Interaction based tool better for Sense & Respond Organization ?

A system by definition is a collection of elements that interact to produce an effect that cannot be produced by subset of elements. Sense & Respond organization modelling suggests that the organization should be designed like a system. I.e. the organization is considered as a system, of employees, products and places. Rather than design the actions of each of these elements of a business, this model suggests to model the both ACTIONS and INTERACTIONS to attain maximum synergy.

PI calculus is a mathematics used to model process. A process according to this theory is a set of actions. An Action can be either a capacity to receive names (Positive) or a capacity to send names (Negative). Two actions of the same name and of opposite polarity in a process are complementary. I.e one action receives names and the other action provides names. I.e one is supplier of information and the other is a consumer of information. When two complementary actions come together in a process, they React to represent an Interaction.

This capacity of the PI calculus to represent provider consumer relationship can be exploited suitably to represent an organization. This is because a organization is a set of processes that share (i.e interact) to produce a value at the end of the process. Given this won't PI calculus based modelling be better than algorithmic modelling for business application systems?

Why do we need Sense and Response Model?

The world economy moved from agrarian through the industrial to the information economy. These different economies organize work differently. Both the industrial and agrarian economy needed the same kind of organizing structures, which are based on a leader-follower managerial framework. The leader is the thinker and the follower executes the vision of the leader. Each economy has it's own thinking and organizing paradigm. The table below gives a good picture.

Economy and its paradigm

Economy Type	Economic Resource	Organizational form
Agrarian	Land and Labour	Leader-Follower
Industrial	Capital and Energy	Command and Control
Information	Knowledge and codified knowledge	Collaborative networks

The command and control managerial framework does not fit the new economy, as the final end product needs multiple specialized skills. A more collaborative work culture where these autonomous actors work independently but collectively is required. Sense and Respond is an managerial framework that is proposed for this new information economy

Ubiquitous Computing- Is More reliable and cheap?

Techology is increasingly getting minituarised. This trend is expected to continue for the forseeable future. These smaller devices does specialised functions very well. They hardly fail, as the number of funcitons they do are limited. These devices are also networked together through wireless connectivity. Arrival of new technologies like RFID tags, IPOD's, are precursor to this.

How can an enterprise take advantage of these advances or minituarisation in techonolgy? The answer does not obviously lie in how technology have been used so far. We need to think out of the box. A simple device cannot by itself create a enterprise application. An enterprise application in this brand new world, should be a technology which will coordinate these smaller devices and people to create a overall process. So in this new world, the enteprise application is not a planner (ERP), rather a coordinator of these devices and people. I.e. devices, organisations and people should be loosely coupled so the devices, people and organizations can leave and enter a process without breaking the process.

Let me illustrate with a point. For instance imagine a situation not so far into the future were all the products are identified with RFID. Then these products can identify themselves. So if that is the case, then can't we not imagine a situation in which we can develop a Warehouse application, with no Database. Since the products can identify themselves, they can always be queried to get information.This will have significant impact on the current warehouse systems vendors, as all thier systems are based on somebody collecting the information and entering into the system to be stored in the database. A fickle of imagination, can tell that this can be extended to a supply chain system.

So what is the fundamental difference between the way things are done now and this new world of coordination. I believe it goes to fundamentals of computing. Fundamentals, so far are based on algorithms. An algorithm requires that all inputs, outputs and process be defined upfront. In this brand new world, inputs, outputs and process cannot be defind apriori. The fundamentals of computing should move from a world defined apriori, to a loosely coupled world, where only thing that matters is the interaction between the actors in a process.

Such a world, is more forgiving, as there is no single point of failure (A Host computer in the case of algorithms).Such a solution is cheaper, as it does not require defining algorithms upfront and the overall solution emerges due to the interaction of these business components.

More Effective IT in a world of Services.

Business World is moving from a world of manufacturing to a world of services. This continuing social trend is nearing the peak in some developed countries. As depicted in the picture (source) a country like US has only 3 percent of population in agricultural activities. Most of the workers are in the services sector. The work of these service workers are dymanic and is significantly different from the agricultural and manufacturing era. The tools should support this new dymanic need. The idea here is to define services economy and explore how IT has to change to support this evolving Service economy more effectively.

What is a Service?

A service consists a minimum of two parties, the service provider(s) and client(s). The service provider creates value and the service consumer (client) captures the value. These actors in a service relationship (Service provider(S) and Client(S)) could be either be with in an organization or across organizations. A doctor or lawyer is an example of a one person service provider and a hospital is an example of a organization delivering a service.

In effect, in services, a service provider creates value (either as a one person or by orchastreating a group of service providers) and the client captures this value. In the case of a medical encounter (a service instance), the patient captures value. This capturing and generating of value happens through a series of interactions.

How does IT become more effective.

Right now, in most service businesses, IT is manifesting as transaction systems. For example, biling, claims adjudication, sales order, shipping, etc. These are systems, in which the transactions are entered, but not all interactions are represented. I.e. in most cases, IT systems are used as a System of Record (SOR). Can IT graduate from this SOR level to a more effective system?

Yes, IT can be made more effective, by making this creation and capturing value process as friction free as possible. To effectively do this, I belive the IT system should model the interactions that happen while a service is being delivered.