Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
Software for Business Process Modeling?
IainB:
@superboyac:
Thanks for your post above. This is probably off topic, but I would like to respond to each of the points you make. I hope that's OK by you.
Firstly, I believe you know what you are talking about. I apologize fore not closely reading and thinking about your very long posts. I simply didn't have the time for it. This weekend, I am rereading them and will have to spend time thinking about it.
-superboyac (June 26, 2010, 04:22 PM)
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Do I know what I am talking about? :-\
* I'm not so sure. I hope I know what I am talking about when I talk about business process analysis/modelling (though there is always more to learn), but I can offer no proof of that other than by demonstration. (I might be making it all up, for example.)
* I certainly know what I am talking about when I talk about mistakes in the context of "I have probably made most of those mistakes - plus a few others - and seen my colleagues make the same or worse." (This was what I was referring to by "...whereof I speak")
Secondly, i feel you were rude in the post above. I understand why you did that, and it may even have been effective in getting me to reconsider my methods, but it was rude.
-superboyac (June 26, 2010, 04:22 PM)
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I am sorry if you feel it was rude. I did in fact preface my comments thus:
"With all due respect to you and the other members who have contributed in this discussion so far, and without wishing to insult your intelligence, I have to say that ..."
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In any event:
(a) It certainly was not intended to be rude and I do apologise if I gave offence.
(b) What I was being was blunt and direct - calling a spade a spade - in order to drive the point home.
(I shall retrospectively update the post with this statement.)
Otherwise, the points I felt needed to be made could not really be made by pussyfooting around - and I did state unequivocally that I was having a rant.
Thirdly, while you are throwing out a lot of information, you are not communicating effectively. What is your point and can you state it clearly in one paragraph? There is an art to being able to say a lot with less words.
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Well, again, with all due respect, I might opine a similar gratuitous and pointless (i.e., what point does it make about the subject) criticism about you - but I would not dream of doing so as it would seem to be an ad hominem (which is a logical fallacy and meritless). Any criticisms I might make would not be on the style of a debater's communication but rather intended to contribute thinking to the debate and the improvement of understanding and resolution of an issue.
Whilst I appreciate that the criticism you express here is opinion (and we are all entitled to our opinions, no matter how wrong they may be), I have no information to go on that suggests that it is anything more than that - i.e., just your opinion.
Is it (say) a professionally qualified opinion? For example, what rules dictate that it must be one paragraph? Why not two, and how long should a paragraph be anyway? Et cetera. Therefore, your comment as it stands is of questionable use, so I shall ignore it. Unless, of course, you are an expert on, and qualified to critique the use of English, English grammar and communications theory and practice - in which case then I am (as they say) "all ears", and I shall look forward to some detailed suggestions as to how I could improve my communications (that should probably be done via PM as it would be very much off-topic).
In other words, and to use a short phrase to say much, "Put up or shut up". (I think short phrases like that sound rude and so would not usually use them as I do not wish to be rude, but you seem to want 'em!) :)
Situation description:
Thanks for describing some of the situational context of the business process work in your organisation. In light of that, I would respectfully suggest that maybe you might like to review your post and consider deleting some of it. (Just a thought.)
Regarding that situation, I would suggest that you beware. Business process reviews in an organisation are usually (inevitably?) fraught with the politics of domain-protection, which is why external consultants are often brought in under contract to do the work. External consultants generally do not care who gets the chop as long as they get the freedom and scope of action to do their professional job as best they can according to the agreed terms of reference, and then can pick up a fat fee and performance bonus at the end of the contract. The virulent antibodies in most organisations can be very quick to make it a toxic environment for in-house exercises that might threaten the status quo - which exercises then often fail ignominiously.
"I am personally curious and willing to do things the best way."-superboyac (June 26, 2010, 04:22 PM)
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I would suggest that there may well be no "best way", and that anyway it all depends on what you mean by "best" in this context.
The choice would seem to me more likely to be like the example of hunters choosing between arming themselves with native instinct, loinskins, bows and arrows and pointy sticks to go hunt their dangerous prey, or arming themselves with a good strategic hunting theory, some reinforced battledress, semi-automatic rifles with infrared targeting and telescopic sights. Surprisingly, a lot of people seem to go for the former, because they don't know about the latter choice. If they did know, then arguably the answer would be that it's a no-brainer. Certainly, I fall into the latter group, and have turned down contracts where the client expects you to wear a loinskin and use bows and arrows and pointy sticks. I know this could perhaps be regarded as an unconventional approach by some, but that's one of the reasons that I am a fan of Copernicus' and not a member of the Flat Earth Society.
IainB:
@steveorg:
This is just a quick response, because I think I have covered off the most necessary/relevant points in my response (above) to superboyac.
...strongly held opinion, bigotry, ego...-IainB (June 25, 2010, 07:50 PM)
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Am I the only one that sees the irony?
-steveorg (June 26, 2010, 09:31 PM)
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I am sorry, but arguments ad hominem are largely wasted on me, and please see in my response (above) to superboyac regarding this.
The point is that my training leads me to ensure that anything I say must be rational and based on and substantiated by referenceable experience (as research done for the client, or as recognised case studies, for example). I don't get paid to dish out opinions, and my opinions are irrelevant anyway, but whenever I am asked for an opinion, I will state it prefaced with "This is only my opinion, you understand, and I could be wrong of course, but...", because it could be a pile of unsubstantiated cr#p (like most, if not all opinions).
If I gave my clients an opinion without that rider, and if they then acted on it and it then caused a loss/damage, then this could be actionable as professional negligence. My company could be liable for either punitive damages or to make good for any consequential operational losses incurred (but not both of those things, in law). My professional indemnity insurance premiums would go sky-high, and I might not be able to remain in business or afford to remain in business. You see, my professional reputation would have been tarnished, and my operational costs could have escalated phenomenally.
When I put this quote at the end of one of my posts above:
"Nullius in verbo." Motto of the Royal Society, London. Take nobody's word for it; see for yourself.
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- I did so for a very good reason - i.e., The Age of Enlightenment included a transformation of our methods of thinking about "truth":
* Legitimate science seems to be based on rejection of trust. Saying something purely on the basis of trust does not resemble genuine knowledge.
* 16th century: Montaigne: no harm in the fact that "almost all the opinions we have are taken on authority and credit".
* 17th century: Gilbert, Bacon, Descartes and Boyle made a big thing of taking nothing on trust/authority.
* Natural knowledge founded in evidence in nature - individual reason. Not in authority of tradition. Real knowledge not based on trust but on direct experience.
* Reliance on the views of others produces errors. The best scientist is thus incapable of functioning as a member of society.
* Objective truth may exist, but human nature may preclude us from being able to experience it.
I tend to agree with superboyac, I believe you know what you are talking about.
-steveorg (June 26, 2010, 09:31 PM)
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I feel somewhat gratified that you might agree with him that I know what I am talking about, but, as per my response to him, I am not so sure that I do - I only hope that I do know what I am talking about regarding business processes(etc.), but I certainly do know about the mistakes I or my colleagues have made.
In any event, your agreement is irrelevant as it is an opinion and an appeal to the consensus (a logical fallacy, and therefore meritless), and your belief is irrelevant. They do nothing to substantiate the rightness/validity or otherwise of anything that I might have said/written, or what you say/write.
That's despite the fact that you've demonstrated little insight into superboyac's situation and needs, and that your writing is sometimes obtuse and disjointed. I'd expect someone successful in your profession to be perceptive and a good communicator.
-steveorg (June 26, 2010, 09:31 PM)
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Please see my comments above and earlier posts, regarding arguments ad hominem.
Look, I don't wish to be rude, but the rest of your post seems to me to be mostly more ad hominem and some weak attempts to rationalise and validate your past work/experience, so I shall not address that as it appears that it would not contribute materially to improvement in any rational debate on the subject. That doesn't necessarily mean that there is nothing in there that could contribute, it's just that I haven't spotted it after a quick sift through.
I do appreciate that I have put things in one of my posts above in such a way that it might have called into question the validity of a great deal of your and other people's past work/experience and preferred opinions. No-one likes being told to accept that they have been doing it wrong.
But that's just it you see. I was and still am rich in "withdumb" and relatively poor in wisdom. When I was literally forced to find a better way to do things, in order to retain the multi-million dollar contract that we had won (and I was a lead author for the RFP response that had won the business, so my job could have been on the line), I had to put in some seriously hard work to dig us out of the hole we were in. I was responsible - and I have a very strong locus of responsibility. It was up to me. I had to carry out some rapid research, and, without consciously realising it, I had to push aside conventional approaches and conventional wisdom - my "withdumb". I was very lucky indeed to discover the new methods, tools, and approach that I did, and in so short a time too.
And when I had time to stop, take a deep breath and review and actually think about what I had just gone through, I saw the awful and inescapable truth, that, regardless of how I tried to rationalise and validate my past work/experience:
I HAD BEEN DOING BUSINESS PROCESS WORK IN AN ARCHAIC MANNER FOR YEARS.
I HAD BEEN DOING IT THE WRONG WAY.
I HAD TO CHANGE.
If I had not been forced into discovering this, then I probably would never have done so. "Necessity is the mother of invention"? Maybe.
I kid you not, my ego took a serious bashing at that point and for some time after. I still cringe when thinking about it. But it taught me to systematically question and review my own training, thinking skills, education, motivations, pet theories, cherished beliefs and opinions. It made me realise just how much my negligent self-awareness of those selfsame things had enabled them to cluster around my potentially open mind like fats collect slowly to block an arterial pathway, fitting me into a tight paradigm straightjacket so that my mind could no longer be open. And my ego had prevented me from ever realising that this had been happening to me. Dammit! I was always right! How could I need any improvement in the thinking skills department? I was shocked at myself.
"Why are we all so damn stupid?" (W. Edwards Deming)
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I had just turned 50 at the time, and I thought "Sh#t! This must be how we grow old and set in our ways." But I realised that I could choose to let my mind age like that, or do something about it. CHANGE.
This is just a quick response...
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That opening line was, of course, a joke.
Your post made me think and it deserved a thoughtful response, else I would have failed to take an opportunity to contribute to, and communicate on what I consider to be a very interesting and important area of human endeavour - an area where we could all probably benefit by learning to do better.
steveorg:
...strongly held opinion, bigotry, ego...-IainB (June 25, 2010, 07:50 PM)
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Am I the only one that sees the irony?
-steveorg (June 26, 2010, 09:31 PM)
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I am sorry, but arguments ad hominem are largely wasted on me...-IainB (June 27, 2010, 09:43 AM)
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Irony piled on top of irony! Berating me for an ad hominem argument when I merely pointed out one of several an ad hominem attacks by you? Really?
You may want to brush up on your logical fallacies because your other accusations of ad hominem attacks were also off the mark. I commented, almost as harshly as you, on the content of your post but did not call you names. I did so in response to bullying. If I had now called you a bully, that would have been ad hominem. See how that works?
You ended in a conciliatory way and that's good. Some other points may deserve a bit more of a response (some positive!), but I don't what to engage in a pissing match. That's not what I'm here for. Just let me offer a bit of advice. Learn to disagree while being courteous and respectful, otherwise you suck the joy out of helping and being helped.
IainB:
@steveorg: Points noted. I shall reply via Personal Message, to avoid taking this discussion even further off-topic.
My apologies, I should probably have done that last post - as addressed to you - via PM.
IainB:
@superboyac
I recently PM'd a couple of the experts here (I forgot to include IianB!)-superboyac (June 25, 2010, 09:50 AM)
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Please don't refer to me as, or imply that I am an "expert". The term seems to indicate that the person knows everything there is to know on a subject.
I might be an experienced consultant and practitioner of business process analysis/modeling and improvement, and I certainly can see where people are going down the wrong paths that I might have been down, but I have already indicated that I am rich in "withdumb" and relatively poor in wisdom. There's probably still a lot to learn that I am not aware of.
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