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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human interaction management

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was my head hurts. I've closed several difficult AfDs, some much larger and more contentious than this one, and I pride myself on finding the proper line of reasoning and not resorting to counting votes. However, this one is one of the more difficult I've closed because, as a possibly emerging field of study, the references and mentions appear to be on the cusp of satisfying the requirements for an article. The comment here that best describes my conclusion of the arguments happens to be the last comment in the discussion from Barte, with one important change: Merge essence into business process management article at least until the category is actually established. The potential problem with this is that the BPM article is not particularly robust. Including any signifant portion of the HIM article will overwhelm the content of the BPM article, which would create a skewed impression of the acceptance of HIM relative to traditional BPM.

So my decision is to merge the essence of the human interaction management article to business process management and redirect the HIM article to BPM. The HIM portion of the BPM article should represent no more than approximately 20% of the BPM article. IF the BPM article is expanded, then the section on HIM may expanded comparably. I've replaced the HIM article with the redirect—the material needed for merging can be found in the history. —Doug Bell talk 11:21, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Human interaction management

edit

This article serves only as an advert for the book being sold by the author of the article. This is a non-notable neologism, I can't find any mention of it in reliable, independent, non-self-published sources. Anyway, anything that is notable in this article is covered in "Human Resources Management". Prod removed by author, who I suspect of using socks (look at the page history). Keywords: SPAM, COI, NN yandman 10:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looking through the history, before the author of the book came into play, the article seemed more acceptable, although still not very notable. This is the last "old" version. If anyone feels the article doesn't deserve deletion, do they feel it should be reverted to that state? yandman 10:25, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Warning: There are more socks here than in my entire clothes draw. yandman 11:25, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not so - see below for explanation of level of interest Keith.harrison-broninski 09:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I respectfully disagree with Yandman and the others calling for this article's deletion. As a long-time Business Process Management professional, and as someone who has seen in practicethat the area of "Human Interaction Management", under whatever moniker it is referred to, is going to be one of the keys to success as organizations continue to evolve towards a "process-enabled" or "process-oriented" state - one in which management and staff views and manages their end-to-end business processes as their value-delivery engines, versus their functional silos as the means of value delivery - I believe this topic has real value to Wikipedia readers. It would be a great disservice to the community to remove this article. Its presence will help to stimulate discussion and, yes, debate about what I and many others do believe will emerge as an important element of how businesses manage their end-to-end business processes in the future. Mxbarn 13:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)— Mxbarn (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
We're not here to "stimulate discussion". We will talk about this technique you "and many others do believe will emerge", when it emerges. yandman 14:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am the author of the article - and one (only one!) of the SEVERAL books that cover Human Interaction Management (HIM). HIM is nothing to do with Human Resource Management. You can find a detailed description of the HIM theory in, for example, Peter Fingar's "Extreme Competition" (Meghan-Kiffer Press, 2005). I originated this theory, but it has now become the focus of interest from various different worlds. For example, HIM is now taught on MBA and Computer Science courses at Universities and Business Schools around the world, and there are several PhD research projects currently underway. There are many dozens of organizations implementing the ideas in their management practice. Articles proliferate on IT industry Web sites (Information Age, ebizq.net, bptrends.com, bpmg.org, bpm.com, and so on). The company EDS have recently published material declaring HIM to be the next generation of enterprise management practice. I created the wikipedia page as a neutral forum to help explain the ideas and encourage contribution from others. Since there is such widespread interest in the ideas, and all the software available to support them is free, this seems to be an appropriate use of wikipedia. Keith Harrison-Broninski Keith Harrison-Bronkinski (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic and AFD.
  • Delete per above - looks a lot like astroturfing of a neologism to me. Guy (Help!) 10:58, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per above. MER-C 11:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I thought the article was fascinating. I am actually in the process of reading one of the three books referred to in the article. To me the subject matter represents a significant step forward in our understanding of the management of complex systems involving the interaction of people and computers, i.e. of practically all significant knowledge and information management systems. What is the problem everyone has? Keith Harrison-Broninski quotes books by two authors other than his own as bibliography. Does an idea, concept or paradigm have to become so well established and accepted to the point of being ready to be superseded to be accepted by Wikipedia? Does originality and genius always have to be snuffed out by lack of vision and comprehension? --Gervas Douglas Gervas 12:58, 8 December 2006 (UTC)— Gervas (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
To be short and to the point: yes. yandman 13:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also disagree with the calls for deletion. Among the vendor community there is much use or misuse of the phrase "Human Interaction management" and we need clear definition in order to stop the vendor marketing machines hijacking another solid business principle for their own commercial gain. Human Interaction Management, bears no relationship to HR as some have suggested. It is simply suggesting that if we really want to make a difference in our organisations, then we need to better understand how people work with people and then provide the ability for the more technical among us to deliver systems that support the way we actually work. I also know that "HIM" is now widely cited and recognised as an important new management approach. -- Mark McGregor, Author and Coach --- 13.52 8th December 2006— 82.36.189.232 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • STRONG DELETE As this is astroturfing and neologism. Looks like Possible original research, Spam, and definate Conflict of Interest as the author admits to adding this information. May want to warn the author of his violations of Sockpuppetry and that Wikipeida is not a place to advertise your product. (On a personal sidenote, this guy just rubs me the wrong way) --Brian (How am I doing?) 17:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete. I'm amazed that three different people could possibly come across this article within such a short amount of time (less than four hours) and argue so vehemently for its inclusion in Wikipedia. Do you know what I'm getting at? Yes, I am accusing "Mxbarn", "Gervas Douglas" and "Mark McGregor" of being single purpose accounts and/or sock-puppets of Keith what's-his-face. By the way, it looks like he's copyvio-ing himself, lol. Axem Titanium 21:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am NOT a "sockpuppet". DO NOT DELETE. I've been a professional business process management consultant for over thirty years and am located in Bellevue, WA (USA). I believe the material in this entry to be meaningful and useful in customer engagements; and expect it to expand greatly as more people come to actually understand it and its value. David Holliday
  • As a long-time consultant to contemporary BPM, I would like to align myself with the retention of the article in a form or another. In my humble opinion, HIM represents a clear conceptual and philosophical departure from BPM in its traditional forms: by enabling renegotiation of the public process through a multi-tier control mechanism it provides for irregular collaborations with a mobile connection structure. Notwithstanding the fact that the term has been fervently promoted by Harrison-Broninski who coined it in the first place, the term has been established within the BPM community to the extent that it transcends the notion of a neologism. As the links to the commercial product and even to KHB's web sites have been removed, I cannot see any COI or other justification for deletion. -- Janne J. Korhonen {This is an anon user 80.222.38.109 which has made few or no other edits outside of this topic.)
  • DO NOT DELETE: The understanding of process context and patterns of work during human interaction is a logical development of the more mechanical workflow, BPM and associated process thinking of the past decades. It is important to broadcast the interesting new concept to a wider audience and open more dialogue on the topic. It's worthy of a place in Wikipedia. The fact that this article is seemingly obscure and supported by a limited number people does not indicate irrelevance, but rather "newness", so all the more reason to refine a mutually agreeable version of the topic. The commercial reference to Keith's book could perhaps be shifted from the 1st line to the External Links section to appease those who suspect a mercenary motive, which, by the way I don't. -- Ian Ramsay Ian Ramsay (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this AFD.
  • STRONG DO NOT DELETE: Human Interaction Management is the next phase of Business Process Management, which you can read about at Wikipedia... which also contains reference to HIM as the future of BPM. You can also read the artilce by the founder and chairman of the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC.org)(http://www.ebizq.net/hot_topics/bpm/features/7462.html) as just one instance where the term HIM is referernced. You can also google "human interaction management" and skim thru the 12,400 hits to see that Information-Age(UK), IEEE articles, CIO magazine and umpteen other references to the term appear in reliable, independent, non-self-published sources. Apparently those complaining about "sockpuppets" (is that a neologism to be deleted as well?)are not in the world of enterprise IT. Speaking of other self-serving neologisms, how about "Wikipedia" for J. Wales? How about that cute one, WWW in serving the interests of Tim-Berners Lee? Because something is new to "you," that doesn't make it a neologism. Those in the business/IT world want to know about this topic! --Martin Ashcroft — Martin Ashcroft (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic and AFD.(--SO, WHAT'S THAT GOT TO DO WITH THE VALIDITY OF THE POSTING? NICE TRY TO SUPRESS THE CONTENT OF THIS POST IRRESPECTIVE OF ITS MERITS. MAY THE WORDS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES?)
Comment Way to many Single purpose accounts here, either sock puppets or meat puppets. I still find it amazing people that want articles kept actually think making SPAs actually will change the outcome. If anything, it weights against you. --Brian (How am I doing?) 22:30, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment hmmm... seems Brian works for Mocrosoft ... a Microsoft sock puppet, or Microsoft meat puppet? Surely Microsoft won't be happy if a new category of software steps on their toes? Having just become aware of HIMS, yes, indeed I'm a first-time contributor to Wikipedia. Guilty as charged! If only I was an nth time contributor, then and only then would I speak the truth (?) So I guess that, therefore, it weighs agains me, I'm disqualified. If you are a "First timer" as suggested by this Microsoft employee, I guess we should keep out mouths shut, and crawl under a rock. Yes, Brian, there are too many SPAs here, so delete away.


  • DO NOT DELETE: I think this article should be kept. I agree with the other "pro-retain" comments that Human Interaction Management is real and complementary to traditional BPM. -- Eric Veal, Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc.•
  • Yandman and others calling for this article's deletion, please know that I use only one wikipedia account, Keith Harrison-Broninski. And those calling for the article's retention are not proxies for me. Many people have a professional interest in how BPM is moving forwards into the sphere of human collaboration.

Further, some of you seem to have the wrong impression of me personally. Check out my blog! I write a column for ebizq.net, IT Directions, aimed at exposing industry hype: "Keith Harrison-Broninski cuts through the hype in his hands-on guide to where enterprise technology is really going." If any of you will be at Javapolis this week, I am speaking on Friday, am around from Tue night onwards, and am happy to chat anytime.

In general, the excitement around HIM may have sprung up quickly, but it is not a neologism. Rather, HIM is a necessary label for a well-defined and widely-accepted synthesis of management principles and patterns. To indicate the importance accorded to it, a short list of material on HIM from well-respected IT and management sources is now available on the HIM page.

Given this sort of interest in HIM from academia, analysts, and industry, what is needed now is an independent source of information about it - i.e., wikipedia. I may have written the original book, and the first versions of the wikipedia article, but called from the start for others to pick up where I left off with HIM. And indeed there are now many other books, PhD projects, etc focused on HIM. The term has become common management/business/IT currency, but save for wikipedia, has no online definition in the public ___domain.

HIM practices benefit society - better collaboration cures many ills. So their definition needs a public ___domain home. Hence the wikipedia article, which to me seems the natural ___location. Isn't this kind of community knowledge-sharing what wikipedia is all about? Keith Harrison-Broninski

    • DO NOT DELETE

I read Keith H-B's work on H.I.M. and felt that it pulls together a string of otherwise independent elements into a single holistic viewpoint that uniquely illustrates the difficulty with current BPM and path-finds for a better way forward. The potential of H.I.M. is enormous and should be explored in order to potentially revolutionise the internet...again. I believe that the deletion of this article would be a shameful stopping of a massive potential and that it serves a very useful place on Wikipedia. I strongly feel that it should not be deleted. Bryan Sergeant

STRONG DO NOT DELETE I'm a strong advocate for keeping this page for the following reasons:

  • It satisfies the No Original Research principle: This is an important evolution and confluence of several concepts, tools and approaches. It and its constituent parts have been published in conference proceedings, journal articles and books for some time. There is nothing in this article or the citations it contains that hasn't been published. I assume we're not talking about peer reviewed scientific journals although a good proportion of the work would have been published in such places. I can't see how it violates this principle of the wikipedia.
  • It satisfies the Verifiability principle: This is related to the previous point on No Original Research. Many of the constituent components of this work have been published in readily accessible and reputable publications (books, journals, etc). The emerging ideas simply represent the leading edge of current practice. I suspect the wikipedia would be devoid of content if we stripped it of anything with a leading edge and I'm sure the founders didn't have any sort of simplistic, arrogant application of this principle in mind when they proposed it.
  • It satisfies the Neutral Point of View principle: I fail to see how one can argue that the article doesn't represent a neutral point of view. Those wikipedians who advocate the deletion of the page have had ample opportunity to edit the page to address any deficiencies in this regard. This is not a subjective or faith-based subject. It is a set of tools, techniques and approaches that has a lot to offer and is being increasingly widely practiced in business and IT circles. If there are quibbles about its appropriateness or otherwise on the periphery, let people make the appropriate edits. An author who has published related material cannot be accused of bias simply because he is one of only a few people to contribute.

Now, some general comments. I have been struggling with mechanistic approaches to and notations for business process modelling and management for some time now so I want to argue that the topic is extremely valuable. My first inkling that there was an alternative approach came when I read Martyn Ould's book, Business Process Management: A Rigorous Approach. He points out, as does Harrison-Broninski, that human driven processes are dynamic, self modifying and impossible to depict using rigid mechanistic process management tools and techniques. I followed up by reading Harrison-Broninski's book and it, combined with other reading and practice, has opened up a wealth of possibilities as far as meaningful process management approaches and an opportunity to address the old business-IT divide in very exciting ways. By the way, under no circumstances should this topic be redirected to Human Resource Management! That is not what it is about.

If you don't like neologism, that's too bad! There are innumerable ways to categorise and classify the things we do. If it distinguishes one topic from related ones in a meaningful way then it should be encouraged as a good thing, not removed because of some blinkered and simple-minded application of an individual principle. That's what the wikipedia is trying to overcome, isn't it?

Lastly, regarding some of the arguments in favour of deletion. Although I hesitate to dignify them with the term argument. Instead they contain unsubstantiated slurs and accusations and are very disappointing to see in this environment. I had to have a chuckle when I saw "astroturfing and neologism" in the same sentence but on the whole I've been very disenchanted with the vitriol and meaningless drivel from many of the people advocating deletion. If you want to look me up next time you're in Canberra you can, over the beverage of your choice, verify for yourself that I am no sock puppet (another neologism from the anti-neologism movement?).

--Andrew Warner 02:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The article's there. yandman 08:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I think Keith's phrase (above) eloquently expresses the problem here: "what is needed now is an independent source of information about it". Unfortunately, Wikipedia cannot be that source. We are a tertiary source, not a secondary one. As regards the flurry of activity on this page, be aware that meatpuppetry is also frowned upon. yandman 08:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Yandman, wikipedia is a tertiary source for HIM. The primary source is the books and academic publications. The secondary source is the Web sites, print articles, Web articles, blogs, screencasts, podcasts, etc. And re puppetry, it's easy to see why as an outsider you would be suspicious of the response level here. However, just to give a single example of the interest in HIM, the HIM Web site reports thousands of unique visitors per week. Keith Harrison-Broninski
  • Commment : Wikipedia policy on AFDs is: Unregistered or new users are welcome to contribute to the discussion, but their recommendations may be discounted, especially if they seem to be made in bad faith (for example, if they misrepresent their reasons). Conversely, the opinions of logged in users whose accounts predate the article's AfD nomination are given more weight Hence sock puppets and meat puppet comments are usually disregarded by the closing admin, making all that effort completely wasted. Another wikipedia article says: One exception to the principle of assume good faith concerns the use of sockpuppets. This tactic is commonly employed by vandals and bad-faith contributors who create multiple user accounts in an attempt to bias the decision process. A close variation is to enlist "meatpuppets", people from outside Wikipedia to "run in" (for example, if my article about a web forum is up for deletion and I post a call for other forum members to "help keep our website in Wikipedia"). Signs of these tactics are that a contributor's account was created after discussion began, that a contributor has few edits or that a contributor's other edits have been vandalism. Other Wikipedians will draw attention to such facts and may even recommend deletion simply because apparent sock- or meat-puppets piled in with "do not delete" or other similar comments.

Unfortunately, (vandalism aside) such cases are notoriously hard to distinguish from good-faith contributors writing their first article or from anonymous users who finally decide to log in. If someone does point out your light contribution history, please take it in the spirit it was intended - a fact to be weighed by the closing admin, not an attack on the person. Because of our past problems, opinions offered by new or anonymous users are often met with suspicion and may be discounted during the closing process. This decision is made at the discretion of the closing admin after considering the contribution history and pattern of comments. In practice, civil comments and logical arguments are often given the benefit of doubt while hostile comments are presumed to be bad-faith. Please note that verifiable facts and evidence are welcome from anybody and will be considered during the closing process. --Brian (How am I doing?) 15:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]


  • Do not delete - modify if needed As a quality professional and member of ASQ since 1993, I currently try to come to grips with Business Process Management. I have read Andrew Spanyi’s [More for Less] and find the current article on HIM a useful and logical piece in line with Wikipedia policies. The book itself is on my to-read list. If it helps the editor’s decision, I registered with Wikipedia before this deletion debate came up. However, as my very few-and-between activities on Wikipedia may show, I am not a prolific writer like most of the other contributors here. As a naïve English speaker, I can only ask the editors to decide less on the status of the posters and more on the merit of the contributions and the sincerity of intentions that show through between the written lines. Bernd in Japan 03:34, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do not delete - modify if needed I've never commented before, but I'm curious as to why this page is so contended. I appreciated the reference to the theory, since I'm doing research on workflow and scientific information dynamic. Why not sipmly edit the article rather than delete it? The information is obviously valuable and so far I've seen a lot of disagreement around its presentation. How could it be modified to fit protocol? Why not edit it as such. For starters, it may be best to not start out with reference to an individual before the theory has become more developed... but keep the content. There is a definite need for the information on the internet, as I haven't found much on this outside the university library. Thanks. J. 12 Dec 2006 (5:20) Madison, WI
  • Merge essence into business performance management article at least until the category is actually established. The technology and business consultant sectors cook up neologisms by the dozens. Some of them, like BPM, actually take root, while others turn out to be marketing ploys: ways to differentiate a product or service in a crowded market. I'm not informed enough about HIM to know for sure which this is--but my sense is that the verdict is still out. The article itself reads more as a book excerpt than a traditional Wikipedia entry. I have no sense that the term HIM has reached the broader industry, where it would elicit criticism as well as praise. And my sense here is that the vehement protests over the article's possible deletion are coming mostly from true believers, rather than from people who are actually seeking information. In other words, Wikipedia seems to be used here as a way to validate the term HIM, rather than as a reflection of the term already validated. Until such validation is clear, I suggest merging the essence of this article into BPM. (FYI, I wandered into this discussion because one of the proponents is persistently adding wikispam external links to another article. Guilt by association, I suppose)-Barte 18:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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