James Taylor's Decision Management

Pascal had an interesting post today - What's a business process? He used two particular definitions. One from Tom Davenport:

"A process is thus a specific ordering of work activities across time and space, with a beginning and an end, and clearly defined inputs and outputs: a structure for action."

And then his own

"A Business Process is a specific ordering of Activities across time, space and participants. A Business Process has a Beginning, an End, and clearly defined Inputs and Outputs and Steps."

While I like Pascal's, I worry that he lost something when he eliminated the phrase "a structure for action" that was in Tom's. Unless a process results in an action, it would seem fairly pointless. Similarly, actions must be taken during a process for it to complete. I also think that an activity is different from a decision. Decisions don't do anything, they simply decide what action is appropriate. Activities, in contrast, do things. It seems to me that this might be a more interesting one

"A Business Process is a specific ordering of Activities and Decisions across time, space and participants. A Business Process has a Beginning, an End, and clearly defined Inputs and Outputs, Actions and Steps."

I blogged about this some, and provided some interesting links (at least I think they are interesting) in this post on BPM in 2007. I'd love to know what anyone else thought...

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