Entrenched Success-It's a Good Thing Right?

Two weeks ago I read an article about the higher education system in the US. I was surprised to learn that the US has something like 35 of the world's top 50 Universities and 8 of the top 10. It's been that way for quite a while. "Wow, that's impressive" thought I. The article went on to highlight that in the 50's the US auto makers were the world's best. They stayed that way for quite a while. In both cases these US-based enterprises enjoyed what was termed "entrenched success" in their industries/markets. Things were going along swimmingly well, day after day, quarter over quarter, year after year. "If it ain't broke, don't change it", I mused. Entrenched success is a dangerous thing. It breeds complacency and blindness to the reality that things are changing all around, all the time. The US automakers came to realize that when Toyota took the market over. The US Higher Education system could be heading for the same demise if we don't change with the times.

Last week I attended a course on strategic leadership. The instructor shared the "ladder of inference". Where we naturally use our belief systems and past experiences to hone our ability to look at the right data to come to the right conclusions to take the right actions, right? Wrong! The inherent problem is the reflex loop, which causes us to filter down to only those data points upon which we've come to rely. This results in our being blind to the myriad of other data points that could be relevant and shed some breakthrough insight. Wow! The very experience base that has contributed to success can cause us to become blind to change.

Change is constant. That includes the need to change our personal definition of what breeds success. We need to be aware of the impacts of the reflex loop and force ourselves to take off the filter when dipping into the data pool. Ask other's for input, promote constructive debate, challenge the definition of success, then draw conclusions and take action. We'll produce better results in our roles as family members, work colleagues or members in our communities.

"Where's the Process?"

Attended an MDM user conference today.

As the MDM Hub was described, I got the visual of an Operational Data Store on "Biz_rule steroids". Thought to myself, "Aren’t those biz rules about biz process? Where's the Process Governance role, the Process Steward role, Process Quality? Where's the definition of valid processes?" The message came out several times that MDM is functionally intense, process intense, a paradigm shifting experience. This is all reminiscent of a few years back at TDWI as the buzz about BPM and BAM whirled about. Lots and lots of implication and rhetoric of things that sound like “process", but we continue to talk and teach Data Governance, Data Steward, Data Quality, Data Integration, Data Models, and Data Profiling. We have even gone so far as coining "Data as a Service". Oh my! Here I always viewed a SERVICE (notice the “verb” feel to the word “Service”) as a logical unit of work; an encapsulation of process and data into a bundled logical unit of work (a little itty bitty OBJECT). My soap box on this topic (for the last 8 years) is data is, by its very essence, simply a by-product of Business Process execution. Without the execution of process, there really is no need for acquiring data and there will certainly be no creation of data. Isn’t the optimization of business process the Holy Grail to optimized business performance? Granted, given today’s technology, data IS our best available empirical means to objectively measure the performance of enterprise process. I do get it. Data is important. We're just missing the boat by doing lip service to process. The business doesn't do data. Business does process. And we wonder why the business looks at us as if we have a 3rd eye when we tell them they need to own Data Governance & Data Stewardship. MDM is tough to sell to the business (just like Data Quality has been tough to sell), wonder why that is? Maybe because we keep talking about data and the business keeps thinking "that's an IT thing or a data entry clerk thing!" We need more enterprise process focus in our teachings. We need more emphasis on the disciplines for driving out the integrated business process models and mapping data to those valid process model objects. I pine for the good old days when Sarson taught us the importance of structured analysis and design at Northern Illinois University and when Martin published the Information Engineering trilogy showing us the importance of an integrated business model (process & data interacting).