The Next Leap in Productivity: What Top Managers Really Need to Know about Information Technology

6.7. Tasks and Decision Points

I find it helpful to think of the work of any enterprise as a large collection of tasks. Each of these tasks can be done by a person or by a machine. Some tasks are physical, of course, such as assembling cars or building walls. But some tasks are merely the making of a decision (after gathering and analyzing all pertinent information, naturally).

Achieving the Enterprise Leap in productivity, then, is a matter of regularizing these tasks, automating them wherever possible, and using the freed-up resources to create new opportunities.

With SOA and BPM, it becomes possible to recognize and regularize tasks that are simply decision points. You will find that many of these decision points, once they have been properly modeled in software, no longer require a human agent. You can get the human out of the picture, which will reduce labor costs and increase speed at the same time.

Your goal is to find all decisions that can be made by a machine and turn them over to the machines. Save your human assets for decisions that really require human smarts and creativity. This makes the most of both your physical and human capital.

Consider the simple example of processing loan applications. Say you own a bank and your policy is that every loan application below $5,000 is basically accepted. You do not need a person to review each and every application. A computer looks at all the applications and automatically approves any requests below $5,000.

Similarly, if ...