Adaptive Case Management (ACM)

as an instrument of social management

of business processes within a company

Victor Senkevich

PayDox Case Management

What is a company?

What is a modern company?

 Define it in one word

 The correct answer is on the next slide

What is a company?

A company — is people

 To be more precise, it is people working together towards a common goal

 These people cooperate to support the functioning of multiple business

processes within a company

In cooperating, employees of a company utilize elements of its infrastructure

(or technosphere) — machinery, computers, telephones, desks, etc.

Business Processes (social aspect)

 Strongly structured, formalized, less social

Business Processes (social aspect)

 Up to anti-social

Business Processes (social aspect)

 Unstructured, informal, more social

Business Processes (social aspect)

 Up to chaotic and completely unpredictable

Corporate business processes

 Strictly defined business processes are easily

automated by traditional information systems

 Social business processes, prevailing in a modern

office, are often «automated» through any means at

hand — e-mail, forums and blogs

Plugged in office workers, equipped with iPhones and

iPads, are waiting for business-applications that

provide familiar ease of use

Corporate business processes

 Traditional systems for controlling business

processes (Business Process Management,

BPMS) support strictly defined sequences of

actions

 BPMS allows for automation of structured and formalized lists of tasks

completed within an organization: processing of similar orders, standard

formalizing of business trips, repeated purchasing of equipment and materials, etc.

Corporate business processes

 Descriptions of business processes in traditional BPMS are compiled by a

business analyst. To this end, studies of business processes within a

company are conducted.

Configuration of the BPM-system for controlling real business processes are

made by qualified programmers.

Corporate business processes

 In other words, descriptions of business processes and configuration of a

traditional BPM-system require more time investment from qualified labour

Unfortunate shortcomings of traditional BPMS

 After launching a traditional BPMS, it becomes apparent after a short time

that change is constant within an organization. But who would have thought

otherwise?

And so descriptions of business processes and configurations of the BPMS

already don’t reflect the real processes used. Thus we are forced to start over.

The BPMS does not have any adaptability to real life situations.

 Additionally, the BPMS does not reflect any of the social management

aspects within an organization.

Unfortunate shortcomings of traditional BPMS

 A significantly large portion of work performed by teams of employees, in

collaboration, is unstructured, requires discussion, assignment of tasks based

on analysis of the current situation, and control of time lines in completion of

tasks and assignments

Traditional BPMS are poorly, or not at all, suited to react to problems, which

arise in the performance of a business process from changing circumstances or

opinions of the participants within the business process. In BPMS, there is no

support for social functions

Unfortunate shortcomings of traditional BPMS

 A business process management system without social functions

«constitutes one of the main traits of the bourgeois world view — its

inhumanity, endeavor to turn workers into a cogs, to replace a living,

thinking, fighting for his own interest man with a machine»

(1954, USSR’s Short Philosophical Dictionary of Cybernetics)

Unfortunate shortcomings of traditional BPMS

What must be done?

 To enhance the BPMS with social functions: discussions, tasks, assignments,

groups of users

 To create a new class of applications — Adaptive Case Management

systems (ACM), realizing principles of social management and oriented not on

the process, but on results

 To integrate BPMS and ACM

Adaptive Case Management (ACM)

ACM systems are intended for

organization of teamwork, tasks and

assignments, control over time

frames and execution

Adaptive Case Management (ACM)

Cases — sequences of tasks and messages,

containing:

Lists of

Description

implementers,

of tasks,

recipients,

Documents

Tags and

Business

assignments,

Discussions

participants,

and other

other forms

rules

events,

controllers,

files

of data

control points

authors,

managers

Case Management Organization Chart

A request is

received from

a client

An incomplete case

can be cancelled

A completed case

is closed

Manager

Author

Implementers

Manager /

formulates

creates a task

complete tasks and

Controller

a task or

or case in the

assignments, create

manages the

assignment

ACM system

subtasks and

performance of

discussions

tasks and

assignments

The case is

The case is created

There is a demand

created manually

from a library

for goods or

of templates

Reports

rvices in another

business unit of

the company

What must an ACM system be like?

 To manage not separate tasks and assignments, but cases — collections of tasks

and assignments, connected with the execution of an entire business process

Tasks, assignments, discussions

may be presented as a case —

a sequence of messages, that

may be entered in the correct

order and containing descriptions

of tasks, recipients, completion

time frames, files

What must an ACM system be like?

 Store all information on a business process in a virtual folder — all documents,

photographs, videos, drawings and other files

The multimedia catalogue allows for loading into

the case any number of documents and files,

opening and viewing documents in various

formats, playing video and sound files, viewing

photographs in a slide show, creating subfolders

for distribution of files to groups, creating

descriptions of the file catalogue

What must an ACM system be like?

 Manage users within the case project team, give or revoke access to case

tasks, files and messages, inform users of the need to begin work on a new task

within the project

It is possible to allow access to all tasks and

discussions of a particular theme to only one

specific group of users, participating in the

realization of the project or case.

It is possible to define users, roles, as well as

whole subdivisions, or access groups (groups

of users, which are formed for the realization

of the project or case)

What must an ACM system be like?

 Maintain control over rules, allowing for automatic activation of the case’s next

task once a task has been completed, send users reminders, etc.

Assignments and tasks can be given rules

for automatic status updates. This way,

varying levels of priority can be given to

tasks and assignments, basically creating

maps for completing cases

What must an ACM system be like?

 Have a developed subsystem of filters, obtaining information on various

segments in one click - «open assignments», «overdue», «assignments for current

user», «assignments for subordinate employees», «outstanding department

assignments», etc.

One click of the mouse on a point or icon

in the left menu allows you to obtain

various lists of tasks and assignments,

meant for the current user, as well as

subordinate users or a whole department

What must an ACM system be like?

 Keep a log of all user actions

Task authors and administrator can see a

short history of the work completed on a

task by users (who created the task, when

it was created, any edits to discussions and

changes to status)

What must an ACM system be like?

 Support discussions for any task in the case

What must an ACM system be like?

 Support a library of templates, where you can successfully drop completed

cases in one click, so that later you can create a whole case on any topic based on

the template, already containing all tasks, all implementers, and all samples of

documents and other files

What must an ACM system be like?

 Easy to understand and attractive — present lists of tasks in cases as

«checklists» — lists of tasks, in which checkmarks indicate completion and icons

show all current statuses of tasks and assignments

What must an ACM system be like?

 Full functionality on desktop computers, laptops, and tablets (iPad and others)

What must an ACM system be like?

 And the main requirement for ACM — adaptability. The system must not

require detailed inspection of business processes and programming with

configurations for new business processes. New cases are formed by users

as lists of tasks, which require completion, and are corrected and added to in the

course of performance of the process

Important advantages of ACM

 The ACM system — a tool for creation of corporate knowledge base. All

knowledge, which is created in «office» business processes, may and must be

separated from its bearers and saved for enterprise wide use to avoid creation

of narrow or «unique», «irreplaceable» employees

 Adaptive Case Management (ACM) is a tool for this separation which

provides for timely and stable performance of work by employees

Important advantages of ACM

 Equally important is Adaptive Case Management’s ability to accumulate

corporate knowledge for future use.

 Successfully completed cases, containing valuable information on collective

work performed by employees, are stored in a library of templates, slightly

adjusted and cleaned up for universal application (all non-essential discussions

and comments are deleted, only important tasks, assignments and milestones

are kept). After this is done, a new case on the similar business process can be

created with a single click. The process is then repeated.

 As a result, for each subsequent project there is a convenient template with

a list of tasks, assignments, a collection of forms, lists of implementers and

document templates. The ever increasing library of case templates composes

corporate knowledge, separated from concrete employees and stored in a

digital format for corporate use.

Important advantages of ACM

 Use of an Adaptive Case Management system helps avoid the creation of

bottlenecks, unique or irreplaceable employees, whose vacations in the

Caribbean, prior to the implementation of the system, would result in

significant strain and work stoppages for remaining colleagues, but can now

relax in peace during their vacations — current results of their corporate

activities (tasks, contacts, documents, discussions) are stored in ACM.

Important advantages of ACM

«It’s impossible to automate chaos!»

«Automated chaos does not stop being chaotic!»

Common misconceptions

 The adaptability and flexibility of ACM allows

a company to automate its business processes

«as is», in a fashion that is familiar to employees,

without engaging in a risky implementation

process, without stressing staff, or breaking existing

business processes to achieve a theoretically

correct condition «to be».

Possible «chaos», which in this case is automated,

becomes qualitatively different

— measurable and

controlled.

After implementation of ACM, business processes

become transparent, it becomes possible to perfect

them in practice, and not on paper — easily

adjusting and improving case templates.

Advantages of ACM for business

ACM — is it Versace jeans

or jeans from a flea-market?

 What percentage of large companies use

BPM systems?

5%?

15%?

This means there is room to grow.

Additionally, this means that not everything is

well with the use of these systems even in places

where there are sufficient resources.

 And what percentage of small companies use

BPM systems?

0,01%?

In this case, «traditional» BPM systems do not

stand a chance.

Advantages of ACM for business

 «Pure» BPMS are elitist, much like Versace jeans, and small business can

never use them.

However, ACM systems, due to their ease of use and availability can be used

by 90% of small enterprises — an easy to use system for managing tasks,

where you can indicate completed work with a checkmark, is needed by

practically everyone.

Systems like ACM will, like jeans from a flea-market — be a cheap and

accessible good of mass consumption.

Examples of ACM business processes

Processing of a car loan application

Examples of ACM business processes

Processing of a new hire

Examples of ACM business processes

Purchasing of equipment

Examples of ACM business processes

Processing an order

Examples of ACM business processes

Conduct of a meeting

The current world trend in the IT field

Trend of the new millennium: NO FRILLS NEEDED!

Simplicity is more important than functionality

 Present world trends of leading software developers can be expressed with the phrase

«Novelty replaced with complexity». When there is nothing to say, there are no new

ideas, but a new version needs to be launched to continue generating profits, the market

is flooded with software monsters.

 Users are prepared to sacrifice functionality in

favor of simplicity. Progress in the IT field is

strongly tied to this - small companies with simple

applications often successfully compete with

software monsters and their products that have

consumed millions of programming hours.

A majority of users are already searching the

market for inexpensive and easy to use mobile

phones — that only support phone calls and SMS

service as well as basic corporate applications —

no more complex than email.

The current world trend in the IT field

Everything genius becomes simple only with time,

initially it seems primitive

«Grandma phone» with only one button

Influence of corporate psychology on IT

«Not a single manager was fired for selecting a solution from IBM»

«A system administrator overseeing a system that never breaks is not noticed, but

a system administrator overseeing a system that breaks regularly is lauded as a

hero, who saves the company at a critical moment»

Expensive and complicated solutions from a

«large vendor»:

 high cost of ownership (TCO)

 problematic return on investment (ROI)

 high risk of implementation failure

 denial of failure of such an implementation

The current world trend in the IT field

 Sociality and simplicity — a modern trend

in the IT field. Instead of complex descriptions

of business processes, the entire Adaptive Case

Management revolves around checklists, lists of

tasks which must be completed, and checkpoints

(or milestones, control points)

 For ACM, this checklist consisting of tasks

and control points — is the same as the «happy

path» in traditional BPM systems — the main

list of actions, which must be completed and

which are assumed prior to the start of the

process. However, in ACM this list is

corrected and supplemented in the carrying

out of the process, in other words it is

constantly adapted to reality.

ACM is oriented on results, a process to

achieve these results is adapted along the way

The Occam’s razor principle

 The Occam’s razor principle is hopelessly forgotten by many IT vendors

 And the appearance of ACM can be treated as a return to simplicity and

fundamental principles of the monk Occam

 Ease of use and social functionality — the motto of ACM!

Entities should not be

multiplied unnecessarily

William of Ockham

~1285—1349

Contacts

Victor Senkevich

E-mail:

Skype: paybot

PayDox Case Management: http://www.PayDox.com

Thank You!