Towards Process Improvement for Case Management. An Outline Based on Viable System Model and an Example of Organizing Scientific Events

1DSV SU + IbisSoft

Towards Process Improvement for Case Management

An Outline Based on Viable System Model and an Example of Organizing Scientific Events

Ilia Bider

4th workshop on Adaptive Case Management and other non-workflow approaches to BPM, Innsbruck, 2015

System 5 - IdentityChairs

System 4 - IntelligenceChairs

System 3 - CohesionChairs

….….Unit 1.1


Submitters

….….Unit 2.1

Program committee members

Criteria

Topics

Categories

Guidelines

Submission template

Channels

Goal

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Motivation & Objective Process improvement

Workflow-based processes CM/ACM-based processes

Optimizing the flow of activitiesand usage of resources in relativelystable environment (creating a conveyor)

Increasing the quality of results ofknowledge workers cooperative workin volatile and changing environment

Eliminating wasteful activities,streamlining the flow, etc.

Improving templates and adjustingthem to changing environment

Six Sigma Lean … ???

Goal Goal

Via Via

Methods Methods

VSM?

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Plan of presentation1. Example to be considered.

2. Short overview of VSM

3. Applying VSM using the example

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Example to be consideredOrganizing a series of scientific events like AdaptiveCM workshop• Workflow perspective:

– Choose a conference to attached to – Submit a workshop proposal– Set up a website– Advertise the event– Set up a submission management system– Set up a PC– Gathering submission– Review– Make decision on submissions ….is well defined and can hardly be improved

• Another perspective need to be used for improvement

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Organizing scientific eventsGoal - for AdaptiveCM series:

“to bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss theoretical and practical problems and solutions in the area of non-workflow based approaches to BPM in general, and ACM (as a leading movement) in particular”

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Organizing scientific eventsParticipants in the process:

1. Submitters - producers and consumers at the same time

2. Members of PC committee – quality assurance

3. Chairs - overall responsibility for success of the events

The same person can play all roles (for AdaptiveCM)

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Organizing scientific eventsTools used

1. Event WEB site – Marketing and communication tool(AdaptiveCM 2015 - http://acm2015.blogs.dsv.su.se/)

2. Conference management system – operational management support (EasyChair - http://www.easychair.org/)

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Organizing scientific eventsTemplates

1. Topics - list of topics of interest (WEB site)2. Categories - submission categories to define the styles of papers (WEB

site)3. Guidelines to explain the styles to the potential submitters (WEB site)4. Submission template (EasyChair)5. Criteria used in the reviewing to ensure consistent reviews6. Channels – a list of channels through which to advertise the event

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Organizing scientific eventsTemplates - Criteria

1. Relevance (No, Implicit; Explicit)2. Categorization (the category is correct or should be changed3. Originality (Nothing new, Some, Substantial)4. Discussability (Low, Medium, High)5. Style (corresponds to the category?: No, Partly, Yes6. Language (Unacceptable, Acceptable, Good)7. Practicality (No, Not discussed, Could be, Definitely)

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Viable System Model (VSM)

Viable system – a system that can adapt to the changing environment via adjusting itself to changes or/and influencing the directions in which the environment changes

VSM – defines the structure of the viable systemS. Beer, The Heart of Enterprise, Chichester : Wiley, 1979. .


Viable System Model (VSM)

A. Golnam, G. Regev and W. A., "On Viable Service Systems: Developing a Modeling Framework for Analysis of Viability in Service Systems," in Exploring Services Science, IESS,2011,LNBIP Vol. 82, Springer, 2011, pp. 30-41.. .

Identifi ca tion Naming

System 1 Operations, Implementation, Delivery

System 2 CoordinationSystem 3 Control, Delivery management,

Cohesion, Homeostasis

System 4 Intelligence, Future, Heterostasis System 5 Identity, Policy






The idea1. Build a VSM model of an organization responsible for the process2. Relate templates to the components of the VSM model

– Which components are creating templates– Which components are using templates

3. Analyze relationship between– Goal and templates– Different templates– Templates and environment

4. Investigate whether it might help to understand improvement issues


VSM for org. scientific eventsSystem 5 - Identity

Chairs


….….Unit 1.1


Submitters

….….Unit 2.1



Relating templates to system 1-5System 5 - Identity

Chairs



….….Unit 1.1


Submitters

….….Unit 2.1


Criteria

Topics

Categories

Guidelines

Submission template

Channels

Goal


Relating templates to each other Goal Categories Topics Guidelines Submission

templateCriteria Channels

Goal

Categories x x

Topics x

Guidelines x

Submissiontemplate

x

Criteria x x x x

Channels x x x


Does it looks obvious?• It might• … but the alignment often does not exist in practice

• A story from own experience – submitting an experience based paper to a conference:– EDOC 2014– POEM 2014– BPMDS 2015

M. Josefsson, K. Widman and I. Bider, "Using the Process-Assets Framework for Creating a Holistic View over Process Documentation," in Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling, LNBIP, Vol. 214, Stockholm, Springer, 2015, pp. 169-183


Open issues

• How general the approach is?• If not general – where it fits best?• Processes driven by distributed virtual

teams?


Q & A

Thank you for your patience

Questions and comments

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Contact: ilia@{dsv.su|ibissoft}.se