Chapter 1 Summary

• The advent of computers broke the constraints associated with paper-based processes, but by so doing also broke the control structures and visual cues used to manage information processes.

• Process is a flow of activities that when executed consume resources for the purpose of creating value.

• The purpose of process is to create customer value, not to control the resources of an organization. Different levels of process control may be required depending on the value being created.

• The cost/benefit of an information process can be determined by analyzing the incremental value created by each activity as well as the incremental cost to produce that value.  Summing the total value and cost of all of the activities of a process establishes its cost/benefit.

• The process cookbook model provides recipes for completing individual activities but is not sufficient to govern the interactions between multiple chefs creating multiple dishes from multiple recipes for multiple patrons.

• It is possible to tell the approximate age of an organization by looking at its process rings-on-a-tree since processes are continually added but rarely taken away.

• The bottleneck principle:  People downstream of a bottleneck are given more work to stay busy until they too become a bottleneck.  This principle applies until all process activities are bottlenecked.

• Fit is a process strategy for maximizing the value created from available resources.  Function is a process strategy for minimizing the cost of the individual activities of each process. 

• Together Fit and Function address the issues of the process cookbook, process rings‑on-a-tree, and process spaghetti to increase an organization’s competitive advantage.

• Glean implements the strategies of Fit and Function to glean the maximum customer value from the available resources of information processes.