I think we should not do this.

Remark: Re-reading Mr. Bartonitz Blog I must admit, that he did not propose to extend BPMN, but was talking about CMPM, the effort of the OMG to standardize (Adaptive?) Case Management. So it turns out – we – Mr. Bartonitz, me, and the OMG are in agreement of the future strategy. The only thing I have a different opinion is, that I think it is too early to standardize. However I leave my text in the blog to reason about, why a separate effort is the right way and to show how migration and integration can work.

I have a high esteem for BPMN if it is used for the purpose that it has been designed for. That is classical process modeling, workflow modeling, and a two phase lifecycle:

1. Modeling and deployment
2. Execution

This is what BPMN is designed for and this is where it works best.

On the one hand I understand the request of people to extend BPMN with modeling elements for ACM, because BPMN is what they know and people tend to love what they know. And this is a good thing! And even BPMN 2.0 is quite fresh on the market.

Adaptive Case Management is a completely different kind of process management. There are no two phases, but only one: Modeling and execution at the same time. It is MUCH MORE flexible than BPMN. If you do not understand this statement, please read the books “Mastering the Unpredictable” and “Taming the Unpredictable“.

There are many attributes of BPMN that are not needed in ACM, even are burdensome. For example there are now so many gateways and event types and modeling elements in general that are not needed in ACM. I estimate that ACM can live with between 5 and 10 modeling elements overall. It is a different modeling philosophy. BPMN`s execution semantics is flow based. I.e. workflow engines manage “tokens” flowing between the activities. ACM must not have tokens. That is my conviction. If we introduce token flow to ACM, then we have lost. The reason is it makes the model too inflexible. If you do not believe me, just model a single approval, and then start the approval and later on while it already runs, add another approval. You will see how difficult this is and that is because of token flows. There have been many scientific efforts to make this easier, but it is not possible. The token flow logic however has been grained into BPMN from the very beginning. I would say ACM is rather constraint based than token flow based.

There are other attributes of BPMN execution semantics that makes it unfit for ACM. For example a sub-process is completed if all of its subtasks (following the token-flow semantics) are completed. This is not the case with ACM. As I use to say: Not in all cases when you shoot you actually hit the goal. But this is grained into BPMN as well and it is impossible to remove it. All BPMN process engines have been built around these basic assumptions. I believe that an ACM engine has to be designed as a Greenfield approach and trying to change a BPMN workflow engine to make it more “ACM” like is wasted time. I think I have agreement on this with most of the other authors of “Mastering the Unpredictable” and “Taming the Unpredictable”. This is why I designed the AdaPro Workstream Platform from scratch.

Also I believe it is too early to standardize ACM. Tool vendors have to have freedom to design and apply the new modeling concept to the application domain first, and then later, when a lot of tools are around, it makes sense to define a common exchange format and standard.

Of course I believe ACM is backward compatible to a degree. That is – it is possible to import BPMN models into an ACM model snippet. I already implemented this in the AdaPro Workstream Platform. I think also it makes some sense to export ACM models to BPMN models. I also believe that it will be possible to model all kinds of predictable process models with ACM, but with different means than with BPMN. I also know that it is possible to use BPMN already today, so that it is “kind of adaptable”. Is this not a contradiction to what I said before? No! This is possible by defining a modeling guideline that restricts the use of modeling elements for a BPMN model to make it more adaptable and better suited for exchange between the ACM and the BPMN world. I already have defined such a guideline and I teach it in my seminars here and here.

So, I think what people want is a “smooth migration” path from BPMN to ACM, and that is a very valid requirement. And what they want is a “smooth” integration of ACM, BPMN and SOA. And this is even more of a valid requirement. I am convinced that the way to this goal is to first learn the “adaptive way” to model. Then, second, is to use ACM tools for real use cases and third to create a new Greenfield standard for ACM and fourth to define a model exchange between BPMN and ACM.

In my first discussion with Max J. Pucher I said, that I still struggle with the “Case” in the “Adaptive Case Management”. He proposed the use of the term “Adaptive Processes” instead.

Later, following our talks, the audience also raised the same question. They said: Why “Case”? I said that a “Case” is the business object that is the reason to start an adaptive process or workstream. However the generic “pure” workstream would be a set of activities with status somehow (loosely) related – comparable to a workflow that is also not a business object, but a generic “pure” entity.

I believe that Case is a business object, and a Case may as well relate to Workstream or also to Workflows. The distinction between Workflow and Workstream in my eyes is this:

• A Workflow is a flow oriented model of interrelated Activities that is preplanned.
• A Workstream is a set of Activities, that is not necessarily preplanned, that are related, but not necessarily in a flow oriented way (probably in a constraint oriented way).

These two are generic while the Case is a business object of a certain form. For example there may be Customer Service Cases or Insurance Claim Cases – both of which have different attributes. The Case is the common super class of all of these possible variants of Cases and maybe their predominant commonality is that they can be related to a Workstream.

However why only Cases should be related to Workstreams? Why not Opportunities, Campaigns, Sales Orders, Logistic Orders, Accounts, and in general all Business Objects that may exist? I believe there are use cases for all of these business objects to be involved within an unpredictable Workstream.

That is the Case Part of the discussion. But there is also another part of the discussion.

As I discussed in Dead or Alive! I have the opinion, that it is also possible to define characteristics of Workflows and of SOA that make them adaptive. In this case we would have three categories of adaptive processes:

1. Adaptive Case/Workstream Management
2. Adaptive Workflow Management
3. Adaptive SOA

If this is true, then I would use the term “Adaptive Process Management” or “Adaptive Business Process Management” to name everything that falls into one of these categories. So an Adaptive Process would be either an Adaptive SOA process, an Adaptive Workflow or an Adaptive Case/Workstream.

I suspect that if Max J. Pucher sais “Adaptive Process” he means something within Category 1), while I mean all three categories.

So – I think there is still something to discuss before we have a common Taxonomy for Adaptive Processes and Adaptive Case Management.

The reports of the practitioners and the discussions made me think more about the definition of what I mean, when I say: Adaptive Process. It is obvious that process management in general and process modeling in specific in practice always has the challenge to capture complexities in a lean and simple way. But what is lean and what is simple? How flexible must a process be?

To me the key question is: Is this process dead or is it alive?

A process (model) is dead, or doomed to death, if the effort/cost to maintain it – i.e. to incorporate ongoing changes and adaptations – is higher than the benefit that results from the changes. A process is alive, if the benefit of adapting the process (model) is higher than the effort/cost to maintain it.

That – in my opinion – is the reason why many process models end up in some dusty drawer, forgotten forever. They have become so complex, so cumbersome, that it costs more to maintain them, than they yield benefit.

So, it is possible to quantify the cost to maintain process models or processes. The benefit must be measured in productivity increases of the workers or the organization that execute the process.

“Adaptive Processes” now is the set of rules, the guideline that ensures that a process modeled by these rules will stay alive, i.e. the productivity increase will be higher than the cost of adapting the process (model). That – I think – is a good definition of what adaptive processes means. It is possible to quantify, to verify and – to falsify – if somebody falsely claims to have or offer adaptive processes.

Now – if a process is executed many times, then the productivity increase is easier to achieve as if a process is only executed a number of times or only once. That is why we now also need Adaptive Case Management – which is the discipline of lowering the cost of process adaptation to such a low level, that it is even increases productivity in the single instance case. And doing this, we have already learned a lot more about how other process models – BPMN process models for example – must be modeled to achieve a much higher level of productivity.

I also presented the two books Mastering the Unpredictable and Taming the Unpredictable. I would have liked to show the software as well, but the beamer did not work, so I resolved to the blackboard and chalk. I think that is feasible in a BarCamp. Maybe next year.

The session was packed, I was surprised myself I must say. These were people who are very skeptical about every form of process management, but very interested in the new approach. They know that knowledge work is unpredictable, they must not be convinced. When they hear “process” they immediately think: Something modeled, strict, predefined, inflexible and unusable. That made me reflect about what I mean when I say process. I mean a set of interconnected activities that have a status. That’s it. For BPMers: I mean the process instance, not the process model/process type. Given that definition, I am still flexible enough for everything in knowledge work. I do not say that it needs to be predefined. I do not say in which form the activities have to be interconnected. They just “belong together” in any way. For BPMers: They are correlated. Or: They belong to the same process instance. There is nothing said about a sequence or a predefined sequence. But probably many people may misunderstand the term process and still think about something that is predefined. Therefore I propose “Workstream” as the better term for freely interconnected activities with a status. That is why I named my software “Workstream Platform” and not “Process Platform”. I might also discuss in a future post the relation between workstream and case, because in the books we use the term “Adaptive Case Management”.

One very interesting discussion was about search. People told me, that search was one of the biggest challenges in a database of knowledge. They work on very sophisticated search algorithms, which can also be a big value-add for a database of adaptive processes. However I insisted that I distinguish between living knowledge and dead knowledge. I define living knowledge as knowledge, that is linked to an adaptive process or workstream that has a goal or is within a template library of a workstream. Dead knowledge is knowledge that is not linked to a process or workstream or is not in the template library of a workstream that you are working on. I assume that Workstreams expire. They are linked to projects or the like. Sometimes they might not expire, for example in service management. But if Workstreams are linked to certain products, then also these workstreams expire. So if workstreams expire, so does the knowledge within their belly. And that is a good thing. Because then the search is easier. It searches only within a relevant scope and you have more relevant hits. Yes, we can discuss about how to migrate good knowledge from an expired workstream to a new workstream. The answer is also simple. Somebody – a knowledge worker – has to propose a knowledge (i.e. workstream template) migration. If the community in the target workstream agrees (quality review) then it is taken over, maybe modified. Thus we always have a relevant body of knowledge (process templates) to search. Of course, if a knowledge worker wants to search an expired workspace by intent, this is also possible. But this is like looking into the archives – a different type of search. This is my approach. Knowledge expires and so do workstream templates. And it is important to let them expire.

I also had more interesting discussions with a research group that tries to model knowledge work processes as well. I want to look at their approach more in detail, before I comment on it.

So in general, some people were very skeptical that it is possible to manage knowledge work by any means of process management, because they say it is too flexible. Others said that it is an interesting approach and they think it makes sense to try it. It is certainly a new approach, all agreed about that.

I also was in other sessions. One session showed, that a manager for designing a complex product in the automotive industry successfully applied agile methods, i.e. scrum, sprints, product backlog, burndown diagram. They do it without any technology support – just paper. It works. At least they succeed in designing the product with that agile method. That was very interesting for me because it proof, that the agile method is not only applicable for software engineering, where it was first invented, but in general to knowledge work, which we assumed in the books. The workstream platform is built in the same way. The manager was still skeptical about software technology. I tried to convince him, that his process will be faster, if people are notified via email faster by process progress, and also they lack a nice burndown diagram (because it is too much work with just paper) and process analytics in general. Maybe I made him think about it.

But if these people – the knowledge work experts – are skeptical about process management in general and any technology in specific, it proofs, that there is a huge gap in the area. They still use methods, agile, etc. And yes, there is some technology already around, databases to document knowledge. However often too much dead knowledge stacks up and makes searches inefficient. And I feel, that adaptive case management starts to fill the gap technology wise for these people, bringing together the agile methods, they already use, their knowledge databases and process management into one goal driven concept that allows for analytics, links to live knowledge, process improvement and higher productivity in knowledge work. And they feel it too; otherwise the session would not have been so packed.

Economic circumstances seem to change quite fast; people ask themselves if BPM is part of the solution or part of the problem.

I for my part had to struggle with the thought of: “Why are there so many changes, so much reorganization, and so much instability in goals?” Sometimes, if you worked very hard to achieve a goal, only to find in the end, that circumstances have changed, this can be very frustrating. And yes, to a certain degree stability is a prerequisite for success, because only then you can build up competency that is needed for success.

However, instead of lamenting I thought: Why not make a virtue of necessity? The change is there, it comes from the market, and it also makes sense, otherwise there is no progress. It is not about trying to keep the circumstances stable, but it is about adaptation to the circumstances – if necessary.

Of course, this basic idea brings you to BPM modeling at all. Why model at all? Why not hard code software and write prose for work instructions? The answer is: Hopefully if we have the model, we can change it faster and then we can change the organizational processes and the software faster, if necessary. And yes, it is true. If you have that model, and it is available in a tool where you have all the links, references and also descriptions, if you have a “living model” then you can adapt it faster – together with software and organizational processes. This is essentially true.

If we even have model driven development or model execution, then this change cycle is even faster. But it presupposes an investment in model driven technology that most have not done. And many have failed trying, because it requires mastery of the subject and it requires an overall strategy. It is possible, but difficult. This is my observation.

Still I thought: Something is missing. Something that is really very adaptive. A tool for a process that can be changed while is running. This idea caught me and I was not able to forget it. If we had such a tool, I thought, then processes could be adapted by those people that execute the processes. This is incredibly powerful, I thought. Because they are the people that know best, how the process should work.

I made the experience, even when standardized processes were tool – supported, then people got notifications, the processes speeded up by orders of magnitude. If any of you had an Excel-Controlled process and then you tool-supported it, they you know what I mean. It is just much faster. However every change in the process needed the developer to help – in this case.

So – if I can combine the one with the other, the flexibility of Excel with the notifications of the tool-supported process, then, I thought, this must be a powerful tool. And I started to build it as cloud-based software from scratch.

Then I found out, that process experts all over the world have similar thoughts. We met, we wrote two books – you know the story. Now it is called “Adaptive Case Management”.

Back to the question what the future of BPM is. My personal opinion is that Adaptability will win over so-called Efficiency. More and more processes and process models will be judged by the question: “How adaptive is this process?” – more than “How efficient is this process?”. Efficiency still is important, but Adaptability will be more dominant in the future, because there is nothing more futile than to do the wrong thing very efficiently.

And – alas! – so many processes and process models today are very far from being good adaptive processes and models. So there is much to do! The best process experts we can find will be needed to make standard processes more adaptive. But it will pay off – because those companies that are more adaptive will win the competition.

What can I recommend to you? Start thinking about it! Ask yourself the question, what can I do to make this process more adaptive? What are the characteristics of an adaptive process? Where do I want adaptability, where do I not want it? Which circumstances might change and which effect does this have on the process?

The more we start to think about these questions, the better we will be equipped for the future.

Maybe in the future we will call it APM – Adaptive Process Management – or ABPM – Adaptive Business Process Management.

About Taming the Unpredictable

Highly predictable work is easy to support using traditional programming techniques, while unpredictable work cannot be accurately scripted in advance, and so requires the involvement of the workers themselves. Aiding knowledge workers, enabling real productivity gains, would logically come from both automating repetitive work where possible, while facilitating the less predictable, more dynamic work modes requiring the flexibility to be defined according the circumstances and context of a given moment in time.

Adaptive Case Management (ACM) assists the knowledge worker to apply know-how and make decisions. One core adaptable quality of ACM is support for goal-seeking and goal-driven processes, where goals can be modified “in flight” by the knowledge worker. Similarly, knowledge captured during the performance of the case can support the identification and creation of new processes or case rules, without requiring IT/developer involvement.

This important book follows the ground-breaking publication, “Mastering the Unpredictable” and provides detailed explanations by thought-leaders in this field, together with practical examples, ACM case studies and product demonstrations.

Where Mastering the Unpredictable focused foremost on connecting the dots on why empowering knowledge workers is so critical today, Taming the Unpredictable presents a series of case studies and treaties on how this should be done. Although many of the same authors are represented in both texts, what has transpired in less than two years has been the global coalescence of ideas and activities that has positioned ACM as arguably the most critical bridge across the Business/IT divide.

This year alone, following the remarkable success of Mastering the Unpredictable, dozens of market-forming events have transpired, from the Global Excellence in Adaptive Case Management awards to countless webinars, new product launches, an ACM online conference, and seemingly endless stream of conversations on ACM across social media. Few issues have generated such passionate debate, nor presented such compelling promise, as ACM.

Published in association with the Workflow Management Coaltion (WfMC) in the Excellence in Practice Series.

This describes my chapter in it:

Using the AdaPro Workstream Platform for improving Knowledge Work
Frank Michael Kraft, AdaPro GmbH, Germany

Frank M. Kraft’s chapter Improving Knowledge Work in the book Mastering the Unpredictable
(Kraft 2010) describes how adaptive case management (ACM) can leverage the abilities of individual knowledge workers. It describes a case study of Leona, who works in the engineering department in a company of about one hundred and fifty employees and how she uses ACM to manage customer service and subsequent development planning and coordination for the phone systems that her company offers. That chapter was without any reference to an individual tool, but described the holistic approach and how individual knowledge workers can draw immediate benefit from it.
This chapter now completes the narrative, by showing how the case can be performed by a tool, the AdaPro Workstream Platform.

And – I might add – this is only the beginning of the exciting journey that we started with Adaptive Case Management and Adaptive Process Management in general. Even the first step already yields substantial benefit, but there is so much more to explore and to exploit for the benefit of the organization that starts the journey of Adaptive Process Management. In the first time in history it is possible to manage processes of knowledge workers with similar – but not the same -methods and tools like it is already possible in classical Business Process Management.

You can order the book from the first batch fresh from the press to germany here. So that is your chance to be among the first ones to have it.

If you think, the AdaPro Case Management is a great opportunity for your organization, then you can let me do a Case Study for you.

By an Adaptive Process I understand a process that is easily adapted to changing conditions.

I see three groups of processes:

1. Adaptive Case Managenent – fully flexible processes
2. Workflows and Process automation.
3. Standard Processes – such processes that typically run within an ERP system or within a legacy system.

Of course in principle we can also talk about Standard Processes, Workflows and Case Management without IT. But what is the benefit of it? How shall we manage these processes without IT? Ok – we can document them. And sometimes this is necessary. But to effectively manage these processes we need IT.

Let’s start with

1) Adaptive Case Management

Adaptive Case Management is a completely new area and deals with processes for knowledge workers that are unpredictable. However they shall be managed with process technology. All processes, that are only executed once or that are standardized only in part belong to them. A consulting project, a startup, a reorganization, execution of decisions of steering committee or board meetings, new evaluation of loans, processes to solve a complex service problem in engineering, execution of audits, analysis of fraud incidents, evaluation of complex insurance contracts, complex cases in healthcare, etc. etc. It is not possible to manage these kinds of processes with existing process technology. That is the reason why Adaptive Case Management has been positioned now by the book “Mastering the Unpredictable”, of which I have written chapter 9 “Improving Knowledge Work”. It contains a detailed use case of the knowledge work of an engineer doing customer support and how Adaptive Case Management helps her to do the job better than ever before. I also have a presentation about it that I can offer to deliver to you and discuss. This presentation and chapter also answers the questions of what the difference is between ACM, classical BPM, Project Management and Web based collaboration tools like JIRA and which advantages it offers over those technologies.

It is important to understand that in the book “Mastering the Unpredictable” I do not describe the full scope of Adaptive Processes. I only describe part 1) Adaptive Case Management – and I only describe one use case to make an understandable example how it can work. So if you read my chapter, you begin to understand one of three parts of Adaptive Processes, not Adaptive Processes as a whole. Even within the topic of Adaptive Case Management the book chapter is only a small part. For example in the meanwhile I have 20-30 patterns of knowledge work which is an extra presentation. I also have cloud software for Adaptive Case Management which is not yet a product, but is used by pilots. Many ask me: How in detail does Adaptive Case Management work? The answer is given in the software. So if you think from the use case description, that Adaptive Case Management might fit to your use case and might solve problems, that you cannot solve otherwise, then I can offer to you to do a case study and feasibility analysis. This means, that I will analyze your use case, will prototype this in the software, demonstrate the prototype, support a field study and conclude with strategic consulting that includes prototype findings and next steps. The outcomes of the case study will lead to a decision of productization of the ACM software, but does not necessarily mean it. It depends on the findings of the case study and the feasibility analysis. However it is an exciting new piece of technology and it is worth trying.

2) Classical BPM – like it is represented by the modeling standard BPMN.

There is the whole world of process management as it is represented by BPMN for example. I worked to define BPMN 2.0 within the standardization teams and I focused on execution semantics, choreography and interaction modeling. I have a background in modeling business processes and interactions between loosely coupled segments of business processes – business partners that interact. I know all of the complexities that can occur – even with standard business processes. They seem so harmless in the beginning, but the more you model, the more difficulties you find. It is decisive to avoid getting bogged down in this phase. It is decisive to master the richness of variants that such a process can have. If you fail in this, then you have a mixture of semi-technical semi-business process, that uses far too many modeling elements and the project is cancelled “successfully”.

Here “adaptive process” stand for a guideline with modeling rules, that ensure, that the richness of variants of the processes is still manageable. If this guideline is respected, the models become simple and they have a natural fit. Future process adaptations become easier.

Why do people model? There is the visibility – that is an important factor. But why do people execute modeled processes instead of developing them as standard software? The reason is the adaptability. People want to adapt the processes lateron – at least have the option to do it. If the models are complex, difficult etc, then process adaptations are still expensive and the quality of the result is at risk. But if the process is modeled in an adaptive way, then the adaptations become effective. Adaptive Processes in this context mean flexible, simple, lean processes, even if there are many process variants.

3) Standard Processes

Standard processes are built in ERP suites. There is a way to build an ERP suite, that is adaptable, and another way to build an ERP suite, that is not adaptable. More often than not the ERP suites are built in a not adaptable or scarcely adaptable way. Many don’t even use models or don’t even see the benefit in using models. Some others use models, but only as sugarcoating. The models are not rooted in the coding, neither is the coding connected to the models. These are two worlds that are separated – always out of sync. If you don’t use models, then how should you know how and where to adapt a standard process? If the model is not connected to the coding, changing the model does not bring any effect.

Some of you may say – what is he talking about? Science fiction? No! It is definitely possible to build an ERP suite model driven and adaptable. I swear. I have done it. It works. While I admit it is not taught anywhere how to do it. It is only possible to do it if there is a deep understanding of the laws of business processes in general. These laws of business processes are not taught anywhere either – as far as I know. But they are there. They exist.

However all ERP vendors offer some kind of interfaces to their software – some service operations to interact with the standard processes within the software. Within a fixed framework it is possible to use some kind of flexibility. For example it is possible to add an approval workflow to a standard process of purchasing – using the interface. However more often than not the interfaces are obscure and hard to understand because they are not modeled by means of business process modeling.

Here adaptive processes stand for modeling these interfaces by means of business process modeling to describe their behavior – specifically using BPMN 2.0 Interaction – BPMN Collaboration – BPMN Choreography. This makes the flexibility of existing services visible and usable. This is what is meant by service oriented architecture. If that is done, then it is also easier to decide which parts of the ERP suite needs more flexibility. This can be a customer specific development project or it can be a requirement to the ERP vendor. I any case the entry points and exit points of the standard process are transparent and easy to use.

Conclusion

I want to finalize this small essay about adaptive processes.

We have now discussed three different areas where adaptive processes or the adaptive process philosophy yield benefits: 1) Adaptive Case Management, 2) Workflow and Process automation and 3) standard processes. In each single area adaptive processes already deliver substantial benefit. But adaptive processes are also an holistic approach. If all of the three areas are adaptive, then they can be combined and they can deliver even more benefit. Adaptive Workflows and process automation can interact with adaptive standard processes, adaptive case management can interact with adaptive workflows and process automation or adaptive standard processes. So adaptive process management is a holistic approach to all of the three and to the whole system. It is possible to start with Adaptive Case Management on its own – there are no dependencies. It is possible to improve Workflows and Process Automation on its own. It is also possible to model standard processes for the sake of flexibility on their own. But all of it is embedded in an overall concept and strategy: Adaptive Process Management.

All knowledge workers, that I know, and I know a lot of them, don’t organize their knowledge work by using project planning techniques. And that has a reason. It is too clumsy. Changes are too rapid. It is not worth the effort. So certainly the solution to the Math of the Missed Deadline problem is not to use project planning, neither deterministic nor stochastic project planning.

But the Math of the Missed Deadline shows where the key is. The key is in coordination.

I am sure many of you knew that before already. But it is interesting to see which tools are used for coordination. The mostly used coordination Tool is Microsoft Excel, I propose. Why? It is used, because it is so easy to use.

But I must admit I was not satisfied. An Excel of 3.500 entries does not make sense any more. It is hard to structure them. There are so many Excels. One here, one there – for every project a different one. Don’t miss a deadline assigned to you in any number of Excels distributed on many file shares! That is a challenge.

I want to have it cloud based – accessible from everywhere. I want to calculate the remaining effort. Still, the maintenance must be very easy to use. I want a quick search.

I don’t want to explain the whole functionality here and now, because this is reserved for prospects. If you are interested in considering the system for use send me an email: frank.michael.kraft[at]bpmnforum.net

The only statement I want to make today is: Even if the problem “Math of the Missed Deadline” sounds quite complicated, the solution is very simple and easy to use.

I am not using Excel any more. Not for the purpose of coordinating Workstreams.