This episode of The North Star challenges what has been a long-held assumption by business professionals around the world – that formally defined, automated business process models increase efficiency, effectiveness, and resiliency. Fifty years ago, computer programs were based on flowcharts, step-by-step decision structures that programmers turned into software. That software, much of which still runs today, could not adapt to conditions not considered in the original flowchart, which forced programmers to build more software. Decades later, organizations are collectively stuck with billions of lines of redundant, bloated software systems that are less adaptable than ever. Fast forward to the 1990s, where the concept of business process modeling first emerged and was ultimately adopted by thousands of organizations. Business process models are essentially flowcharts that business analysts define to optimize work and communicate automation requirements to software developers. Those developers then use these process models to design even more inflexible software, stifling agility further in an increasingly unpredictable world. This episode of The North Star will explore the challenges organizations face when they define, manage, and automate work using models that software developers abandoned decades ago. William Ulrich and his guests, Keith Swenson and Dana Khoyi, will examine these challenges and what organizations can do to reverse a trend that has until now been largely unquestioned. Swenson and Khoyi have led efforts to create multiple work management-related standards, patents, and software tools. They have also authored multiple books, such as Mastering the Unpredictable, that reimagine how organizations should define and manage work to increase ecosystem-wide agility while streamlining software solutions. Tune in to this episode of The North Star and learn if everything you know about defining and managing work may be misplaced.