{"id":12129,"date":"2010-03-31T15:10:44","date_gmt":"2010-03-31T14:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sapweb20.com\/blog\/?p=948"},"modified":"2021-08-19T10:44:13","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T08:44:13","slug":"introducing-sap-streamwork-new-decision-collaboration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/introducing-sap-streamwork-new-decision-collaboration.html","title":{"rendered":"Introducing SAP StreamWork: New Decision Collaboration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"streamwork-banner\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s now official<\/a>: SAP has released its brand-new Web 2.0 product called StreamWork<\/a>. The project was initially called \u201cConstellation\u201d within SAP, and was first exposed to beta customers on the web site 12sprints.com<\/a>, as covered in earlier<\/a> postings<\/a> on this site.<\/p>\n

Why the name? It\u2019s a variant on \u201cworkstream<\/span>\u201d, which according to Wikipedia<\/a> is:<\/p>\n

\u201cA flow of output, the activities and transactions, that a worker produces as they go about their daily work activities. Workstreams are flows of largely unstructured data that workstreaming technologies seek to capture, document and repackage in more intelligent ways benefiting individual workers, managers and corporations.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the article goes on to say:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026tapping into and mining these workstreams presents tremendous opportunities to companies in terms of collaboration, agility and collective intelligence.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Other research seems to back this up. According to a study by Frost & Sullivan<\/a>, 36% of company performance is determined by organizations\u2019 \u201ccollaborative index\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is more than twice the impact of a company’s strategic orientation (16%) and more than five times the impact of market and technological turbulence influences (7%). This is a key finding because it empirically demonstrates that increased high-quality collaboration can improve business performance.\u201c<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

The Power of Collaborative Decisions<\/h3>\n

Every person in every organization makes many decisions every day. Many of these are so small that we don\u2019t even recognize them as decisions. Every time a sales person calls a customer, she is \u201cdeciding\u201d to prioritizing that activity over everything else she could be doing. Of course, a sub-optimal decision may not make much difference. But over time, and across a large organization, these small decisions pile up and have a huge influence to corporate performance.<\/p>\n

Of course, computer systems have been promising Improved business decision-making since at least the 1950s, by providing more information <\/em>about company operations. And they have largely delivered, enabling corporations of breath-taking complexity. But you can give everybody the same facts, and still end up with completely different views about what the data means, and what should be done about it (just look at any group of rival politicians!).<\/p>\n

Decision-making is a core business function of every organization, and has been extensively studied by scientists and management theorists<\/a>. But despite all the advances in theory, real-life decision-making is still dominated by people, personalities, and endless emails and meetings.<\/p>\n

Decisions still tend to be made in messy, non-repeatable, \u201care-we-really-sure-about-this?\u201d ways, relying heavily on \u201cgut feel\u201d. People often spend more time and effort making decisions as they do on actually trying to execute them, and reviewing \/ reversing decisions that have already been made (every new politician and executive feels honor-bound to reverse the decisions of their predecessors).<\/p>\n

Collaboration or \u201cEnterprise 2.0\u201d platforms, including Jive<\/a> and Cubetree<\/a> and Google Wave<\/a> have helped, by letting employees work together on projects, but they typically don\u2019t directly support goal-oriented decision-making.<\/p>\n

Introducing SAP StreamWork<\/h3>\n

StreamWork helps you bring together:<\/p>\n