So, for various reasons over the weekend I ended up feeding 6 felines. (Not the ones in the picture! Thanks to rodrigobasaure for the snap) 2 were mine (10 months old), 1 was next doors (17 years old, arthritic) and 3 belonged to a friend (2 young 'uns of 18 months old and a very infirm 18 year old cat who's been given The Last Rights 3 time by the vet)
Why do I tell you this (and what's it got to do with processes?) Well, in principle the process of feeding a cat is quite straightforward:
1) Locate cat food dish
2) Open cat food container
3) Dispense appropriate amount of food into dish.
4) Give to cat
This works for all cat's, regardless of age etc.
However, the problem comes when the cats have special medical needs. For example: My two are straightforward. I follow the process above. End of story.
But next doors cat has need of medication for her arthritis. It's a syringe of goo (4.5ml) that needs to be squirted on her food once per day
And the three cats that my friend has are peculiar too. The old one has completely different food than the two younger ones. It's special food to help the renal problems he has. Plus he needs lactose on it to help some other complaint. The lactose is 1/2 spoonful administered with all meals.
The two younger ones have normal food like my two. But here's the problem. The older cat doesn't like eating his food and prefers the younger cat's food. And the younger cats would rather eat the renal food with the lactose on (go figure!). So they need to be separated and watched to ensure no cross contamination.
How does that effect the process?
Well it causes issues. If we change the process to deal with the arthritis medicine, it won't work for my two (or the two younger ones of my friend), however if we add a decision to the process to deal with the discrepancy, we then need to complicate the process through the addition of a separate process for 'food with medicine' vs 'food without medicine'. This works (and it works very well) but it wouldn't deal with the need to separate the cat food between the older and younger cats.
I can't help feeling that there should be a different way of looking at this.
This is where decision systems and business rules come in. This is also where the proceduralisation of a written process takes over.
Let me explain.
What happens in a particular sequence of events is the process. The three items I listed at the top of this post, for example. How that actually gets implemented is the procedure.
In the case of the process for feeding the cats I would modify it to look something like this:
1) Locate cat food dish
2) Open cat food container
3) Dispense appropriate amount of food into dish (as per business rules).
4) Add medicine (as per business rules)
5) Give to cat (as per business rules)
When the detail behind this is understood for each occurrence of the process then we get a procedure. This can be governed by 'business rules' as well. In essence we end up with three procedures related to the same process
- one for feeding my cats (business rule says 'no medicine')
- one for feeding next doors cat (business rule says 'Arthritis medicine, 4.5ml once per day)
- one for feeding the three cats (business rule 1 says 'Renal food for old cat', business rule 2 says 'Lactose on renal food', business rule 3 says 'Feed old cat and young cats separately to ensure appropriate food is eaten'
Where could this apply to your business?
For more about me check out my "About Me' page
All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford
Technorati Tags: bpm, process, processes, business process, tips
5 comments:
Nice story, giving another view on processes. Ha! And you did not even get into the trouble of making sure that the different cats are not eating the wrong food of the other ones, even creating more complexity (I grow up with cats fighting for each other's food - I think there is an implicit cat business rule saying "the food on the other cat's plate is better" :-))
Regards,
Roeland Loggen
process-transformation.blogspot.com
Roeland - I'm sure you know as well as I do that
a) It's always easier to make a process more complicated than it already is. The trick is to make it less complex!
b) Cats don't really follow process. They just want their food. Sometimes you have to make the process transparent (the same as with end users!)
Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment
Gary
Perhaps the solution is to replace the cats with dogs! I have two. They would also both like to eat each others food, as with your cats: but they do not! They have been taught to eat their own food, and only their own food. I would therefore suggest that you replace your cats, with dogs, which can then be given the appropriate training. After all it is not the feeding process that is the route of the problem, rather the fact that you can't train a cat. From a business point of view, surely this translates to don't employ cats. Therby allowing the utilisiation of simple business processes and allowing the management to devote their resources to more productive activities. Similarly, whilst dogs are bright, obedient and loyal animals, used in a variety of roles, when has a cat ever helped find a buried eartquake victim?
Steve - I think what this actually proves is that the process works for both cats and dogs. The difference is, with trainable animals such as the dogs, you don't have to worry too much about the business rule that says 'Ensure animal eats correct food'. Everything else stands as-is, I think.
Thanks for your comment
Gary
Great post - very funny and illustrative. Yours was one of several that prompted me to write a post on why decision management matters to process management.
JT
James Taylor
Author, with Neil Raden, of Smart (Enough) Systems
Smart (enough) Systems LLC
Post a Comment
For policy see http://tinyurl.com/cg8yb4