Business Processes: An Archival Science Approach to Collaborative Decision Making, Records, and Knowledge Management

217 Pages·2005·1 MB·English

by  Angelika Menne-Haritz (auth.)

Business Processes
THE ARCHIVIST’S LIBRARY
Volume 3
Editor-In-Chief
Terry Eastwood, University of British Columbia, Canada.
Editorial Board
Luciana Duranti, University of British Columbia, Canada
Maria Guercio, University of Urbino, Italy
Michael Piggott, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Business Processes
An Archival Science Approach to
Collaborative Decision Making, Records,
and Knowledge Management
by
Angelika Menne-Haritz
German Federal Archives,
Berlin, Germany
German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer,
Germany
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK,BOSTON, DORDRECHT, LONDON, MOSCOW
eBookISBN: 1-4020-2198-4
Print ISBN: 1-4020-2197-6
©2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.
Print ©2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers
Dordrecht
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v
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................1
1 DECISION MAKING PROCESSES............................................................7
1.1 Research methods...........................................................................................7
1.2 Records..........................................................................................................11
1.3 Two forms of business processes: decision making versus production
processes........................................................................................................12
1.4 Decision making...........................................................................................15
1.5 Bureaucracy..................................................................................................16
1.6 Systems theory and business processes......................................................19
2 THE HISTORICAL SHIFT FROM COMMITTEE TO PAPER BASED
DECISION MAKING..................................................................................25
2.1 Monocratic form...........................................................................................25
2.2 Historical forms of oral committee based government.............................27
2.3 Basic forms of oral deliberation in historical administrations.................28
2.3.1 Differentiation between council and chancellery...............................29
2.3.2 The introduction of stricter forms for the voting procedure...............31
2.3.3 Written instruments of oral administration.........................................35
2.3.4 Special characteristics of the Prussian form of committee based
administration.....................................................................................39
2.4 ‘Conceptual orality’ of writing....................................................................41
2.4.1 Persistent distribution of anticipated competencies............................43
2.4.2 The use of functions of oral deliberations for purposes other than
decision making..................................................................................46
2.4.3 Characteristics of collegial decision making......................................48
vi
2.5 Differentiation of functional competencies................................................52
2.5.1 Contradictions between process oriented and monocratic .....................
tendencies...........................................................................................53
2.5.2 Functional responsibilities of the registry office................................58
2.5.3 Compensation for the vanishing unity of the debate..........................63
2.5.4 Installation and revocation of the task list as an organising
instrument...........................................................................................65
2.5.5 Installation of co-Principals................................................................67
2.5.6 Replacement of board control by hierarchy........................................70
2.6 Committee based decision making and modern bureaucratic
techniques.....................................................................................................72
2.7 Classical collaborative decision making processes....................................74
2.7.1 Elements of typical business processes..............................................75
2.7.2 Problems.............................................................................................78
2.7.3 The legacy of Prussian collegial traditions.........................................81
2.8 Work process guidelines for the central ministries: legacy from the
Office Reform...............................................................................................83
2.8.1 First attempts of an office reform for the central agencies in Prussia 83
2.8.2 Brecht's first source: Drews’publication.............................................84
2.8.3 Content of the guidelines: a mixture of problematic elements...........87
2.8.4 The modular structure of the text.......................................................89
2.9 Business processes in post-war German government...............................91
2.9.1 Contradictory elements.......................................................................93
2.9.2 Preparations for electronic records.....................................................96
3 RECORDS....................................................................................................99
3.1 Forms and functions of records and files...................................................99
3.1.1 Effects of writing..............................................................................100
3.1.2 Effects of oral communication.........................................................108
3.1.3 Characteristics of oral and written decision making processes........116
3.1.4 Written instruments of oral administrations.....................................123
3.1.5 Files of modern administration.........................................................128
3.1.6 Archival definitions..........................................................................130
3.1.7 Elementary units of the record: the entries.......................................132
vii
3.2 Organisational backgrounds.....................................................................134
3.2.1 Infrastructure for board-based decision making...............................135
3.2.2 Functional differentiation for written decision making processes....137
3.2.3 Organisational structures..................................................................138
3.2.4 Control of operational work.............................................................144
4 FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS OF OPEN COMMUNICATION
PROCESSES IN ELECTRONIC ENVIRONMENTS............................147
4.1 Needs of autonomous open ended processes............................................148
4.1.1 Use and construction of memory......................................................149
4.1.2 Usefulness of latency........................................................................156
4.2 Needs for stability and functions of archives in electronic
environments..............................................................................................167
4.2.1 Characteristics of digital recordings.................................................171
4.2.2 Reconstruction versus storage..........................................................175
4.3 Archival Functions in Digital Environments...........................................178
4.3.1 Meanings of the core archival competencies....................................178
4.3.2 Archival science and the theoretical basis for new strategies...........190
4.3.3 Archives and Knowledge Management as complementary
functions...........................................................................................195
BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................205
INDEX.......................................................................................................................211
INTRODUCTION
Records, their creation and use as sources have rarely been a subject of attention
outside archives. Only since the availability of document management systems and
electronic archives has records management begun to experience new interest.
However, it seems that there is not much to theorise about. Nevertheless, after the
introduction of electronic office systems some problems have occurred when the easier
retrieval and the higher flexibility have lead to people forgetting things. Which version
of a draft was the final one and which one was sent? Who made the PDF version and
when? Is the collection in the folder on the server complete or is there other data
stored somewhere else? These and more complicated questions arise and allow the
difference separating the usual ways of working with documents, records and files in
the tangible world from the new methods using electronic recordings become obvious.
The introduction of a new medium has far reaching consequences on the way of
handling recordings and on communication in general.
However this is not the first discontinuity in media that mankind has experienced.
The changes which occurred during the introduction of writing into a society based
mainly on oral tradition have been described by Eric Havelock [Havelock (1982)]
using the example of antique Greece. He showed how literacy first was used in the
economic sphere and had nothing to do with cultural abilities, whilst instead learning
by heart and recitation was the main way in which literature was distributed. Oral
language had developed techniques of remembering that were not available in the
written forms and therefore the oral tradition was more trusted than writing. However
that form of oral communication was not that of everyday life. It was more formal and
that formality facilitated memorising. During the following centuries the techniques of
oral communications, including the purposeful use of their special impacts on
transmitting messages and memorising, however, were less trained and trusted.
A similar shift occurred when writing was introduced into an administration
system relying mainly on oral communication for finding solutions many centuries
later. In the Prussian administrative tradition boards were the main form for the core
administrative work, in contrast to other European countries like France and even in
contrast to the central government of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation,
which was situated in Vienna. Prussia was situated far away and was integrated into
the administrative structures of the Empire rather late. At that time the legal traditions
of the south relying on written procedures were integrated into a deeply rooted oral
tradition of committee based work. Even up to the 19th century, for instance, the heads
of the provincial government could be outvoted by a majority of the heads of its
departments, the so called ministers. A royal decision in the 17th century conserved
these oral working techniques for administrative work, whilst the written procedures
of Roman law were adopted for legal cases, both inside the same body. The long
tradition of deliberations finally led to a special form of processes using writing as non
textual disposals for activities to be done. Internal writing took over the form of
2 Business processes
internal memos not addressing anyone explicitly, placed on the papers, and meant for
whoever was concerned. They were put on the margins of incoming letters, minutes or
drafts that were the subject of the deliberations. The meaning was clear because of the
layout. The responsibilities to carry out what was planned with such disposals had
been attributed in advance by distributing competencies among the members of the
organisation. These working methods led to new forms of records and files. The
decision making process used the records for its internal organisation, and the files,
bound to volums, represented the developement of the actions belonging together, like
a chain, leading from the open problem to the final solution. Each process thus was
clearly delimited from other processes by its own recordings.
These experiences with the shift from one medium to the next may help in finding
out how the shift from writing to electronic communication might learn from it. The
comparision of oral and written processes might help to understand what identifies
collaborative decision making. Their differences may show how the functions are
converted when forms are changing and that the conservation of forms may hinder
functions from been usable anymore.
Decision making in organisations is, in several aspects, different from the taking of
decisions by individual persons. As a process integrating contributions from various
numbers of persons it is dependent on the smooth functioning of communication
between them. It uses the individual decisions as parts, combines them, and emerges
as a whole, which cannot be attributed to one or several of its contributors. The
members of an organisation who come together in the solution of such a problem have
many other responsibilities in other processes at the same time. As persons they are
not members of all those processes, but they contribute to them. Therefore these
processes are composed of their contributions during communications and not of
humans as their elements. Therefore they can be seen as communication systems
created by the contributions and vanishing when they stop. The processes consist of
communication events, linked together because they are initiated by and react to each
other.
In an oral environment these processes can only follow each other because of the
sequentiality of oral communications. One of the big advantages of the written form is
that written processes can be interrupted and mixed or brought together. Historically
they survived because they offered greater internal complexity for increasingly
complex problems on the agendas of administrations. It will be interesting to see what
the special achievements of electronic processes will be. However, probably they will
need the same functions of the process: initiated by a commonly accepted problem,
constructed by single communication events building upon each other, and finished by
a solution which is delivered to the outside as the expected performance of the
organisation. One decisive aspect is however, that in both cases of the oral and the
written form the processes are autonomous in deciding what they are about to do next.
External attempts to influence the further development are observed and their
integration is decided internally. If such processes are forced to allow control from the
outside, they finish and the responsibility for the final decision is then with the
Introduction 3
external person. This operationally closed character of decision making processes is
often underestimated when electronic media are introduced.
The higher ranks in the hierarchy often tend to neglect this effect because this
interference seems to be the only way of obtaining information and controlling the
quality. This interference happens in electronic office systems when the superior can
see every step, login or date stamp. However, its effects are the opposite of what is
aimed at. Responsibility vanishes. Therefore it is vital, especially for organisations
using electronic communication, to understand how collaborative decision making
occurs. Its independence and its self organisation are needed so that the enhanced
productivity of collaborative work can become effective.
The built in mechanisms of decision making processes, organised autonomously,
ensure a strong capacity of control by the superiors; however, only before and after the
decision is made. What processes need internally for their own construction, namely,
their own history, can also serve as sources for their examination, especially if it uses
stabilised openly accessible traces. If they were created for internal purposes, than they
cannot very well be drafted for external observers at the same time. Therefore they are
extremely open and trustworthy. If a process internally uses collaborative notes and
itself refers to them for its further construction then these notes deliver a true image to
outside observers of what happened inside.
Electronic records are not stable. In contrast, their mix of writing with timeless
longevity and fluidity is what they are needed and used for instead of other
communication media. However, the processes need both this special new character
and the stable reference points in their own past as anchors for the common memory
while constructing their own future.
So the stability has to be achieved in a way that does not disturb the fluidity of the
process. This seems to be contradictory; however, also the way in which the oral
communication was transformed into writing in the history of Prussian administration
has found surprising solutions ensuring the ability of reshaping the common memory
according top every new need inside the process without the possibly obstructing
effects of re-readability of fixed messages.
The forms of communication follow their intended functions. Functions are more
interesting for the quality of future collaborative work than a duplication of paper
based forms in electronic media. To understand how the functions of the collaborative
process can be converted into the new medium, it is necessary to see how the
processes work and which functions are necessary and should therefore be available in
electronic media too.
The questions concerning functions of electronic records as communication tools
emerging from decision making processes are those questions that are typically asked
by archival science. Archives ensure the reusability of closed communication as
sources for knowledge. To use records as tools for insight into what happened at a
certain time archival science has developed a complete set of methods and tools for
describing and presenting the original networks from where the records, made