“The key is applying technology more precisely”, says Tom Davenport in the new McKinsey Quarterly (see [Dave11]). In his new article, the author explains the different requirements to support less and more knowledge intensive processes in companies. For this purpose he used the classification which he has already presented in 2005 in “Thinking for a living” (see [Dave05, p. 27]). Different processes need different approaches. Davenport provides some good points in his contributions.
Of particular relevance for companies are processes that are not standardized and through which significant competitive advantages can be achieved. Knowledge plays an important role in this process type. Davenport uses the term “Collaboration model” to describe the processes, that are highly reliant on deep expertise across functions (see [Dave05, p. 27], [Dave11]) and in which the collaboration of distributed experts is of high relevance. But how can new developments like Web 2.0- and Enterprise 2.0-technologies respectively bring added value in the context of knowledge-intensive, dynamic, unstructured processes to overcome the limitations of standardization? The forthcoming book “Potenziale und Herausforderungen des Geschäftsprozessmanagements im Enterprise 2.0 unter der Berücksichtigung der Dynamik unternehmerischer Systeme” (see [Domb11]) will place particular emphasis on processes that cannot be adequately supported by “traditional” technologies.
Resource list:
- [Dave05] Davenport, Thomas H.: „Thinking for a Living – How to Get Better Performance And Results from Knowledge Workers.“
Boston MA: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2005 - [Dave11] Davenport, Thomas H.: “Rethinking knowledge work: A strategic approach.” In: McKinsey Quarterly, February 2011. URL: http://goo.gl/QCp5M, last verified on February 4, 2011.
McKinsey & Company, 2011 - [Domb11] Dombrowski, Boris – Forthcoming Book: “Potenziale und Herausforderungen des Geschäftsprozessmanagements im Enterprise 2.0 unter der Berücksichtigung der Dynamik unternehmerischer Systeme.”
Berlin: Logos Verlag, 2011