<<In fact, so do most other modern software applications, though this
may be less obvious at first sight. To a modern software developer,
it is hard to overstate the importance of object-orientation, because
defining software objects lets you create a "virtual" world inside the
computer that corresponds closely to the world outside the computer.
After all, the real world contains objects, each with purpose,
function and properties - well, so should the virtual world!
Otherwise the real world and the virtual world do not, and cannot
possibly, relate closely to one another.

However, enter the world of BPM - or SOA - and you are right back in
the early 1960s. It's as if object-orientation never happened.

Mainstream BPM tools, whether for modelling or for execution, all
operate on the same fundamental basis: joining up individual
activities into a sequence, with branch points and looping here and
there as necessary. Some of the activities may be carried out by
machines, some by people. But in the end, what you are doing is
exactly what an old-fashioned procedural programmer does - starting
with a function, breaking this down into chunks, then joining up the
chunks. Some BPM languages and tools let you run streams of activity
in parallel - but this is only putting procedural programs
side-by-side, not making them object-orientated.

Similarly, SOA tools are all based on the procedural principle. To
most SOA architects, a service is just like a procedural program - it
offers a single function that can be invoked on demand. It was
fascinating to read a discussion on the main industry SOA mailing list
recently, in which most of the experts argued that object-orientation
was actually unnecessary for SOA, or even antithetical to it. What?!?
How can these people - senior, experienced and well-respected
software developers every one - have got it so wrong?

The effect of this procedural outlook among BPM and SOA vendors and
consultants is that "business processes", as defined using BPM tools,
and "business services", as defined using SOA tools, cannot possibly
bear any true relation to the real world. They may in certain cases
get some things done quicker, or cheaper. But the things they are
doing are not the same things that business people are interested in.

Business people are forced to live in the real world - unlike
programmers, it's the only one they've got. So business people tend
to look with suspicion on systems that don't match the reality they
know - and this includes any procedural system. No business is made
up of a "stream" or "chain" of processes, any more than it consists of
a "repository" of services. These are simply convenient fictions -
convenient for consultants and software vendors, that is. In reality,
businesses are complex, inter-related, continually evolving networks.
Every business person knows this instinctively, and sees it proved
again to them every working day as they engage with customers,
suppliers and colleagues.

TAKE AWAY

I will have more to say about the IT/business divide in future blog
entries. In a spirit of fairness, commentators on this topic have
often tried to lay the blame equally on both sides. But it's time to
recognize that, when it comes to BPM and SOA, the IT community is
doing the business community a monumental disservice - the more so
since there is currently little understanding on either side of the
mess that organizations are getting themselves into with these new
tools.>>

You can read Keith's blog in full at:

<http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/it_directions/archives/2006/09/what_good_are_b.php#c\
omments>

Gervas