apqc.org, then “Frame- works and Models.” • VRM—The value-chain reference model. See www.value-chain.org, then select “VRM.” Tom Davenport, in a Harvard Business Review article [4], has observed that the standardization and benchmarking of certain business processes will accelerate. Standard process definitions and performance measures will in turn allow busi- 24 A Brief History—How the Enterprise Came to Be Process Oriented
- 50. nesses to choosemore objectively among alternate business process outsourcing ser- vice providers. And this, as the title implies, will lead to the commoditization of outsourced business processes, which surely demonstrates how much process orien- tation is part of the landscape. Less Polarization Currently, we see much less tension between perspectives previously at odds with one another: 1. Process and function; 2. Continuous improvement and radical redesign; 3. Systems development and process reengineering. Let’s take a look, in turn, at the rapprochement that’s occurred in each of these. Process and function: In the rush to embrace the new, writers and consultants often fail to take note of the benefits of whatever they want to leave behind. This was certainly true during the heyday of reengineering, when there was a steady stream of commentary about the flaws of functional orientation and the virtues of process orientation. However, if functional orientation did not have some benefits, it would not have prevailed for most of the twentieth century. The benefits became evident, belatedly, at some companies that took process orientation to the extreme of implementing organization structures based on processes rather than functional specialties. It seemed like a great idea at the time, but, in most cases, didn’t work out very well. The new structures were hard to manage and inefficient in sharing skilled resources. Worst of all, skill levels in functional specialties declined. More recently, there is general awareness that functional specialties are a great way to develop high levels of skill in a pool of resources that can be used efficiently across multiple pro- cesses. The processes, of course, must be designed to flow smoothly through the functions and focus effort around the end result. Continuous improvement and radical redesign: Continuous process improve- ment (CPI), and its cousin total quality management (TQM), are outgrowths of Deming’s work, especially in Japan, where the term kaizen originates. Kaizen [5] is the concept of continuous improvement, its central tenet being that you must con- tinuously improve your processes to keep a quality product in production. When reengineering first emerged, there was considerable tension between the reengineering and kaizen (or CPI or TQM) communities. The reengineers wondered why their kaizen-oriented counterparts were improving processes that ought to have been scrapped. Those who espoused kaizen found the reengineers to be rash and destructive, often throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Eventually, the two were brought together under the milder terms process orientation or process management, with the recognition that reengineering a process is done once (or periodically), and improving it (kaizen) goes on forever (see Figure 2.3). Kaizen and BPR have become less state of the art and more standard practice, even though the terms are not used as widely as they once were. In recent years, the “official” term has become business process management (BPM), which is the subject of numerous books, service offerings, conferences, and courses. A quick Web search will reveal From Fad to Business as Usual 25
- 51. many sources ofinformation, or you could go directly to the always excellent www.bptrends.com, www.bpminstitute.org, or www.bpm.com. When supported by an appropriate business process management system (BPMS), BPM extends to controlling the execution of processes and the active monitoring of and intervention in executing processes. As noted earlier, this is a book on process modeling and anal- ysis, not BPM or BPMS, so we won’t try to explain the field. There are many other books available, and a visit to either of the aforementioned Web sites or Amazon.com will uncover them. Systems development and process reengineering: Just as BPR proponents were at loggerheads with kaizen aficionados, they also ran into conflict with IT profes- sionals. In many cases, the reengineers clearly felt that the systems people were uncommunicative and insensitive to business issues, while the IT staff was con- vinced that the BPR consultants had some clever slogans (and nice suits!) but never had, and never would, actually implement anything. Now they’re inseparable. In fact, often they are no longer identified as separate “process redesign” or “applica- tion development” initiatives. In an effort to improve business operations, both aspects will be combined and referred to simply as “the project.” After years of being treated as a support organization, IT is frequently a full partner in developing business strategy and implementing new processes. In fact, we’ve seen many success- ful projects originally formulated within IT, probably because their role gives them a view across the organization and they have the necessary analysis skills. (Or, per- haps they were just fed up with stitching together disparate applications and trying to reconcile conflicting goals.) So, the design or redesign of business processes is no longer the exclusive purview of consultants and specialists: everyone is involved. Successful efforts invariably involve a variety of disciplines, including management, performers, consultants, and specialists from IT, human resources, training, facilities, and other areas. A Predictable Complaint We know from experience that, at this point, some of our readers may be somewhat annoyed because we’ve chosen not to make this a book on business process manage- ment. Proponents of specific methodologies like Lean or Six Sigma (or Lean Six Sigma, or Lean Six Sigma for Services, or…) might be disappointed that we haven’t paid more attention to their preferred approach. Our combined 50-plus years of professional experience have shown us that this is a fact of life whenever named 26 A Brief History—How the Enterprise Came to Be Process Oriented Identify Process Assess Process Implement Process Improve Process Redesign Process Figure 2.3 Merging of process reengineering and continuous process improvement.
- 52. methodologies are involved.In fact, it seems that when a methodology is named and popularized, you can predict that three things will happen: 1. Some people will become single-minded in the belief that their chosen method is the one true path. This group usually includes those with little or no prior experience in the field, and so their first exposure to a documented methodology will be a revelation of sorts. This proves what Alec’s mother, Barbara Sharp, told him as a teenager: “The most recent convert is the most zealous.” 2. Many people will misapply the method or apply it slavishly, in ways that will make the original creators shudder. 3. If, as a relative layperson, you try to describe or characterize the field, you’ll be met with a chorus of criticism that will range from “you didn’t get it quite right” to “the field has evolved since then” to “you’ve missed the point entirely.” We’ve seen this happen in business with strong approaches like activity-based costing or balanced scorecards and in the IT field with methods such as object-ori- ented analysis and design or, more recently, with agile or extreme methods. Given these examples, we’re a little nervous about even commenting on the most popular of the current methods, but here goes: • Six Sigma has its roots in continuous improvement and tends to focus at what we’d call the activity, or step, level, bringing to bear a variety of tools and methods that emphasize minimizing variance and defects in the output of that step. • Lean, or lean manufacturing, has its roots in the Toyota Production System (TPS), which emphasizes looking at significant parts of the entire process with an eye toward the elimination of waste and the maximization of speed and efficiency through “pull” and a smooth flow. To summarize, you could say that Six Sigma emphasizes individual activities and the consistency of their outputs, while Lean emphasizes the connection between activities and the smooth flow of the end-to-end process. Both are the subject of many books, articles, conferences, courses, and so on, with Lean Six Sigma adding even more. We won’t try to augment the wealth of resources already there. If you want to draw comparisons, our method is philosophically closer to Lean’s emphasis on flow, and we enjoy the excellent newsletters produced by the Lean Enterprise Institute (www.lean.org). Both Lean and Six Sigma offer a great many techniques that will be valuable additions to your business process toolkit, and vice versa. Dur- ing recent engagements at manufacturing companies, we have been gratified when internal experts observe that our methods are valuable additions to their toolkits, providing an approach for situations where their methods had “hit the wall.” One observed: “Your methods are stronger in the psychology of processes, while ours are stronger in the physics,” which struck us as an apt distinction. A Predictable Complaint 27
- 53. Process Orientation—The Bestof All Worlds? A process is a way to organize work, and over time different approaches to organiz- ing work have prevailed. In the age of the craftsworker, work was organized around a multiskilled individual who accomplished the entire process and was focused on delivery of the end product to the customer. In the eras of the factory and functional specialization, work was divided among individual and organizational specialties, which internally became highly efficient and skilled, but often disconnected. Finally, the reengineering era and the current process-oriented era have seen work organized to expedite alignment among the various specialties participating in the overall pro- cess, with a focus (again) on the end result for the customer. Each of these was an advance over the previous era, and each had strengths and weaknesses. At organiza- tions that have embraced a process-driven approach, we see that strengths from each of the eras we’ve cited are in place: • Appropriate focus is on the customer and on outcomes. • Defined, repeatable processes can be measured, improved, and compared against industry benchmarks. They can also be explicitly aligned with enter- prise goals, which are not necessarily pure efficiency but might instead be flex- ibility or innovation. • There is much greater overall efficiency through streamlined flow and elimina- tion of unnecessary, redundant, or counterproductive work. • Functionally specialized organizations and individuals provide high levels of expertise, but with their efforts aligned with the goals of the business processes they participate in. • We’ve moved away from excessively narrow job definitions, so jobs tend to be richer and more satisfying. However, there’s no avoiding the fact that every- one has to work very hard these days. • Greater awareness of the whole leads to a healthier organizational ecology and greater opportunities for employees to move into new areas. That’s not to say everything’s perfect in the process-driven company, but, all in all, it’s a pretty good state of affairs. Achieving this state depends on multiple fac- tors, but certainly one of the most fundamental is a clear and shared understanding of what a business process really is. That’s what we’ll look at in Chapter 3. References [1] Smith, A., An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell in the Strand, 1776. [2] Hammer, M., “Reengineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate,” Harvard Business Review, July–August 1990. At the same time, Tom Davenport and James Short published the other seminal article, “The New Industrial Engineering: IT and Business Process Rede- sign,” Sloan Management Review, Summer 1990. In 1993, Hammer’s article was expanded with James Champy into the now classic book Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), and Davenport published Pro- 28 A Brief History—How the Enterprise Came to Be Process Oriented
- 54. cess Innovation: ReengineeringWork Through Information Technology (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1992). [3] Hall, G., J. Rosenthal, and J. Wade, “How to Make Reengineering Really Work,” Harvard Business Review, November–December 1993. [4] Davenport, T. H., “The Coming Commoditization of Processes,” Harvard Business Review, June 2005. [5] Imai, M., Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989. Process Orientation—The Best of All Worlds? 29
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- 56. I felt littlesatisfaction in obeying this summons, conscious as I was of not meriting any agreeable communication at the meeting, and always fearful of scrutiny into my conduct. What misery is the portion of those who quit the path of duty! but I made no such comment then, though I practically experienced its truth, and writhed under its influence. When I reached the rustic seat in the Glyn, where my parents awaited my coming, a mingled sensation of sullenness and shame produced awkwardness on my part, the pain of which I still remember. How beautiful the youthful glow of artlessness and affection! I could not look up, yet disdained to cast down my eyes, and attempting to brave feelings which I could not escape, sent round a furtive unmeaning glance, which dared not rest on any object, but spoke the perturbation of my soul, while it affected the ease of indifference. My mother's eyes were swollen with weeping, and my father's cheek was blanched with inward corrosion of heart. "Albert," said he, "sit down, and listen to a determination which concerns you. Your mother and I have resolved on accepting the kind offer of your uncle, who long since desired to have one of our sons sent to Quebec; but we declined the proposal. There was a time in which we fondly hoped to see our children provided for nearer home. None of you wished to engage in commerce, and your happiness"—here my poor father's voice faltered—"having ever been our dearest earthly object, you were indulged at the expense of worldly prudence, and I gratefully refused for you all, my brother's kind invitation. Your uncle remonstrated; censured my weakness; and foretold that a day of repentance would come. Such a day has arrived, but to propitiate a near and dear relation who felt wounded by the rejection of his services, appeared a difficult task. It was very doubtful too, whether in times like these, he would incur the hazard of taking into his house a person of your age, who might not be found easily trainable, and who might also, perhaps, carry along with him the unwelcome contagion of that fatal epidemic which is desolating Ireland. The matter, however, is accomplished; your
- 57. mother has succeeded;the lot falls on you, and we shall lose no time in making the necessary preparations for your departure to Liverpool, whence you are to embark for Canada. I do not give you any option. You have ceased to be a child, it is true, but you have acted too like a mischievous one to be allowed any farther latitude. We have no fortune. Our sons must depend upon their own exertions for independence. Though I fear that you care no longer for our affection, you will nevertheless have our prayers; and may He who alone can soften your heart make you sensible of your errors, and guide you in the paths of virtue." My mother could not utter a word, but she held her hand to me; I took, and pressed it with some energy, but my sudden animation was caused by the joy of seeing a prospect opened for quitting home. This was truly emancipation, let it come in what form it might, as the breaking up of Painesville and Ferney had destroyed the local interests, which I had mistaken for a more comprehensive principle; and the tragical termination of my romance with poor Albinia, had left a chasm impossible to be described. I hated the idea of being a merchant, but the distant evil merged in the present good. My fears for the future were undefined, while the rapture of leaving Glendruid was certain. Hope was soon busy in weaving a gay tissue of things to come. The deep affront which had been conveyed in the paper discovered by Macfarlane, rankled in my breast, and in fact had served to turn me from the party who had acted with such dissimulation as disgusted my self-love, though it had not the effect of converting me to better views. My uncle was a stranger to me; I had never seen him, but he was accounted a sensible man. No doubt he was a modern philosopher, or if not, my eloquence would soon persuade him. America was a soil in which the tree of liberty already flourished. I should breathe an atmosphere of inspiration, I should detail with all the ardour of young enthusiasm those scenes which I left behind, and paint with raptured glow the noble struggle for freedom which was in progress. Unfettered, unconstrained, I should revel in the wilds of intellectual
- 58. expansion; and ifcatching fire from the reflection of my own fervor, I were to transgress the dull limits of mere fact, and embellish my story in a good cause, there would be no troublesome truth-teller at hand to shake his head at me. Listening crowds would admire, and my uncle, proud of his nephew, would encourage the exhibition of my powers. My fame would extend. It would soon be discovered that talents like mine were suited to higher purposes than penning consignments of cotton and indigo; and that my abilities were somewhat above the farrago of "sugars dull, rums looking up, pimento flat, coffees lively, tobacco smart," and all the vulgar gibberish of trade. I should first be my uncle's idol, next his heir, and conclude by performing a conspicuous part when I returned on the theatre of Europe. These idle fantasies are tedious to record, but passed with such rapidity through my mind, that after a short pause, during which my silence was perhaps attributed to contrition for the past, I assured my parents of my entire willingness to acquiesce in their plans; and arrangements were immediately commenced. Time, which had crept slothfully with me, now trimmed his wing. My days were no longer spent in moping along the beach, nor my mind evaporized in fertile reverie; I was employed from sun-rise to sun- set, in examining maps, exploring Gazetteers, collecting whatever newspapers and magazines I could find to aid my future exploits in oratory, and making all the preparation within my slender means for my great Hegira.
- 60. CHAPTER V. At lengththe welcome day arrived, "big with the fate of Cato and of Rome;" and on a brilliant dawn, the sun shining brightly as though in harmony with all mankind, did I bid adieu to the home of my youth. I was not so completely lost to every good feeling, as to take leave of my mother without emotion. I could not forgive my father for being a clergyman, nor my sisters for not adopting my political speculations, but my mother, that kindest of mothers, was fading sensibly away. Her sinking spirits and wasted form, bespoke a saddened soul; and when I felt her tears bedew my cheek, something like affection glowed at my heart, and I embraced her with a transient gleam of contrite tenderness. Oh! could I have foreseen that I should never behold that face again, perhaps my obdurate nature would have yielded to the softening influence of maternal love; but I broke through the scene, and hurried forward. I was to cross the Bay, and embark in a little boat from the Black Point of stormy memory. Though I traversed the waters in the same direction which had been fatal to that unfortunate little band, not one of whom it was supposed had survived to relate the terrors of a night which had exchanged for them the warm realities of this busy world for the "cold obstruction" of death, my mind was too elate for reflection. Though I was bidding, perhaps, a last farewell to all that I once loved, the buoyancy of my spirit was more subdued by dread of any obstacle which might impede my flight than by thoughts so naturally calculated to awaken sorrowful remembrance. I pressed onwards with eager speed. Maria had slipped a packet into my hand as I pushed from the shore, and my brief supplies being all comprised in a small portmanteau and a bag, I was soon on board, and gazing with new-born transports on the receding landscape.
- 61. Such was myanxiety to quit the scene of early days, that I did not breathe freely till having shaken hands with my brothers, who accompanied me to the opposite side, I saw them splash their oars again, on their return to Glendruid. I then placed my luggage on the shoulders of a bare-legged youth, whom curiosity to see the landing, had attracted to the strand, and set out on foot for the little town, from whence I hoped to find speedy conveyance to the capital. I walked fifteen miles on that day, and Irish miles are not of the shortest, nor the smoothest, but I felt as if they had been only so many yards. Arrived at the wretched tenement, styled, through courtesy, an inn, I asked for refreshment, and thought a tough fowl, with its accompaniment of rancid bacon, both barbarously dressed, and worse served up, the most delicious morsel I had ever tasted. Exhilarated by my repast, I became more gladsome every moment, and sallying forth into the miserable stable-yard of this obscure place, I collected round me a set of raggamuffins, who are always to be found idle and lounging in such situations, and beginning with a few of the favourite watch-words of the time, delivered an harangue by way of experiment to the delighted rabble. I talked with loud voice; expounded political doctrines; praised free trade, and free thinking; abused the Protestant ascendancy; assured the people, who only wanted employment, that they were groaning under a vicious administration; informed them, that though they were free to go to mass every Sunday, and receive every rite of their Church from the hands of their priests, they might, notwithstanding, rely on the fact, that they were suffering martyrdom from persecution on account of their faith, interspersing my oration with such palatable incitements to exertion for the recovery of rights which had, I maintained, been wrested from them by the hand of lawless strength, that my audience became frantic with applause; but I own that I was confounded by a practical illustration of my remarks on the shamefully unequal distribution of property, which now awaited me, and furnished the comment on my text. My new travelling cloak which I could ill replace, had disappeared while I was
- 62. addressing the mob."Ungrateful miscreants," said I to the landlord, "only imagine such an act, at the very moment when I was wearing my lungs out in their cause!" An old man, who had reached the inn on horseback, with his valise behind him, and enormous spatterdashes buttoned up his legs, just as I arrived, smiled complacently at me as he listened to this apostrophe, and stepping up, said with a kind, yet sarcastic air: "Young gentleman, you should be proud of your eloquence, which has proved itself so fruitful. No doubt, as you have a coat, which in all likelihood the thief had not, he thought that you might dispense with your cloak, upon the principle of equalization which you had been propounding. If you will do me the favour of drinking tea with me this evening, I will try what I can do for the recovery of your property, through the aid of a few maxims very different from those which you would instil. I am a magistrate, and it is my duty to translate the little words meum and tuum for the poorest as well as the richest, who come within my jurisdiction." I would fain have avoided the tea-drinking, but my cloak was not to be relinquished without an effort, and fearing to offend my new acquaintance by a rejection of his invitation, I accompanied him to a little shabby room, with sand-sprinkled floor, where a coarse apparatus of delft covered with all colours of the rainbow, was arranged on a small oak table, while a kettle, black as soot, was singing merrily on a turf fire. As the reader may imagine, I was not asked to this tête-à-tête for the pleasure or profit which Mr. Vicars (for that was his name) expected to derive from my company. His benevolent purpose was to admonish me upon the folly of my conduct, which he did with excellent sense and discretion; and though his advice produced no beneficial result at the time when he gave it, I have often thought of his counsel since that accidental meeting. When the clock struck nine, I wished him good night, alleging my intention of being early on the road the next day, as a good excuse for retiring, and getting
- 63. rid of aconversation for which I had no taste. Mr. Vicar's took from his pocket a little bible, and I have not forgotten what he said as he put it into my hand. "Young man, you profess your love of independence. Here is a volume, which if you will accept from me, and study with care, will secure you in the possession of that peace which 'the world can neither give nor take away.' Look round you at all the finest schemes of earthly contrivance. They are all rendered abortive without the co- operation of numbers. Of what use is the most ingenious invention, if people will not use it; or the best theory, if men will not reduce it to practice? There is the science of political economy, which is just beginning to emerge from darkness; you will find much evil, if I mistake not, grow hereafter out of the application of its principles, not because the wisdom of Smith and Turgot is no longer wisdom, but because the very best human scheme ever devised, carries its own infirmity along with it; and if England cannot prevail on all the countries of Europe to accord with her view's, and join in her reforms, it is in vain for her to set up for free trade. If she should do so, she will only succeed so far as she is able to render the adoption of her principle general over the countries in commercial relation with her; but the guide which I give you, will pilot you through the roughest weather, and carry you safely into port, though all around were one universal wreck; here is the only real independence." I thanked the worthy man for his good intentions, but declined his gift, saying, that as I was born of pious parents, I concluded I should find, when I opened my trunk, that spiritual food had been provided for me. "Then," resumed Mr. Vicars, "I have only to hope that you may inwardly digest it, and so farewell." My cloak was irretrievably gone, notwithstanding every effort made to regain it, and I resolved not to harangue the people in a stable- yard again on the equal partition of property, without better securing my own.
- 64. Before I wentto bed, I broke the seal of the packet which my sister had given me at parting, but seeing that it contained a letter from my mother, which I concluded was a lecture, accompanied only by a note in Maria's hand-writing, I folded them up again, not feeling in a humour for farther exhortation after the dose which I had received from the stranger. The ardour of the morning had been damped, and I was not too well pleased with the latter events of the day; however, a good night's sleep, I thought, would restore my temper, but I had horrible dreams. I saw Albinia's graceful form, her rowan berry wreath, and green habit just as they appeared when she addressed our troop from the Cromlech; I heard shouts of triumph, then a shriek of despair; now lights were flickering along the cliffs, and Kelly's boat next appeared in the act of sinking. "Hang this web of tangled fancies, the fruit of that prosing man's strong tea," said I, as at break of dawn, I rose from my uneasy mattress. A common country car, was the only vehicle I could procure, "the chay" being in the hands of a wheelwright five miles off; so ordering this humble conveyance to be tackled, and filled with straw, I desired my luggage to be stowed to the best advantage, which done, the machine was driven on by a stout mountaineer, who sometimes walked, and sometimes sat on the shaft of his car, as circumstances invited. I varied my journey too in like manner, and enjoyed anew the ethereal atmosphere of liberty, when I found myself on the top of a high hill, snuffing the "unchartered air," and free from all human bondage. "What are the gaudy trappings of wealth but so many shackles imposed by luxury! What the ceremonies of a court but fetters inflicted by tyrant fashion to restrain the will, and destroy mental energy!" Thus did I reason while crossing the barren waste that lay over the broad heath-covered height, which my rustic charioteer assured me was the nearest short-cut to the great city. The morning was balmy,
- 65. and the airbreathed into my heart. The perfume of Nature was delicious; the song of innumerable birds exhilarated every sense, and I was in such harmony with all terrestrial things, that happiness seemed scarcely capable of increase. The pure, invigorating breezes, which played around my head, appeared to minister a flattering unction to my pride, in giving fresh activity, and imparting added clearness to every faculty of my understanding. The vexations of the preceding day were forgotten, and the world seemed to lie before me glittering in the brightest perspective. I could have addressed a senate, led an army, or done any thing that depended on strength and elasticity, in that hour of inspiration. But the path was rough, the way was wearisome, my horse grew tired; a few biscuits and water from the spring, afforded but scanty sustenance, and by the evening, as we descended to the beaten track of men, and saw the wide mail coach road stretching before us, the poor peasant, whose uncultivated intellect I had deplored, in comparing his untutored phrase with my own glow of fluent language, had now his moment of triumph. Calm and untired, he plodded over the craggy declivity; smoking his pipe with as little excitement as had accompanied his setting out, while my sand had run down, and I was exhausted with fatigue. Unused to refinements of any kind, my poor driver knew no want beyond what the simplest accommodation might remove, while I had already learned that I was not travelling on a bowling-green, and that I was travelling in a carriage without springs. As I approached the high-way, I began to feel something like a sense of shame creeping over me while I contemplated the possibility of meeting any one in my own condition of life. "It is never ungenteel to walk," thought I, and therefore, weary as I am, I will keep at a little distance from my unsightly equipage, and enter the little town at which we are to halt, on foot. Along the king's high road then, I made the best speed that I was able to do, lowered as was the tone of my spirits since first meeting the morning gale on
- 66. the mountain top.My philosophy, too, had taken a more humble level, and much of my boldness had evaporated. Proceeding slowly, and with fallen crest, I heard a rumbling noise, and turning round espied a rattling, tattered, post-chaise advance. As it gained upon me, I heard my name roared from one of its broken windows, and stop! stop! shouted from another. Two young men stepped out—a joyous shake hands ensued. They belonged to our mountain muster, and were going up to College examinations. A few minutes settled the transfer of my luggage, and placed me between them. This was a delightful omen, in my mind, of prosperous fortune. All were pleased with the unexpected meeting, and the poor bony beasts that drew us were the only dissentients to the new arrangement. Their opposition was overruled however, and away we went. Four delectable days were passed in Dublin, with these young men and their associates; but the sinews of pleasure, like those of war, reside in the purse, and mine was too ill provided for longer dalliance. I was obliged to sail most reluctantly, but not till I had laid in a store of sedition, bought all the cheap prints of the day, and established correspondences, by which I was to learn all the news from Ireland. On reaching Liverpool, which was a new world to me, I went in quest of the gentleman to whom I was consigned. I found him in a princely residence surrounded by all that wealth could purchase. Mr. Arnold received me with most friendly hospitality. He was a man of high character in his dealings, and regarded all things in this sublunary sphere with more or less respect as they were connected with commerce, which in his opinion was the summum bonum of earth. Considering, as he did, the Hibernian disturbances with the most profound contempt, he was more amused than shocked by details of our civil warfare; and seemed greatly diverted by my pompous accounts of marching and countermarching, attack, and defence. Any attempt at interrupting the established order of Church and State, was, in his eyes, the grossest absurdity, and to be put
- 67. down, vi etarmis, by the strong hand of power. He never troubled himself with history, and therefore was not aware of former revolution, or at least despised the Irish so entirely that he did not apprehend any resistance which millions of them could make. I used to burn with anger at hearing him say, "Sir, I would hang them every one, or, if I could, I would tie a stone to the Island and sink it like a dog in the sea." Numbers of people were flocking, about this time, to Liverpool for refuge. Some, through fear of the rebels, and many from dread of being considered such themselves, and treated accordingly. Mr. Arnold was a single man, and of convivial habits. His custom was to give the whole morning to business, and relax at four o'clock, with a few friends, at an excellent dinner, of which several of my countrymen were happy to partake, and pay for "solid pudding with empty praise;" and the most exaggerated descriptions of "hair- breadth scapes, and fights of flood and field," to the great diversion of their host. Some of these men had been obliged to fly with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, but such was the kind feeling excited for the refugees that they were received with the most liberal hospitality, not only by the wealthy traders, but into a society, which at that period could boast of being distinguished for literary taste, talents, and acquirement. It was wonderful to observe the fascination in which a company, composed of highly gifted and enlightened individuals, were often held by the dramatizing mountebanks, who came in droves amongst them; one of whom I particularly recollect, a coarse and vulgar man, but a master in the art of producing effect. His eye was quick as the lightning's flash, and could discern, with such celerity, the various expressions of countenance around, that he felt, with the rapidity of intuition, who, how, and when he was moving by his eloquence. I remember his affecting a numerous audience one day by a story which furnished a good specimen of his manner. It was of a boy who had suffered death for treason. The particulars of his trial and execution were similar to other details, of which the orator had
- 68. recounted so many,that attention ceased to hang upon his words, and he began to feel that eyes and ears were dropping off. When, suddenly rising from his chair, and pointing as if to the fatal tree, he exclaimed, "Behold, my friends! see the accursed agents of despotism bearing that child to an ignominious death! Look at the little ruffled collar which plays to the breeze on that innocent neck which is presently to feel the hangman's murderous gripe—and sigh over your fallen country!" The "little ruffled shirt collar" achieved the desired end, and not a cheek in the room remained unbedewed, so well did this man understand the power of minute and incidental circumstances in working on the human soul. Like grammar rules, which are amassed in the memory long before they are understood or applied, my observations were made, because I had leisure to look on, but without affording any salutary deductions till a far subsequent period. My youth, and the retirement in which I had lived, gave me perhaps an awkward air, and though treated with the utmost good nature, I was not brought forward, which wounded my vanity, and afforded me much more time than I wished, for meditation upon many subjects, though I had not then sense enough to turn the remarks which forced themselves on my view to my own advantage. One conversation however struck me, and inspired caution, absurd and wrong-headed as I was. A question was asked, in my presence, of the orator to whom I have just alluded, whether, in case that a certain insurrectionary attempt, instead of failing, had succeeded, the persons who had been principals in the design would have been rewarded with the chief situations, civil and military, under a new order of government. The answer imparted a new light to my mind. "Pooh, pooh! Not at all. They thought so, and therefore worked hard in the cause; but they would neither have become consuls nor
- 69. dictators I promiseyou. They were not half bold enough for popular esteem. These half-measure men are very useful; nay, indeed, necessary, in the commencement of a general revolution. While events are doubtful they serve to tranquillize the timid and restrain the impetuous, but when matters are ripe for action, these fair and softly folks are sacrificed, as a forlorn hope, to make way for those who come after, and rush to the battle when a breach is effected. When the people are in commotion no gradual reform will satisfy. The mob, including all violent men of whatever class, do not desire to have grievances redressed; and are disappointed, like Lydia Languish in the play, when, instead of the dear ladder of ropes, chaise and four, and Gretna Green—the consent of parents and friends leaves nothing in prospect but a peaceable hum-drum marriage. Calm tempers, rational purposes, and moral systems, are very well for beginners and are valuable instruments. They cajole the unwary, and gain time for the desperate; but the advocates of tame projects will always be sent overboard as soon as they have performed their part. In fact they are nothing more than stepping- stones, and when the factions have, through their aid, safely forded the river, they are voted to be impediments to the free flow of the stream, and removed accordingly." I was deeply attentive to this exposé, and forcibly impressed with the baseness of men who could requite the services of unsuspecting adherents with cold blooded treachery, using their best friends merely as scaffolding, to be thrown aside on the completion of the building. The scrap of paper found by Macfarlane in Kelly's cottage recurred to my mind, and brought home (comparing small things with greater) a parallel to my remembrance in the conduct of the Talbots and Lovetts towards me and my brothers. "All men who will not go to every length, are looked upon, I perceive," said I, "as mere tools, and thus do the cunning repay their partizans." Disgusted and depressed, I sat ruminating at my fire side instead of retiring to rest. The truth was, that, piqued by the want of attention
- 70. which I hadexperienced, I was out of humour, and mistook my chagrin for a fit of moral philosophy. In this mood I took my mother's letter, which, till then, remained unopened, broke the seal, and read as follows: "Albert, I am going, with a sorrowful heart, to address to you the last lines which you will perhaps ever receive from my pen. I write them for your sake, not my own. My days are drawing to a close, and if you do not destroy this paper, the words which it contains, deriving a sacredness of character from death, may hereafter inspire you with feelings which, while here, I have little hope to see impressed on your heart. Oh! Albert! my once dearly loved, I cannot tear you from this bosom, nor forget that you are my child! "Though I shall not live to witness a change, I do not despair of its taking place, and if it be permitted to a departed spirit, after its separation, still to mingle in the dearest concerns of earth, mine will hover round my Albert's head, and mark every repentant throe which shall agitate his breast; for repentance will yet have its day, and a time will come, when, throwing off the coils which now entangle, you will think for yourself and be free. Your soul abhors restraint; yet you have only changed masters, in abandoning the mild legitimate control of your natural protectors for the despotic sway of self-constituted authority, and this you call liberty, and are the dupe of a sound, while in reality you are held under coercion the most enthralling. "It is the cant of your party, that the world was benighted till now, and is at present emerging into day, from the obscurity of ignorance and barbarism. It is part of the same silly creed that man is capable of "infinite perfectibility," and is in the high road to attain it. It is not so; history supplies us with materials for a juster decision. Man, born to evil thoughts, and following mischief with a tendency inherent in an imperfect nature, will devise unholy schemes, and exercise selfish views in all periods of the world's existence; and one age is often employed in little more than overturning the institutions of that which preceded. In private life, the miser hoards; his son is probably
- 71. a spendthrift; thethird generation, perhaps, suffering by the errors of profusion, takes to amassing again, and so on. Nations are but larger families, still composed of men, imperfect, erring men; some better, some wiser, than the rest, but all liable to mistake, because all seeing through a glass darkly, and all unable to produce any plan in which evil is not a constituent ingredient. One government is established on the basis of wisdom and virtue, while another is grounded on the brutal law of force. The former becomes corrupt through confidence in its stability; establishments foster indolence; indolence produces luxury, and luxury enervates and debases the species; the latter, resting securely in its power, casts its galling fetters on all who are so unfortunate as to be subject to its domination, and the demons of prerogative and infraction stay not their merciless career till despair inspires resistance, and the yoke is thrown off. "Reform is wanting in both these instances; but, alas! it is always attempted by the young, the bold, the impetuous, and generally unprincipled; hence it is that improvement is not progressive. Bad passions mingle in, if they do not entirely actuate, new schemes. One man of more impudence or more courage than his fellows assumes to lead, and the multitude, who abhorred the wholesome restraint of the laws, follow the usurper with willing and slavish submission till fresh chains are forged more oppressive than those which had been discarded. "Even admitting, what is far from being true, that all innovations were the fruit of genuine patriotism, and that common sense, which perceives error, the inventor of new projects is still prone to mistake, as the sparks fly upward. Old prejudices are assailed by youthful theories, in which imagination, which is more active than judgment, and feeling, which is more prompt than discretion, achieve the victory. Whatever are the evils of any given state of society, they operate on those individuals who compose it sufficiently to prevent the reformer from being always competent to rectify the abuses of
- 72. which he complains;and here is another reason why old errors are so commonly only exchanged for new. "Providence has so ordered, however, that in the great scheme all works together for good: discussion sharpens sagacity, opposition provokes research, heresy kindles devotion, war leads to peace, as storms purify and tranquillize the physical elements; but this is not our doing: this consequence is the ordinance of Him who overrules our follies, our eccentricities, our vices; and, giving them free scope within a limited space, precludes them from affecting the balance of the universe by straying beyond the bounds originally prescribed to the exercise of their activity. As the miser is not more benevolent because another gives in charity what his avarice heaped together, neither is an atheist, nor a rebel, a virtuous member of society because the unbelief of the one, and the insubordination of the other, increases the piety or the loyalty of a looker-on. The good of which we are permitted to be the humble instruments comes from example; that which the Almighty works out of our vices proceeds from contrast. The effect of the former is to sanctify the means as well as the end, and bless him who teaches virtue to those around; that of the latter is to sacrifice the vehicle, though God may not suffer the brand which it rolls flaming along to consume aught but itself. "Consider these things, my son. The world is not of yesterday. What you and your companions are fanning as the sparkling scintillations of genius, now lighting on our globe for the first time to illumine its surface, are only the dying embers of a former age, revived but to perplex mankind with fitful glare. Quit your philanthropic delusions, and be assured, that however paradoxical such a maxim may sound in your ears, it is true, that he best loves all, who loves well a few; wide generalities are thin and diluted, whether in religion, politics, or affection, and the charities which profess to be universal are too frequently the offspring of laxity and indifference. It is the sunshine of domestic love which pours its gladdening ray to distant regions; it is the strong nerve of godlike duty which braces resolution for grand
- 73. and comprehensive enterprize.My Albert, begin at home. Happiness and independence may be yours, if you do not reject the means of obtaining them. "Farewell, my child. Despise not the words of truth because they are breathed by my voice addressed to you by my pen. Neither shall I long remain to molest you: a killing blight has passed over my soul, and scattered the sweet blossoms of hope. But it is good for me to be afflicted. Before I was troubled I went wrong. "May the Almighty bless you, my Albert; and should you ever discover that there is soothing in a mother's heart, ere mine has ceased to beat, knock, and it shall be opened to you. "Miranda Fitzmaurice."
- 74. CHAPTER VI. A soulnot entirely dead to all good feeling would have been touched by this letter. Mine was affected, but not in the degree required for any permanent good. I folded it up, resolving that I would answer it affectionately, and lay a foundation for better times to come. The morning, however, brought other occupation, and the letter was put into my trunk. Mr. Arnold took me to breakfast with a gentleman who lived at Bootle, not far from Liverpool, and who had a son just preparing to sail for America. It was soon arranged that the young man and I should go together in the Washington, which was to weigh anchor in a few days; and my shipmate, whose name was Clarke, was invited by Mr. Arnold to return, and dine at his house with us. This youth was about my own age, and we had not interchanged many sentences before I discovered, to my infinite satisfaction, that he was Irish, and a rebel. We cemented a league of the closest amity, mutually attracted by these sympathies, and became inseparable. I now made the amende honorable to my powers of oratory for the abstinence which they had suffered since my arrival in England, by opening their sluices copiously on my new associate, who, I found, had drank more deeply by far than I had myself done at the poisoned stream, and was quite au fait in all the new doctrines. We discoursed of the persecuted people, of selfishness, and pride, tenacity to old systems, blind prejudices against improvement; abused the old and the experienced as incumbrances and impediments; talked of the clergy, who made traffic of superstition, and kept mind in bondage to serve their secular purposes; of learning as a dead weight on the active energies; and agreed that a democracy and an altar "to the unknown god" comprised our highest ideas of government and religion. All were decreed to be knaves or
- 75. dunces who dissentedfrom our opinions, and were scoffed at accordingly. Precious specimen of that toleration which we boasted! The ship in which we were to sail was delayed, but I rejoiced in any circumstances which protracted my stay in Liverpool, where I found many congenial spirits. Clarke introduced me to several of his acquaintances who were of our own stamp, and political sympathy being quite a sufficient bond to friendship, we became as intimate as brothers in a fortnight's intercourse. How gregarious are bad principles! Is it because vice is cowardly, and dares not stand alone, while virtue, in its boldness, finds independence? My mother's letter occasionally disturbed my peace, but each day weakened the impression, and increased the difficulty of an answer, which was at length postponed sine die. The hour of departure arrived. Mr. Arnold had taken no interest in my choice of companions. His attentions, though full of kindness and civility, were rather of a mercantile than friendly character. He had accepted me like a bill; I was indorsed and negotiated in form; now shipped, invoiced, consigned, and exported like a parcel of hardware. Accompanying me to the wharf, he recommended me to the captain's care, shook hands, wished me a pleasant passage, and, with all the alacrity of a haberdasher, whipped off to his counting-house. A favouring breeze filled our sails, and we were soon launched on the broad Atlantic. In Europe if you praise a man, you are asked whether you have ever had a money-dealing with him. In India, on like occasion, the inquiry is, "Have you taken a voyage in his company?" To the former interrogatory I should have had no experience to assist my reply, my pecuniary transactions affording me small insight into human character; but I now learned that the Indian test was no bad criterion, and ere many hours elapsed after I left the river Mersey, I began to find that the concentration of a trading vessel brings many qualities into a focus, which had previously been too widely diffused to make one sensible of their existence.
- 76. Clarke, who hada keen look out after comfort in the most comfortable sense of that snuggest of English words, had made the most careful provision for mitigating the desagrémens incident to our situation. There was nothing wanted to complete his arrangements for the voyage. Captain Conroy was to supply my necessities by agreement with Mr. Arnold, but my friend Clarke, with a telescopic prescience of ship's fare, had laid in a store of luxuries which, adding the force of contrast to what of its own nature required none to render it abominable, certainly blackened my salt beef into as unpalatable a morsel as I had ever eaten. Clarke had brought new laid eggs, potted cream, sweetmeats of every description, and all varieties of pickles and sauces piquantes, while his well-fed goat chewed the cud contentedly below, and poultry of various sorts gabbled in their coops. Had my purse been better furnished I should not have profited in this manner by its abundance, for I was a reckless swain, and when politics did not engross my mind, it was given to poetry and romance, while the de quoi vivre seldom presented itself to my attention till urged by necessity; and as we are said to "take no note of time but from its loss," so I never thought of food till I was hungry. Thus, till I saw the delicate cates which were displayed by my messmate, I did not recollect that such things were, and the second thought which crossed my mind was, that they would be common property. "It would be so, were they mine, and of course it will be so, as matters stand," quoth I to myself; but I reckoned without my host, and received my first practical lesson on the difference between savings and doings. I had hitherto seen Clarke either at his father's house or at the hospitable board of Mr. Arnold; but now that he drew upon his own resources, I found the case considerably altered. We talked politics, indeed, as usual, but my companion suppressed the tirades against worldliness, and calculation, with which he used to interlard his discourse; and muttered a hint that charity begins at home, and that liberality might be carried too far, upon a request for a little goat's
- 77. milk for asick sailor. In short, a more narrow minded niggardly being could not exist than Clarke, and I was glad to have discovered his character au fond, before we touched terra firma. During the voyage, I pleased myself afresh, with visions of the scene upon which I was soon to enter. My vexations in Liverpool did not extinguish my hope of being thought a shining light at Quebec. Vanity is an elastic quality and will bear many rebuffs. She, with ever ready unguents, poured soothing on the bitter waters of disappointment, and whispered that though I failed in Bœotia, I should flourish at Athens. Though Liverpool might be absorbed by vulgar traffic, the glorious field of America was in prospect, and there I should be more justly appreciated. Youth stands many a shock ere it is discouraged, and ignorance is not easily foiled in its anticipations. I was all elate, and when we entered the St. Laurence upbraided time with taking a nap, so slowly did it appear to travel, till we cast anchor. My uncle, whose physiognomy impressed me very favourably, gave me the kindest reception. In high spirits at finding myself on shore, I accompanied him to his house, which was pleasantly situated, and was speedily made acquainted with the map of the interior; but I must confess that I felt my vivacity somewhat checked at the sight of a room not more than twelve or fourteen feet square, furnished with a deal writing-desk painted oak colour, shelves divided into compartments alphabetically numbered, and a few rush-bottom chairs. This I was informed was to be my sanctum, and I certainly did not fall in love with it, neither did I feel much overjoyed at hearing, that on the following day I was to be regularly installed in office, and introduced to ledgers and letter-books. My uncle's dinner hour was three o'clock, and as I went to prepare for our primitive repast, I laid my little plan for making a figure in our first tête-à-tête, and securing his good opinion. I meditated what I should say, and resolved to give him a highly interesting account of our Irish proceedings; but when the bell rang, I was excessively mortified to find that a West Indian Captain was to be of our party.
- 78. Nothing could bemore mal-a-propos. Since we were not to be alone, a few cheerful people would have been second best, but the number three, which is at all times and in all places considered unlucky in point of society, was peculiarly so upon the present occasion. I was totally excluded, and sat silently listening to the most tiresome discussion respecting freights and cargoes, unenlivened by a single remark in which I could participate. Captain Thompson was a square built stump of a man, who seemed to care very little about modes of government, provided that the carrying trade were not injured. He talked incessantly of crops and colonies, and my uncle, though evidently a man of superior intellect, seemed not averse to indulge his guest, by allowing him to start his own topics and dwell upon them as long as he liked. When Marplot took his departure it was bedtime. Candles were called for, and as my uncle bid me good night, he added, "Albert, I fear that this was a dull day for you, but I could not avoid asking Captain Thompson. He is a worthy man, and sails to-morrow, so I had no other opportunity of shewing him some civility." I was glad to hear that I should see no more of the Captain, and retired to my chamber with a heavy heart. It is amazing how we deceive ourselves at a distance from the objects of our contemplation! But as we go on doing so to the end of our lives, it was no great wonder that my fancy had been engaged, at between eighteen and nineteen, in drawing pictures very unlike the truth. I was now in that land of strangers which, till the present moment, had been a region of imagination. The vague rapture which I had painted to myself in the novelty of a foreign clime had dissolved in air, and I found nothing to stimulate curiosity, or justify an excitement, which was now followed by the antagonist feeling of chill and dislike. The notions of young people are seldom of a negative kind, because while life is in its spring, pain has not taught them that its mere absence is a pleasure. All their ideas of good are positive, and therefore the more vivid anticipation, the more certain is disappointment. In this sanguine temperament, I
- 79. suppose that Iexpected to see the goddess of liberty seated on a triumphal car, and the Canadians running about delirious with freedom. Whatever were the phantoms raised by my enthusiasm, the reality bore no resemblance to them; and I was surprised by the common- place manner in which the inhabitants of Quebec appeared to be employed in pursuing vulgar interests like other men. I read my mother's letter again, and passed a miserable night. On meeting next morning, my uncle accosted me with much good nature, and after breakfast, conducting me to a very well furnished library, said, "Here, Albert, you will find a tolerable collection of the best standard works in all the European languages, and you need not forget your Greek and Latin, as I have got a capital edition of the Classics. I do not desire that you should, in becoming a merchant, cease to be a gentleman. You shall therefore have free ingress here, as often as you like to look in upon your old friends." "They would be new acquaintances, not old friends, Sir," answered I. "I have read very little of late, and scarcely know any of these authors who adorn your book shelves." "And pray," said my uncle, "may I beg to ask what you do know. I should have thought that you were at home in literary matters. Your parents inform me that you had been designed for a learned profession." "Why, Sir," replied I, "history and the belles lettres are very well when one has leisure for them, but matters have been ripening into action with us in Ireland. The march of mind has been making rapid progress, and is performing wonders amongst our brave and gifted people. It is not easy, as I am sure you will acknowledge, to sit down amid a heap of musty volumes, filled with antiquated learning, when the living energies of a nation invite our sympathies. The truth is, that politics have occupied my head and heart so entirely that I have thought of little else."
- 80. "The subject isone of deep interest and importance," answered my uncle; "though I am at a loss to know what a boy at your age, who is not in the army, can have to do with active measures, as much as it puzzles me to imagine how any but statesmen or journalists find employment in the science of government. All indeed may read the newspapers, and whoever considers the features of the present time with attention, has cause for inquietude. The age we live in is big with event, and many of its presages are alarming to a sober mind. But, my young friend, what have you to do with national affairs, and where did you discover that men may jump into political knowledge without reading, though remember I do not say in 'musty volumes.' I do not advocate mildew. I love a clean cover." I felt a little annoyed by this half satirical, half jocular, mode of treatment, but throwing back my head and shoulders, with what I intended should be a dignified air, and express confidence in my strength, I replied, "The reign of authority you know, Sir, is past, and the enfranchised mind, disdaining to be held in thrall by the shackles of prescription, has burst the fetters which retained it in captivity. Mysteries are abolished. We are not imposed on by sounds—we must have sense; we have banished the cumbrous machinery of learning, which, like the heavy horse of Prussia, served only to impede, not assist the operations of a campaign—precedent is out of date, monopoly is abolished. The unchartered intellect ranges at liberty, and we have thrown open the barriers; words no longer deceive—we study things; freedom has provided short cuts through the wearisome wastes of religion and morals—utility is our test; and men may worship the Deity as they please. Priestcraft is exposed, the altars of superstition are razed to the dust, and the temple of nature is held to be our only sanctuary. Religion is thus stripped of her mask, while morals have undergone a similar reform. The jargon of the old school is declared to be obsolete, and the absurd doctrine of restraint is superseded. The master spirits of France have also carried the genius of reform into the social compact, and simplified our political views. The rubbish of antiquity is shovelled away. We no longer require folios of worm-eaten erudition to teach us, but
- 81. justice, with hereven scales, is accessible to all. It is the folly of learning which has obscured her decisions, and rendered that which is plain and straight forward crooked and complicated. We do not now inquire how our ancestors understood such and such points, for the mists of darkness are clearing away, and the human mind, borne upward by conscious strength, will rise into the glorious sunshine of liberty and become a law unto itself. What has a Cæsar or an Alexander to do with us? What need have we to wade through the jargon of the economists, and break down the soaring spirit to the low level of sordid calculation? Why should we revive the old fashioned stuff of national resources, balance of power, and such useless nonsense? Reason, Heaven descended, has resumed her sway, and man dares to be free." A hearty fit of laughter, accompanied by "well done, bravo," somewhat disconcerted me, and my uncle's reply when his merriment would allow him to speak, was not encouraging. "Come," said he, seeing me look confused, "I must remember that ridicule is not the test of truth, though we have heard the contrary. We will be serious. My idea of judgment is, that it depends on comparison, and facts are requisite to this process. I confess myself a sceptic as to the merit of many new inventions, and cannot avoid auguring ill of their consequences. Believe me, nephew, that some of the opinions which, unhappily for yourself, you have adopted, lead to every species of disorganization—but do not suppose that I mean to say, of either things or people, that they must necessarily be good because they are old. Let youthful genius bud forth and blossom. I love to see young intellect aspiring, and would do all in my power to assist its flight. Fancy, too, has its charms, and the flowers of eloquence are worthy of cultivation; but the wisdom of experience may be allowed its place, though these lighter graces have their play. Nature performs all things in season, and the swelling pride of spring is as lovely in its own time as the ripened stores of autumn at a later period—but beware of what you are doing. These raw politicians will effect much harm, but no good. Only that you tell me you are no reader, I might ask whether you are acquainted with a
- 82. verse in acertain volume which warns us against breaking yokes of wood and making in their stead yokes of iron? "If you doubt," said I, "that the son of a clergyman has read the bible, may I not hope that it is because you approve that liberty of conscience which I uphold?" "I uphold liberty of conscience, my young friend, perhaps, as much as you do," answered Mr. Fitzmaurice. "Let conscience be the supplicant, and I could trust freedom in her hands. 'In all that may become a man,' I would protect the exercise of free will, but your schemes are founded upon license, not liberty, and so far from imparting power, would soon circumscribe its energies within a straightened compass. One of your freemen would require shackles to be placed on many, ere scope and verge sufficient could be found for his restless activities. I tell you, young man, that you must surrender a part of your natural liberty to preserve the rest, in every civilized state of society. Your modern republicans are playing a sad game." "But, Sir, surely there is no magic in the word 'King:' kings may be fools, and where there is no monarchy of mind, idols of wood and stone are more convenient and less costly than those of flesh and blood." I spoke with vehemence, and met with a rebuke which my flippancy well deserved. "Nephew, I cannot waste my time in talking nonsense. When you take the trouble of qualifying yourself for debate, I shall be happy to enter upon an argument with you. In the meantime you must excuse me if I decline what I consider 'vain jangling,' and assure you that I should no more dream of taking your present opinion on law and politics, than on a cargo of sugars; you must study the one, and the other, before I abide by your counsel." My uncle spoke well, and delivered his sentiments with a calm force which overawed me. There was neither foaming at the mouth nor any of the gesticulations to which I had been accustomed in our
- 83. harangues of the"Slat house," where the principal orators were Mr. Talbot and Mr. Lovett. I felt abashed, yet trying to rally, I ventured to add something about intellect being given for individual exertion, and that grateful for the boon we should employ our own, and not trust to other people. "I am not apt," replied my uncle, "to look for gratitude as the fruit of pertness; and as for authority, I shall take leave to prefer my oracles to yours. You refer to Paine and Volney; I have other standards, and I believe were the measure of our obsequiousness weighed, you might be found as implicit a subject to your rulers, as I am to mine; but come, Sir, tret and tare must have its day, and my political, poetical, and oratorical nephew must be nailed to the desk for the next three hours." Though not an angry frown was scowled upon me, I felt that there was a sober firmness in the manner of these half playful words, which left me no option; so, like a sheep to the slaughter, I was led away, and ordered to my post. The conversation which I have detailed put the finishing stroke to all my castle-building, and brought my palmy hopes to the dust. My favourite creeds had not only been opposed, but in such a way as forbid any farther trial on my part to sustain them. The contempt with which my opinions were treated, irritated my temper, and galled my spirit, beyond expression. There was a something like pity in my uncle's eye under which I writhed and fretted a thousand times more than if I had been met with ferocious conflict, and been called upon to summon all my strength. I was humbled; my self-love was wounded, and a sullen despondency succeeded my presumptuous elevation. Deprived of my old companions, and cut off from my former pursuits, I was denied the blessing of solitude, in which I might have mourned my fate without spectators. A few feet of that rocky precipice at Glendruid from which I used to chide the heavy hours, and wish that every sail would bear me away, seemed now the
- 84. Paradise of memory,and the whole world would I have given to transport myself once more to the craggy cliffs of my birth-place. I was immured in an apartment or office in which six other desks ranged with mine, and as many clerks, who seemed not to possess a single idea beyond the bounds of their occupation, were seated in rank and file, as I took my station. While busied at home in forwarding insurrection, I used to associate familiarly with the neighbouring peasants, and never felt the dignity of a gentleman compromised in such intercourse. There was nothing lowering to pride in such communion, because the end appeared to ennoble the means, and the grandeur of the purpose in which all were concerned, gave a character to the actors which did not belong to them in a private capacity. So I argued at least, but these men were mere accountants; little better than machines of wood, and divested of every pretension to the distinguishing type of gentleman. I could not bear to hold the slightest fellowship with them, and after a cold salutation, which was answered by each with, "Good morrow, Sir," I was accustomed to take my seat close to a window which looked out upon an immense paved yard, surrounded by storehouses. A monstrous watchdog was sole tenant of this inclosure, and the entrance or departure through its gateway, of sledges filled with merchandise, the only variety which its dismal area presented. What a scene to be contrasted daily with the magnificent expanse of ocean over which my eye was used to wander from my native shores! How different my present prison from the rocky caves in which I was wont to contemplate the sea's ebb and flow, soothed by the curlieu's wild wail, and refreshed by the fragrant breezes wafted from the heath-covered hills, or the gardens of the deep! The towers of La Trappe would have been a welcome prospect to my imagination in comparison with the destiny upon which I had fallen. "In that desert region of eternal silence," said I, "thought would at least be free, and my wretchedness would be allowed repose."
- 85. Tears which hadceased to flow from tenderness of heart, now nightly moistened my pillow. I was without resource; the stimulus of activity no longer braced my nerves, and the excitement of vanity had ceased to operate on my spirits. I found my boasted patriotism beginning to flag for want of sympathy; and I had so long depended upon its animating influences, that I could not force my mind into any new occupation. Those only who have felt the horrors of vacuity can enter into the sufferings which I endured. There is something more repugnant to the mind in being despised than hated, and more painful in the absence of every excitement than the presence of great misfortune. A thousand times did I form the resolution of snapping my chain, but whither should I fly; how subsist? To return home would have been, if possible, worse than to remain at Quebec, and I could not expect to be received, laden with the weight of my uncle's displeasure. The only alternative was an endeavour to submit to my fate. At first the effort was intolerable, and for some time attended with little success; but time was beginning to familiarize me to my situation, and I plodded for some hours of every day at my unwelcome task, more like an automaton than a sentient being, when all my former energy was revived by an accidental circumstance.
- 86. CHAPTER VII. It mayeasily be imagined that with my feelings I had not much inclination for the society of my uncle. I did not, it is true, dare to offend, but I tried as much as possible to avoid him; and have often wondered since at the kindness of his forbearance. When the business of the day was over, it was my only comfort to take long walks, in which I enjoyed the luxury of ruminating unmolested on the events of my past life. I had been several months in America, when I asked permission to avail myself of two or three holidays in the counting-house, to visit the celebrated falls of La Chaudière. Leave was granted; and I set out by myself, carrying a small basket, containing such refreshment as might enable me to take the longest advantage of my furlough. Having left the boat in which I was conveyed up the river, at a convenient distance, I quickly gained the deepest recesses of the dark massy woods that surround that beautiful cataract, to see which was my ostensible motive for this excursion; my real object was to give a free course to my sorrows, and obtain a short interval of undisturbed leisure, to consider whether there existed any practicable mode of relieving them. The grandeur of the pines, and the solemn cadence of the waters soothed my mind, and brought consolation, without suggesting a remedy for my unhappiness. In the depth of this leafy seclusion, I poured out my complaints, without dread of interruption, and repined aloud at the severity of my lot. "Why," murmured I, "am I gifted with talents which must remain unexercised? Why endowed with activity which is to lie dormant? Why have birth, habits, and education, formed me for higher things, while I am condemned to the vulgar cares of loss and gain, in which I have no interest, and obliged to confine my understanding to the
- 87. sordid purposes ofaccumulating wealth, which is to line the coffers of another, and not even reward my labours by enriching me?" Tired at length by self-directed questions such as these, which I could not answer to my satisfaction, I lay down under the shelter of a hut formed with stakes and covered with branches, which had been probably raised by some artist, who perhaps remained at the Chaudière, to take sketches, beyond the necessary time for seeing the water-fall. Here I fell asleep, and dreamed of home. I thought that I had landed in the Bay, and had toiled my way over the cliffs to Kelly's cottage, where I found my mother pale and weeping, as she gazed on the ocean, and exclaimed, "Better is it to shed tears over the grave of those we love, than mourn the living!" The voice which seemed to pronounce these words was so faithfully echoed by memory, that I started up, and broke into a passionate invocation to my country: "Oh, my dear native skies! beloved Island of the emerald's hue! nursery of freedom, land of the generous and the brave, when shall I revisit your coasts? Glendruid, thou lovely scene of infant joys, shall I ever look upon thy rocky shore again?" As I uttered these words, a slight rustling amongst the leaves behind me caught my ear; but ere I had time to turn round, my arm was seized with an eager grasp, and my eyes were met by those of Henry Talbot. No language could convey the rapture and astonishment of this unexpected meeting. A second figure, which had been concealed by the thick foliage from my view, now advanced, and I perceived a youthful stranger, of the most prepossessing appearance. Such was the agitation caused by this sudden, this unlooked for rencounter, that Talbot and I stood mute and breathless from emotion, and during some minutes were incapable of speaking. Such was the impetuosity of my feelings, that I was quite overwhelmed, and for a short space resisted the evidence of my senses, determined rather to believe that a vision had appeared to my
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