Every company has business processes (either manual or automated). Business Processes regulate and organize how day-to-day business is conducted. They can be the simplest of workflows to the most complex of operations. Use of the words "simple" and "complex" are vague; they require further definition, as what is simple to one company could be complex to the next. Instead of ill-defined terms, processes in your company can be categorized as structured and unstructured.
Structured Processes are very routine and fairly straight forward processes:
Unstructured Processes are hard to define and often take different paths based on varying factors:
In each of the unstructured process cases above, the people involved in the process highly impact how the process itself executes. These people could be described as "Knowledge Workers". Knowledge Workers are people in your company today who leverage their company and product expertise to make day-to-day company decisions. Their knowledge plays a critical part in ensuring the most vital processes in your company execute correctly and efficiently. For the knowledge worker, process flexibility and run-time decision making are important functionalities as it allows them to act on tasks and activities in the most appropriate and efficient manner.. If you are forcing your company's knowledge workers to use static workflows just because the workflows have already been built, they will ultimately find a way around the process (or even not use the process at all).
A Business Process Management (BPM) Suite that leverages strong case management functionality will best cater to the needs of your knowledge workers as well as to your company. Compared to linear workflows, case management functionality has the following qualities:
If you took an informal inventory of all the processes in your company today, I bet the majority of them are dynamic, unstructured, and involve your company's knowledge workers. A workflow application can support structured processes very well, but fails when it comes to unstructured processes. A BPM Suite, on the other hand, has the ability to effectively handle both unstructured and structured processes. In choosing the right process or workflow application for your company, be sure not to forget the knowledge worker and the fact that a large percentage of your company's business is conducted "on the fly".
Relevant Links:
Dynamic and Flexible Routing in Business Processes: Unstructured Processes
When The End of the Quarter Brings About Process Change: Flexibility is an Absolute Must
Flexibility in a BPMS is Essential
Complex Event Processing vs. BPM
Chris Adams
VP of Product and Technology
Ultimus