Adaptive Case Management as a Process of Construction of and Movement in a State Space

DSV SU/IbisSoft1

Adaptive Case Management as a Process of Construction of and

Movement in a State Space

Ilia Bider - IbisSoft/DSV SU, Stockholm, SwedenAmin Jalali, Jens Ohlsson- DSV SU Stockholm, Sweden

Pre-proceedings: http://bit.ly/1elNT9e

Presentation at the workshop on “Adaptive Case Management and Other Non-workflow approaches to BPM”, Graz, Austria, September

2013 http://acm2013.blogs.dsv.su.se/

DSV SU/IbisSoft2

Goal with presentation

Outline a theory/model that can be used for analysis, comparison and development of ACM systems.

Why do we need a theory

1. “There is nothing more practical than a good theory” - Kurt Levin

2. Existing theories are activities/task based, which does not satisfies the needs of ACM

Why the latter is not satisfactory?

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Activity-based CM theory outline VS …

From “Case handling: a new paradigm for business process support”

Activity is an integrated part and cannot be excluded from the CM/ACM system

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… VS Non-activity-based CM outline

A CM system does not mandatory need to support activities/tasks/ operations

Supporting progress of reaching goals and producing results has enough value on its own

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Corresponds to practice -form/template based CM

ApplicationForm

Decision-makingForm

Decisiondelivery

Form

Application/Decision-making/

Decision DeliveryForm

Quite common in Swedish municipalities and other public offices

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Example of a form

How a theory for form based CM and ACM should look like?

A form for BBiC case – social office of a Swedish municipalities

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Background for the theory: state-oriented view on business processes

Main notions (borrowed from the dynamical systems theory)

• Process instance - a trajectory in a multidimensional state space (+time)

• Process type/model – a set of allowed trajectories in the state space (+time)

• Goal - an end point of an allowed trajectory

• Activity –movement in the state space directed towards the goal

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Illustration of the main notions

• For each item Ordered = Delivered

• To pay = Total + Freight + Tax• Ordered > Delivered

shipment

• To pay > Invoiced invoicing

• Invoiced = To pay• Paid = Invoiced

State space

Goal definition

Activities

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Advantages of state-oriented view

• Allows both imperative and constraint-based definition of a process-type.

• Imperative – specify a set of valid trajectories via chain of movements

• Constraint-based – forbid movements between certain points of the state space

• Provide a tool of determining the progress achieved in the process instance independently of how it was historically achieved

• Can serve as a basis for developing process support system that does not understand the notion of activity. Defining a process state and its visualization give the user possibility to track the progress of each case

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Using state-oriented view as a theoretical backing of the form-based CM/ACM

• Possible to use in the following manner:• Forms – visualization of the state space.• Fields – visualization of dimensions

• Problems with Adaptive Case Management : • there can be many different forms related to the process

type, while only few is used for any particular instance/case

• The same form can be used multiple times

• Solution – consider the state space not fixed but constructed on the fly during the process instance/case life span

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Example: Course occasion in DSV SU

Forms to fill during preparation and giving a course

Could be a first occasion of a completely new course or a regular occasion of an existing course

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Example of a form

Form for lecture/lesson

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A course case in progress

Legend:• Blue – filled form• Green – partially filled form• White – form that can be filled• Gray – form that cannot be filled as yet

Restrictions on filling forms

Form synchronizations

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Synchronization

Form for lecture/lesson

Synchronized form for teacher feedback

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Specifying restrictions

A matrix that specifies dependencies between the forms

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Specifying synchronization

A matrix that specifies synchronization between the forms

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Interpretation fromstate-oriented view

Each form specifies a fragment of the state space

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Interpretation from state-oriented view• Field - a dimension of a state space

• Form – a fragment of the state space

• Picking a form - adding a fragment to the overall state-space of the given process instance/case

• Filling a form - moving in the sub-space defined by a form

• Form synchronization - restrictions on construction of the state space (an example – there can be others)

• Restrictions on the order of filling forms – restrictions on movements in the overall state-space

Summary handling a case in ACM is constructing and moving in the state space

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Possible usage & work to-do

Usage:

• Building ACM systems and/or tools for ACM system development

• Analyzing the existing ACM tools and systems, e.g.:• Whether they support form synchronization• Whether they supports restrictions on movement and

which types

To-do:• List of useful restrictions on state-space construction and

movement (similar to the workflow patterns)

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Thank you for your attention!

Q & A

Ilia Bider, DSV SU/IbisSoftEmail: [email protected]

[email protected]