Process-UI Alignment

It's been over a year since I've started working on analyzing the situation of large corporations, like banks and insurances, that have difficulties in identifying the impact that changes on business processes have on their enterprise systems. The main difference in our strategy is that we take the user interface perspective. One of the questions we answer is: Which user interfaces of these enterprise systems should be updated after changes on their business processes? 

Why do we adopt this perspective, when there are already several solutions for Business-IT alignment? There has been a new wave in business models that value innovation as a driver for business growth, as I've seen in the book I'm reading: The New Age of Innovation. For that to be achieve, one of the pillars of innovation in business is to consider one consumer experience at a time. And where is most of that "consumer experience" taking place nowadays? It happens online, such as when we consult our account balance in our Internet banking.

So we sustain that user interaction represents a rich source for business value! That's why we support business alignment with user interfaces. There is a long way to go to make this perspective part of the executive agenda, but Pradeep Henry has already highlighted his experience in aligning UI with business process. 

To learn more about what we mean by that, you can access Wikipedia, which already has an entry on this new and exciting subject with a link to one of our major publications, as you can see on the print screen below related to the subject Process-centered design.

Version 3.0

Today I am becoming... it's hard to admit, but yes... 30 years old... and such dates always seem an opportunity to appraise life. When we enter university and you are not even 20 years old, you typically say what you expect to achieve by the time you are 30. I surely remember those prospects.

Now is the day: have I achieved them?

Let's see: I have successfully graduated from the university, finished my Masters in Fortaleza, Brazil, I got married to a phenomenal guy, I got a scholarship to do my PhD (a longstanding dream) and I am working with a subject that deeply interests me. That's pretty good so far, I guess. But I admit I am a dreamer and I have lots, lots of other expectations for my future.  

I will not talk about all my wishes but I will mention a special one, which is the mystery of wines. I always appreciated but never studied them.  The last one I've had was a very special one: a Portuguese white wine, Planalto Douro. Planalto, as its name suggests ('planalto' is a Portuguese word that means 'plateau' in English), comes from a plateau region of the Douro. Planalto is a high quality, light, delicate and elegant wine. It has fresh flavors and it is intensely fruity. 

José Tribolet

Last week, I had the opportunity to talk to Prof. José Tribolet about our research ideas. He has been working with Organizational Engineering for over ten years and he has been organizing the Special Track on Organizational Engineering at ACM SAC for six years. He and his team have made major contributions for organizational design and engineering with a breakthrough view on the human perspective in this area.

He presented his main research contributions and Beto and I also talked about our research projects. The talk with him was very vivid, as you can easily imagine between Portuguese and Brazilians. In a few hours, he passed this great enthusiasm for academic research and projects in industry combined, a deep concern on fundaments allied with innovative thinking, involvement in details and thorough understanding of the main picture he envisions for his projects. When we arrived, the board had the division of work between all students so they all worked aiming at combined goals.

Just with few talks with him, you know that he is an outstanding professional with a great human side :-) 

But hearing it from someone who knows him more closely is even better, I was moved by the acknowledgements on Artur Caetano's PhD thesis and, if I may quote it: "Professor José Tribolet  [...] taught me that a PhD is about the process of becoming something else. It was his inspiration [...] that helped me in this transformation process of growing as a person and as a scientist, which I consider far greater than the contributions summarized in these pages." 

Reference: Artur Miguel Pereira Alves Caetano, Business Process Modelling with Objects and Roles, PhD Thesis, Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal, May 2008.

Besides teachings for my research, I've confirmed something that I had been noticing in some people, which is to put your heart in what you do, everything that comes out is so much more appreciated by everyone.