COD Lab Seminar: B. Pentland. 1/20/94
From: Les Gasser (gasser@morue.usc.edu)
Reply to: gasser@morue.usc.edu & iceimt@tools.org forum
Mon, 10 Jan 94 17:39:29 PST
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USC/ISSM COMPUTATIONAL ORGANIZATION DESIGN LAB SEMINAR
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RELIABLE DESCRIPTIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESSES:
COLLECTING DATA FOR A PROCESS HANDBOOK
Dr. Brian Pentland
Date: 20 January 1994
Place: SSM-118, USC
Time: 10:30 AM
ABSTRACT:
The ability to measure and make comparisons is fundamental to
any empirical science. In organization theory, scholars are
becoming increasingly concerned with the study of processes, but
our empirical techniques lag considerably behind those we have
developed for measuring and comparing the properties of static
entities. The problem we face is that business processes (or any
other kind of process) are essentially sequences of events
distributed in time and space; typical business processes can take
days or weeks to complete, and they frequently cross
organizational or physical boundaries. For these reasons, business
processes cannot easily be observed at one point in time or in a
single location. Furthermore, business processes are enacted
through the use of specialized actions and language that are
meaningful to the participants, but may not be easily translated to
a common vocabulary for purposes of comparison. These basic
features of business processes make their description and
comparison a particularly challenging methodological problem.
The proposed approach relies on basic techniques of ethnographic
interviewing and observation to collect data. These data are then
organized into a "process handbook" (Malone, Crowston, Lee and
Pentland, 1993) using concepts of decomposition and
specialization to create reliable, valid process descriptions that can
be used for a variety of purposes: to compare processe; to analyze
or redesign existing processes; to design new processes.
Speaker:
Brian Pentland
Graduate School of MAnagement
UCLA
email: bpentlan@AGSM.UCLA.EDU
Host: Les Gasser (213.740.4046, gasser@usc.edu)
For directions please call Louise Skura at 213.740.8771,
lskura@cod.usc.edu
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Contact: bruce.speyer@tools.org
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