Puzzle pieces come in all different shapes and sizes. The one thing they all have in common is that the edge of each piece will touch the edge of another piece. The notion of “top” or “bottom” isn’t embodied in the piece, it’s in the picture that the piece is helping to form.
Looking at the transformation picture in the previous post, each piece represents a concept under management and each conceptual piece is related to another piece. There is a chain of dependency across these pieces which must combine as a network to realise the big picture. Traditional management practices focus on a hierarchical chain of command so the orientation of the pieces were shaped to support the management of functional communities and the delegation of responsibility.
One of the first significant changes to this top down view occurred with the introduction of matrix management structures. These structures began in response to attempts to focus responsibility on certain project, customer, product or regional dimensions of operations and this view required a different configuration of pieces than came out of the traditional functional box. Matrix management was supported along the way by the adoption of more comprehensive and more accessible management information systems and this in turn enabled other more pieces to be joined through integrated enterprise wide management systems.
For many people who experienced the changes to management practices which were enabled by integrated management systems, it seemed a logical step to continue the pattern and formalise collections of pieces to be managed for specific end to end outcomes. Over the past 10 years (give or take 40 to 60 years of consulting theory), the practice of Business Process Management has raised the profile of the horizontal end to end dependencies which span the vertical hierarchies of functional responsibility.
