A Systems Model of a Process

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A Systems Model of a Process "Would you tell me please which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don't much care where… " said Alice.

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.

"…so long as I get somewhere," added Alice as an explanation.

- Alice & the Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

When one sees eternity in the things that pass away and infinity in

finite things, its only then that he has attained pure knowledge -

Bhagvad Geeta

A process is a structured, measured & controlled set of activities

designed to process the inputs and produce a specified output for a

particular customer or a market. However, this is a very myopic

definition of a process as it restricts the process as being

equivalent to a workflow and ignores the soft processes like

acquisitions by a company, succession within the controlling

structures, etc. which do not have any clear input - process - output

structure. Keen refines this definition as "… process is any work in

the organisation that meets the following criteria: it is recurrent,

it affects some aspect of organisational capabilities, it can be

accomplished in different ways that makes a difference to the

contribution it generates in terms of cost, value, service or quality

and it involves coordination."

Given below is perhaps the most basic view of processes -- the

well-known input-process-output model. Albert Einstein once advised

that "things should be made as simple as possible - but not too

simple." This model is too simple.

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