Plurality Business Attributes of Web Services
Note to Reader. I am publishing the "Plurality" document I frequently refer to in this blog. This will enable searching based on the text within the entire document. The word count is approximately 35,000 words and is provided as background for the discussions.
A number of technology changes have occured since it was originally published in 2004. IBM has chosen not to support this effort, and as a result I am replacing the components of the technology architecture as the opportunities and needs require. We are moving to the Sun strictly for their support of Java, and the synergies of the visions. As I recently noted, Ingress would be the database that we will use. Other then that, I have chosen to host the entire development and operating environment on Sun's Grid and as funds become available we will secure those resources.
References are to the literature noted in the bibliography. So here it is, warts and all. I hope you enjoy it, any and all comments are welcomed and appreciated.
Thank you
Paul Cox
The past number of years has seen Dr John Seely Brown and John Hagel III as the primary proponents of the web services paradigm for business. Much of their writing and consulting is done in this area and the effect of web services on management and business in general. Their efforts have recently focused on Web services almost exclusively and they have prepared a number of comprehensive writings on the subject.
A good summary of their opinions about the scope and magnitude of the changes are as follows. This quotation is from the article Orchestrating business processes – harnessing the value of web services technology. This article can be downloaded from their website
Hagel & Brown (2002) “The buzz is spreading. There’s a new set of technologies on the horizon. Web Services offer the potential of low cost, flexible connections across applications operating on diverse technology platforms. The pay-off: substantial, near-term reduction in operating costs and improvement in asset leverage for businesses.” (p. 1)
Hagel & Brown (2002) “Not so fast. True, businesses do have the potential for substantial savings in an increasingly demanding economic environment. But put the emphasis on “potential”. Realizing these savings is not simply a question of injecting a new set of technologies. To fully realize the economic potential of web services technology, senior mangers will need to adopt very different approaches to managing business processes. This article describes why different management approaches are required.” (p. 1)Hagel & Brown (2002) draw an excellent analogy in describing web services. An international meeting with 5 participants, each speaking a different language, would require up to 10 interpreters in order for any communications to occur. Web services are described as a parallel to the English language in this situation. The ability to conduct business is far simpler when everyone speaks the same language and can communicate with a shared meaning, glossary of terms, data structures, process management and other ERP style standards across multiple trading partners.
Hagel & Brown (2002) “Of course, exploiting these growth opportunities will require much more than a new technology architecture. Very different organizational capabilities must be developed, including new skills, performance measurement and reward systems and organizational learning approaches. Even more fundamentally, business managers will need to adopt a new mindset – embracing shaping opportunities by helping to define and deploy standards, rather than simply hoping to adapt to a rapidly changing environment.” (p. 19)
Hagel & Brown (2002) also state “However, none of this will be possible within the confines of existing enterprise architectures. To capture the largest business value creation opportunities on the horizon, management will need to “break on through to the other side” by embracing new technology architectures – and associated organizational forms – in a sequenced manner, driven by a clear understanding of, and demand for, real business value at each stage. (p. 20)This provides unequivocal support for the reorganization of an oil and gas operation on the basis of the joint operating committee. The need to reorganize is based on the effect that web services will have on an enterprise, and as both Hagel & Brown, and this paper have stated the alternative is hope for the ability to adapt to the changes associated with what this research calls the “integrated networked cluster”. In taking both their analogy of communications where no one speaks the same language, and the one articulated in this paper in which the networked effect over the last 10 years on individuals will be paralleled in the corporate environment, the impact of web services regarding the ERP systems can no longer remain an island of information.
In addition, and of particular support for the reorganization to the joint operating committee, is the fact that Giddens and Orlikowski’s theories and models of Structuration reflect that the organizational structure is defined by legal agreements, industry norms, ownership, operational and other fundamental criteria that make it, literally the only viable organizational alternative. Alignment is currently the buzzword in the technology arena. Any initiative attempting to achieve alignment therefore requires the SJOC as its organizational basis. In addition to the aforementioned comments, a reference is provided from
Dr. Rebecca Henderson (2002), who is the Eastman Kodak Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of management. She asks: “How can you manage these technologies and their inherent issues strategically? Will you be aware of the changes as they happen? Have you thought through how your organization will respond while simultaneously maintaining a “conventional” business? I venture to predict that the ability to answer these sorts of questions is likely to be the critical factor that will determine the business winners of tomorrow.”Her comment is made in reference to technology in general, however, it is a rather salient point and reflects the nature of the times we live in and the diligence that managers must pay to technology and is a further extension of this paper’s title “Plurality should not be assumed with necessity”. (p. 6).
In Brown & Duguid (1998) they make the following observations: “The leakiness of knowledge out of and into organizations, however, presents an interesting contrast to internal stickiness. Knowledge often travels more easily between organizations than it does within them. For while the division of labor erects boundaries within firms, it also produces extended communities that lie across the external boundaries of the firms. Moving knowledge among groups with similar practices and overlapping membership can thus sometimes be relatively easy compared to the difficulty in moving it among heterogeneous groups within the firm. Similar practice in a common field can allow ideas to flow. Indeed, it’s often harder to stop ideas spreading then to spread them.” (p. 102) This certainly reflects the significance of the risk of having the IBM Workplace toolset introduced without the explicit support of management.
In their document Compendium Overview Hagel & Brown (2002) state the following:
“Changes in management practices, Control vs. Trust – mastering a different management approach discusses the fundamental shift in management practices required to realize the potential of Web services technology. Managers have perfected control-based techniques to ensure performance of business processes within the enterprise. When these techniques are extended across enterprises, however, they tend to limit the potential for collaboration, rather than enhance it. Control-based techniques may work if there is a clearly dominant business partner dealing with much smaller companies. Even here, though, the smaller companies will over time tend to migrate to work with business partners who have adopted a different management approach. A trust-based management approach focuses on the role of economic incentives in shaping and deepening collaboration. Rather than relying on market power to impose practices on business partners, this approach creates appropriate incentives to ensure coordination of activities in the most flexible and least expensive way possible.” (p. 4)This is where the Genesys® proposal addresses a key point. The need to have a third party negotiate and solve many of the inter-company issues regarding systems integrations needs to be handled effectively, and is part of the study period as proposed in Genesys®, February 2003 proposal. Another aspect of concern is the level of collaborations that are introduced and the level of collaboration that currently exists within the industry. Collaboration is not necessarily easy and I would suggest to fully explore and understand the concepts, opportunities and responsibilities requires much thought and training on the part of each individual.
These comments are further defined in Hagel & Brown (2002) Control vs. Trust - Mastering a Different Approach.
“By focusing on end products, rather than the detailed activities required to deliver the end products, the trust-based approach creates the basis for a very different management model. Rather than supporting tightly coupled business activities, trust based approaches encourage much more loosely coupled business activities. Participants can be added and removed much more easily. More specialization can occur because loosely coupled relationships can accommodate more participants. Rapid innovation can occur in all areas of business activity because the loose coupling allows participants to change the way they operate without disrupting the operations of others.”In this article Hagel & Brown (2002) define many of the components of trust that need to be developed. That trust is not something that, once established is not required again, it is something that must be maintained as well. The four components of trust that need to be developed are as follows:
“Expectations must be shared by all parties”.This is why the components of the joint operating committee best facilitate the collaborations and developments. Developing a shared vocabulary, shared understanding and / or shared meaning will facilitate the means to innovate based on that shared understanding. This is difficult, if not impossible to achieve in the control-based environment. (p. 3)
“All parties must be sufficiently motivated to deliver against expectations.”Like-minded producers are interested in the same outcomes. Sharing of that objective between the companies represented in the joint operating committee is consistent with the trust fundamentals of Brown and Hagel. Brown and Hagel go on to suggest that individuals can be motivated in a collaborative forum through knowledge incentives. This is a particularly effective motivation as the learning of one can enhance the learning of others in the collaborative process. The indirect benefits to the capacity to innovate, or the appropriability as Dosi defines the term, would be long lasting and sustainable as a competitive strategy through this knowledge based incentive structure. The use of monetary incentives appears contrary to the collaborative process and would not be recommended as an individual motivation. (p. 1122)
“All parties must have the requisite capabilities to deliver against expectations.”As in the above item, the knowledge-based incentives would help to further the natural capability of the individuals participating in the collaborations. (p. 1122)
“Notification mechanisms must be in place to provide early warning of any potential shortfalls in performance or abuse of privileged access.”In Genesys Software Corporation February 2003 the Internal Audit role was highlighted as the area in which much of this solution may fall under. I would assume that a greater role for the internal controls would be the result, and an understanding of those controls be better implemented to facilitate a higher component of trust. Hagel and Brown assert that through collaboration “more is better”. The tendency to want to limit the resources deployed to a project in the control model can have the effect of limiting the capability. This is contrary in the collaborative environment, and this comment is based on this author’s experience in earning his MBA from Athabasca through Lotus Notes, namely that the broader and more diversified the level of participation is, the greater the collaboration which leads to significantly greater results. This also indirectly demands that the knowledge within the collaboration must be higher, with a greater specialization of each individual participant. As an aside, the Workplace tool has developed and offers the person to person, person to process, process to person and process to process notification systems enabling a very diverse and “automated” method of establishing communications and notifications. (p. 1122)
The trust method and its associated changes naturally take long lead times in order to implement effectively. This fact coincides with the long development times of Genesys Software Corporation’s February 2003 proposal, the time required to learn to collaborate, the management changes necessary etc. Hence the importance that is placed on the timely and dedicated move to effect these changes that is required. How can companies undertake this level of orchestrated change if they permit the Workplace tool to enter their organizations uninvited?
Asynchronous communications.
This paper cannot stress enough the value of asynchronous communications. Occasionally this research has noted and reflected on the areas where asynchronous has been effective. I feel a better description and application of why this method is of such value lies in the proposed SJOC.
Asynchronous communication denotes that there is not the requirement of an immediate response. A telephone call is synchronous, and a letter or document is asynchronous. There is time to reflect and consider other points of view and accurately research and discuss the answer provided. This elevates the quality of communication above the chat room and provides real value in today’s business. It is also self-documenting and available to all the immediate team members of the joint operating committee to see how their discussion unfolded, and is available for search and reference in the years to come.
Of note and interest, with 1,200 students and 1,200 graduates of their MBA program, Athabasca University has a database of all the asynchronous discussions of its students. (7,200 man years). This provides significant codified knowledge that was formerly only tacitly available. The ability to search and garner further information is valuable in determining research projects and program development for their soon to be announced Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) program. This capability is also what Google is attempting to achieve through their new Gmail system. Privacy experts are concerned about the resale of unsuspecting users data, codified into valuable information regarding consumer trends and then sold to advertisers. The potential users response to Gmail is very interesting, in that their complacency reflects the extension of the ubiquity of the network in their lives.
Asynchronous communications are critical to the facilitation of problem solving, innovation and overall communications. It is a concept that the IBM Workplace and WebSphere tool sets have ingrained in their structure as well. At this time particular mention of the WebSphere tool and its application of asynchronous functionality and process management is required. As stated elsewhere WebSphere is a collection, package or framework of IBM written Enterprise Java Beans. By implementing WebSphere with the ability to provide asynchronous functionality and process management, the same concepts that have been so effective in communications can also be brought to process management. Where the software manages the process, and collects a variety of input from different users, (and in the future users from other organizations.) whether it is in the processes optimal sequence or not. It is this author’s opinion that the asynchronous model’s process management is the key attribute and real value of web services.
A possible scenario.
You are the chairman of the SJOC and in this instance, as a member of the committee, you have always shared de facto operational control. In addition there was the financial accountability but that was more tacit then explicit prior to this revised Genesys® organizational structure. You therefore now have the tools and resources to effectively be accountable for the financial performance and specific attributes that are agreed to by the committee members.
You have a particular difficulty in discussing and maintaining lease access to your facility due to the surface rights leaseholder. Incidents with him are few and far between but he has clearly made it evident that he will not tolerate any interpretation of the lease agreement beyond what is understood at this time. His lawyer issued notice of this to you last year. You were also recently granted a reduced spacing and expect to fulfill the gas gathering and processing facilities to 100%. Surplus compression is available immediately due to some changes made by the committee in the operations de-bottlenecking. This opportunity combined with the revision in gas pricing reflects the opportunity to maximize the long-term investment made in the facility over the past few years.
The application for reduced spacing was made due to the decline in production owing to a belief that the level of competitive drainage that is occurring from the adjoining leases. These leases are excluded from the area of mutual interest (AMI) of the committee, and are owned by a member of this committee. This type of problem could now be openly discussed in the joint operating committee, and with the variety of participants, the Chairman in this instance would collaborate in order to begin dealing promptly with the surface rights holder. The structured hierarchy would not have time to respond to the decline in deliverability attributable to the adjoining properties as quickly as the Chairman can by opening discussion of the issue both internally and externally.
In this instance the engineer is faced with a technical, political and legal issue that is possibly affected through the collaborations at the joint operating committee. The direct participation of the other committee participants is augmented by the legal, accounting and other technical and professional discussions that are able to join the discussion from each of the companies. Instead of having only the Chairman of the joint operating committee dealing alone with another issue that will cost time and money in a busy schedule, the entire resources of the firms represented in the joint operating committee can be brought to bear on the problem in a virtual and rapid fashion, as required. What could not have been discussed and considered, let alone implemented and resolved in a timely manner, can now effectively be resolved in as little as weeks or months upon identification of the problems. This scenario reflects only the collaborative tool at work. Eventually the entire accounting, production, land, and legal forms processes and procedures, including electronic forms such as mail ballots and daily-drilling reports could be populated to the databases contained within the collaborative environment. This scenario accurately reflects the difficulties in dealing in the prairies, in the frontier areas of oil and gas, this scenario may best be represented by replacing the surface rights holder with either Greenpeace or The Sierra Club. Other software applications such as Accumap and 3D seismic interpretations could be presented and invoked by the toolset. With the potential of the entire ERP systems functionality, as described in the Genesys® ERP Proposal.pdf being invoked to support and align the SJOC, society and human resources.
The need to clarify that holding the SJOC accountable is not, and should not be, construed as a capitulation of the innovation process and its inherent benefits to the four winds. A study was undertaken at Chrysler to determine why the changes to “teams” were successful in product development, as reflected in their cab forward design, yet the overall engineering and technical capability of the company declined. The Chrysler study reflects that the accountability of the committee (team) needs to be augmented by an internal management system that provides an overall focus and direction to the innovations. Management needs to create and guide the internal innovative science and engineering capability that is unique and a key competitive advantage.
Review of Dr. Brown and John Hagel III’s writings has direct and pertinent value to this research and its associated proposals. The opportunity to better understand the Web Services paradigm can best be attained through a comprehensive review of their offerings and the IBM WebSphere website's. A distributable copy of their article “Does IT Matter, an HBR debate” is provided as part of this report. Particular attention should be paid to Dr. Brown and Hagel’s comments regarding Webservices.
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