Frank Michael Kraft's Blog

I promised to explain more about my solution for Workstreams, that I implemented in the Cloud, using Microsoft Windows Azure.

First of all I have Workstreams and Workitems that are part of the Workstreams. These can be decomposed into finer ones. Each Workitem has a status and an estimate about the remaining effort. This way I can aggregate the remaining effort for a complete Workstream.

I will explain in Webinars how I work with these. I have encountered several patterns of knowledge work, using these. I found it quite practical to define bigger goals and then to decompose these later into concrete steps. But I have encountered many more patterns of daily knowledge work than this one. I will also give a preview of the Software in the Webinars.

To each Workitem I can attach documents, pictures and notes. Thus I have all information available once I work with the Workitem. Or if I have information (e.g. an email) I ask myself: To which Workitem / Workstream does it belong to? Then I would attach it to the Workitem / Workstream and keep my email inbox clean. If I can’t attach it to a Workitem, then the email is not so important anyway. Or – of course if it is, then I would create a new Workitem first, belonging to a given Workstream.

But this was not enough. I wanted to keep under control until when I would have to complete what. Instead of maintaining a completion date for all 2.000+ Workitems (which would be out of date very soon) I defined Sprints – i.e. milestones with a predefined date. I assigned Workitems to these Sprints as I found feasible. This way I am able to see the remaining work for each Sprint. This is the only kind of “order” I give to my Workitems. Other than this, they are not ordered – so I don’t have to maintain too much unnecessary information as with other project tools that I know. This lets me be flexible and agile.

You might ask how I aggregate the remaining work for Sprints, if hierarchical Workitems are assigned to different Sprints. Well – I have solved this.

Then I was able to create Analytics for the progress of my work. I am able to visualize the remaining work of my Sprints as time progresses. This is my Burndown Diagram.

As time progresses I see how much I still have to do, and how successful I was to burn down the remaining work for the next Sprints and in whole. Of course, new work is added as well. Sometimes existing work is moved to another Sprint or a new Sprint is created and existing Work is assigned.

Do I feel I have my work under control? Yes. Is it flexible enough to adapt the plan to unplanned events? Sure. Is the could implementation an advantage or a disadvantage? I found it to be an advantage. I have access to the information wherever I am where there is a Computer or with my iPhone. Think of the famous new iPad – it fits perfectly.

Until today I am using this Workstream Platform all on my own. Later this year I am planning to use it as a collaboration platform, inviting others to work with me. Then the cloud implementation will play out its full strength.

A good part of knowlege work is thinking about which next steps need to be done anyway.

For example someone has an internet site. However the provider is raising the fees. You have do decide between different options, but all are worse than today. There is another provider, that is cheaper. But you are not sure with the new options – how long the cancellation period is there. Also you don’t want to pay twice for too long. Furthermore it turned out, that you don’t like your domain name. But of course there is traffic on your current domain name. And you currently have difficulties finding one, because all good ideas you have are already occupied and the free ones you don’t like.

You have to perform some steps like

• Create e new domain name that you like and is free.
• Order the new domain name.
• Decide about the new conditions with your current provider.
• Cancel your current provider.
• Engage with the new provider.
• Migrate the data from the old provider to the new.
• Redirect your current visitors to the new domain.

So when to do what? There are some natural constraints. You can’t order a new domain before you have made up your mind for the new domain name. You can’t migrate the data, if you don’t have the old site as well as the new site. If you don’t decide about one new option with your current provider you loose the data and the traffic.

Others are not so clear. Will you move from the old provider to the new one still using your current domain name to get more time to think for a better name? Will you want to avoid taking one of the options of your current provider, and move quickly? Or do you first want to create the new domain name and apply to the new provider only after you have created one. Then you would need to choose one of the options with your old provider.

This is a relatively simple case. So your job is to find out more information, more details about the conditions, the technical capabilities of changing the domain name later, the cancellation period. And you have to make up your mind as of how long you will want the time to think about a new domain name. After you have made those decisions, you can order the activities into a definite order. But after you have made these decisions, the difficult part of the work is done. The technical migration is business as usual, because you have done this already earlier.

So the workstream starts with

1. Find out information about provider options
2. Find out information about cancellation period
3. Find out information technical possibilities of late domain change.
4. Decide
5. Order the remaining steps
6. Do the rest in an yet unknown order

Later, when step 1-4 are completed, “Do the rest in an yet unkown order” can be broken down into a definite order of the steps mentioned earlier.

So in essence there is no “Process Design Time” and “Process Run Time”. Because the Workstream is already running, while it is still being designed, if you will. That is a characteristic of Knowledge Work.