The The specified item was not found. that Richard Hirsch wrote about crowd wisdom for process innovation is Interesting indeed, but I think it somewhat misses the mark. Before going any further, in the nature of full disclosure, I should point out that I work in Michael Bechauf's organiztaion. That said, my opinion here is my own.
In my opinion, processes are defined to achieve something. They are steps to a particular goal, a roadmap for getting somewhere. There can be metrics that assess the effectiveness of achieving that goal, and those KPIs are relevant regardless of what process is followed. If we stick with the roadmap analogy, you can measure the amount of time it took you to get from A to B. That KPI, i.e. amount of time, is an appropriate metric for measuring the effectiveness of getting from A to B no matter what route I take. You can use the crowd to try to get insight into how a process can be improved ("turn left here, it's a shortcut"), and better KPI results will show that you've succeeded in making the process more efficient. However, once that process is more efficient, it should replace the standard process for achieving that goal. You now know the current best way to get from A to B. At least until it is again displaced by a new process (a new shortcut is discovered). Different people know their different neighborhoods better, and can provide that specific insight, so the wisdom of the crowd can really help in this regard.
You can use these kinds of dynamic process innovation experiments with the crowd to try to find better ways of doing things, as Richard suggests, and if you succeed, as indicated by the KPIs, you've got yourself a new process definition. My point is, however, that this kind of innovation is not for the faint of heart, because there's a decent chance you can get lost along the way. You can try something new and find out the short cut is actually a long cut. Your KPIs won't show an improvement, and you've spent more time trying to accomplish an already defined process. From a business perspective then, the majority of people should just follow the currently defined best known process, but BPXers who focus on process innovation can and should use the wisdom of their networks to find improvements to the process.
