The question behind HEPO concerns the work that precedes a result. When a deal is lost or a team begins to struggle, how much of the decision can we still see, question and learn from?
The meeting behind the question
A deal has just been lost. Sales blames delivery, delivery blames changing requirements, someone mentions the new hire and someone mentions the customer who had been cooling for months. By the end of the hour the room has several explanations and little with which to examine them.
The transaction records the outcome. The commitments, judgments and conversations that shaped it are harder to recover. That is the question I want HEPO to help answer: what would it take to understand the decision while there is still something useful to do?
Why we built around traits
Three things show up when we look at how work happens. Convention sets expectations. Customs accumulate patterns in how people meet them. Habits carry those patterns into daily conduct.
We needed a vocabulary through which a defined part of this territory could be examined. We chose the word trait: a characteristic with an explicit meaning and an agreed basis for observation. The point is not to flatten a person into a number. It is to make the question precise enough that the reading can be discussed.
The supplied catalogue gives an organisation material to start with. The organisation decides what fits, what needs to change and how the definition should be used. A vocabulary is only useful if the people carrying the work can recognise what it asks of them.
A body of thought, and software that carries work
The books behind HEPO explore culture, enterprise, ethical conduct and the purpose of work. That thinking matters to me because a system carries assumptions whether or not its creators make them explicit. I want ours to be open to examination.
HEPO is the software that grew from that inquiry. People & Culture Orchestration connects a catalogue, evaluation, cultural readings, recommendations, development programmes and review of flourishing and wellbeing. The sequence gives a question somewhere to go: from definition to evidence, from interpretation to a chosen response, and back to experience.
Process Orchestration carries defined operations, dependencies and decisions. Simulation & Gamification gives people ways to explore connected information, rehearse a scenario and learn through participation. These three offerings share a working foundation, while each has a distinct purpose.
Work alongside what the organisation already runs
Your ERP and other established systems can keep the records and transactions they already own. HEPO connects the information and actions needed for the work being undertaken. Source ownership and permitted exchanges need to be clear, including any authorised outbound delivery.
I think of the distinction through the constitution and the country. Shared rules matter, but they are not the whole life taking place under them. Organisations with similar systems can have very different ways of listening, deciding, keeping commitments and responding under pressure.
The orchestration-era perspective is our name for giving that living work more attention. It does not make existing instruments obsolete. It asks what else people need in order to carry a decision well.
The instrument shows. The operator decides.
I want that sentence to remain close to every reading and recommendation. A proposed response is something a responsible person considers. It does not become right because software produced it.
Authorised processes can execute work. Human decisions, especially those concerning people, need their defined authority, explanation and review. The people affected also have knowledge that the records may not contain.
The goal of your business belongs to your business. Our contribution is to help people work well and to help business processes carry their purpose. Flourishing and wellbeing belong in that inquiry alongside operational outcomes. We have to examine what actually changes, including what the measures leave out.
Begin with one decision
Bring a decision whose working context is hard to see. Identify the people responsible, the available evidence and the choice that follows. We can then examine what HEPO would need to hold, do and show in that situation.
Three convictions guide that work. Effective: connect the reading to a meaningful next step. Holistic: keep the relationships among people, culture and process visible. Humane: respect the people and judgment on which the work depends.
That is the purpose I want the software to serve.
- Mevlut, founder of HEPO