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In this very revealing interview, Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview, Steve Jobs made two points that caught my attention:

• Process for process sake can be stifling. It can cripple the organization that is seeking to improve customer satisfaction with the promise of business process engineering. It is like killing a patient with medicine that is supposed to cure.
• Re-usable software objects was a competitive advantage for Apple. You can see it in all their software. By extension, re-usable business capabilities is a mission critical capability for all organizations.

Process engineers, those who swear by Six Sigma techniques, can tend to be rigid and inflexible. I’ve met a few brilliant minds, whose ability to analyze a problem was truly astounding. But I was equally appalled at their complete inability to make anything happen. They would not foster change, not take any interpersonal risks, in short, delight in pointing out problems and then bemoan that no action is being taken. In short, their allegiance is to the technique, not to the business.

The talents of process engineers can be used to build business processes as re-usable building blocks, which are then assembled and re-configured as customer needs evolve. The configuration, assembly, and dis-assembly needs to be done by a person with business acumen. The latter will determine priority, cost benefit, and business value of business process engineering. They are truly business leaders and business architects rolled into one. There are many who do this instinctively and very well. It seems harder to teach this skill, perhaps an explanation why leaders who are business architects are so hard to find.