Football games – same basic rules, different methodology

Any game, be it a physical sport, such as football, or a mental sport, such as chess, is defined through a set of common rules. How the game is played will look very different depending on the level of the league it is played in. A Champions League football game is so much more refined than your local team playing at the nearby stadium, not to mention the neighboring kids kicking the ball in the dirt ground.

These kids will show creativity and pleasure in the game, yet the level of sophistication is a completely different ball game in the big stadium. You can marvel at the effort made to ensure that everybody plays their role in a well-trained symbiosis with their peers, all sharing a common set of collaboration rules and patterns. The team spent so many hours training the right combinations, establishing a deep trust. There is no time to discuss the meaning of an order shouted out by the trainer. They have worked on this common understanding of how to do things in various situations. They have established one language that they share. As an observer of a great match, you appreciate an elaborate art, not of one artist but of a coherent team.

No one would argue the prevalence of this continuum in the refinement and rising sophistication in rough physical sports. It is puzzling to know to which extent we, as players in the games of enterprise IT, often tend to neglect the needs and forces that are implied by such a continuum of rising sophistication.

The next sections will take a closer look at these BPM playgrounds and motivate you to take the necessary steps toward team excellence when moving from a small, departmental level BPM/SOA project to a program approach that is centered on a BPM and SOA paradigm.