The Process Handbook Vision

If you are an organizational researcher or business educator. . .

. . . imagine that you had a systematic and powerful way of organizing vast numbers of things we know about business: basic principles, key scientific results, and useful case examples. Imagine that you could easily create and share this knowledge electronically with researchers, educators, and students all over the world. And imagine that all this knowledge was structured in a way that helped you quickly find the things you needed and even helped you come up with new organizational ideas that no one had ever thought of before.

If you are a computer scientist, information technologist, or software developer. . .

. . . imagine that different versions of this same kind of knowledge base could help you systematically organize and share many of the basic patterns and components that are used in a wide variety of computer programs. And imagine that computational tools that use this knowledge base could significantly reduce the effort required to develop new software programs from existing components and tailor them for use in specific organizations.

If you are a manager or consultant. . .

. . . imagine that you could use all this general knowledge about “best practices”, case examples, and software from all over the world. And imagine further that you could also create your own specific versions of these knowledge bases to share detailed information about the key activities in your own company or your clients’ companies: what needs to be done, who is responsible for doing it, and what resources are available to help.

That is the vision that has guided the MIT Process Handbook project since its beginning over a decade ago, and that is the vision that continues to guide our work. There is still much to be done to achieve the full promise of this vision, but we believe that the work we have done so far demonstrates that the vision is both feasible and desirable. We invite you to join us in the quest to help make this vision a reality . . .

Adapted from Organizing Business Knowledge: The MIT Process Handbook (MIT Press, 2003, p. 3).