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Mastering the Unpredictable: How Adaptive Case Management Will Revolutionize the Way That Knowledge Workers Get Things Done
The facilitation of knowledge work or what is increasingly known as "Case Management" represents the next imperative in office automation. The desire to fully support knowledge workers within the workplace is not new. What's new is that recent advances in Information Technology now make the management of unpredictable circumstances a practical reality.
There's now a groundswell of interest in a more flexible, dynamic approach to supporting knowledge work. Here are examples of what recognized experts have have recently written on the
Advancing to support more knowledge work is the goal of many organizations,
thus there is a new groundswell of activity around unstructured processes.
- Jim Sinur, VP of Research, Gartner
I think a sea change is coming in the process world.
-Connie Moore, Research Vice President, Forrester
The sea of change Moore refers to is about technology that is able to support knowledge workers. The work of a knowledge worker is by its nature unpredictable and can not be handled by more formalized process definition techniques.
For executives and managers of knowledge workers, "Mastering the Unpredictable"
There's now a groundswell of interest in a more flexible, dynamic approach to supporting knowledge work. Here are examples of what recognized experts have have recently written on the
Advancing to support more knowledge work is the goal of many organizations,
thus there is a new groundswell of activity around unstructured processes.
- Jim Sinur, VP of Research, Gartner
I think a sea change is coming in the process world.
-Connie Moore, Research Vice President, Forrester
The sea of change Moore refers to is about technology that is able to support knowledge workers. The work of a knowledge worker is by its nature unpredictable and can not be handled by more formalized process definition techniques.
For executives and managers of knowledge workers, "Mastering the Unpredictable"
- GenresNonfictionBusiness
337 pages, Paperback
First published April 14, 2010
2 people are currently reading
54 people want to read
About the author
Keith D. Swenson
15 books54 followerssee http://social-biz.org/about/
and also my publishing enterprise: http://PurpleHillsBooks.com/ I am always looking for authors for intelligent, thoughtful books.
and also my publishing enterprise: http://PurpleHillsBooks.com/ I am always looking for authors for intelligent, thoughtful books.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 17, 2010
It is not enough to expect the unexpected - you need to be equipped to handle it on the fly - and make it a powerful competitive edge. Mastering the Unpredictable is the handbook of this emerging discipline, Adaptive Case Management (ACM).
If you cannot envision this, do not worry, your competition will soon show you ... in ways that will shake you.
Few books can come out about "game changers" at the beginning of an incrediblly valuable paradigm shift ... a shift which just might change everything. Of those, fewer still can be viewed months later, with acknowledment that they "Got it", and made it easy for others to "Get it".
This book does it right. I finished this book knowing:
* What I have to do to get ready to use ACM;
* When I must do it; and
* What I'll be facing if I do nothing.
The organization and presentation of material matches the underlying elements of ACM. The layout, and excellent tools (glossary, abbreviation list, introduction, index, etc.), support an exciting first read, and easy later referencing. The examples and situations described apply to roles at all levels of an org chart - from C-level to front line knowledge worker. This makes my job of 'change agent' easier since I do not have to make nearly as many translations to communicate with a wider group of coworkers.
In many ways, Mastering the Unpredictable is letting me manage the case of getting practical insights, and developing action plans for ACM use - applicable to all the various roles I play.
If task lists, or action plans are helpful to you, you will find it easy to extract points into lists like:
1. What are the pains of taking a wait-and-see attitude?
2. Using ACM expects various degrees of "MacGyver" attitude. What can be done in advance to prepare the culture, and get people aware?
3. What feature/benefit technologies are out there now, and what direction is it going?
4. What can I say to coworkers who don't think this applies to us?
I know that our work NEEDS adaptive case management - but we don't have a support system that's up to the task. I also know that we can embrace it early, or watch our competitors use it against us first, and that's scary.
Wouldn't you rather be the MacGyver player, than meet one who's trying to get your business? This roadmap will show you the way.
If you cannot envision this, do not worry, your competition will soon show you ... in ways that will shake you.
Few books can come out about "game changers" at the beginning of an incrediblly valuable paradigm shift ... a shift which just might change everything. Of those, fewer still can be viewed months later, with acknowledment that they "Got it", and made it easy for others to "Get it".
This book does it right. I finished this book knowing:
* What I have to do to get ready to use ACM;
* When I must do it; and
* What I'll be facing if I do nothing.
The organization and presentation of material matches the underlying elements of ACM. The layout, and excellent tools (glossary, abbreviation list, introduction, index, etc.), support an exciting first read, and easy later referencing. The examples and situations described apply to roles at all levels of an org chart - from C-level to front line knowledge worker. This makes my job of 'change agent' easier since I do not have to make nearly as many translations to communicate with a wider group of coworkers.
In many ways, Mastering the Unpredictable is letting me manage the case of getting practical insights, and developing action plans for ACM use - applicable to all the various roles I play.
If task lists, or action plans are helpful to you, you will find it easy to extract points into lists like:
1. What are the pains of taking a wait-and-see attitude?
2. Using ACM expects various degrees of "MacGyver" attitude. What can be done in advance to prepare the culture, and get people aware?
3. What feature/benefit technologies are out there now, and what direction is it going?
4. What can I say to coworkers who don't think this applies to us?
I know that our work NEEDS adaptive case management - but we don't have a support system that's up to the task. I also know that we can embrace it early, or watch our competitors use it against us first, and that's scary.
Wouldn't you rather be the MacGyver player, than meet one who's trying to get your business? This roadmap will show you the way.
July 29, 2011
One of the books referred to in Mastering the Unpredictable is Friedman's The World is Flat. When I read that book I found descriptions of business process workflow where companies realized that some or all workflow tasks could be handled in other locations, in other countries, and by other companies. Mastering the Unpredictable describes adaptive case management as going a step beyond traditional workflow and BPM by realizing that knowledge work often can't be exactly modeled and repeated -- there are often circumstances where the process changes, often on a case by case basis. As I read this, I realized that ACM adds C3I to business processes -- command, control, communications, and intelligence. This values the knowledge worker by recognizing the need to modify their processes based on the situation and based on learning from past cases. Note that some vendors selling "ACM" are really only selling folder routing, using workflow and processing on a package of documents. ACM is really a giant leap beyond that, re-empowering workers to do what is needed to complete jobs. ACM is a useful concept and Mastering the Unpredictable does a good job of describing it and providing theoretical examples. I would look forward to an update with actual products described and real use cases.
February 19, 2011
Learning about ACM. Interesting, and an easy read.
May 15, 2010
OK, full disclosure: I just finished writing this book and I am quite proud of that. At this moment, the book has just appeared available for purchase from Amazon, so we don't know how well it will do yet. But since I have started this rather blatant advertisement for the book, let me at least tell you what it is about.
First and foremost, the book is about knowledge work. Peter Drucker defined this term to mean not just people who have a lot of knowledge (e.g. professors) or manage a lot of knowledge (e.g. librarians) but actually anyone who has a complex job to do that that is hard to define and that requires "experience" to do it. This includes police detectives, investigative reporters, judges, marketing managers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, rescue workers, financial advisers, entrepreneurs, and (most notably) managers and executives. Knowledge workers make up about 40% of the workforce, and growing.
The opposite of knowledge work is routine work. Routine work can be defined and predicted in a standard Scientific Management sense. The job is repeatable enough, that one can define a fairly fixed way to perform the job. For example, from the time a book is ordered on Amazon, to the time that the book is delivered to the customer, all of the work required is routine. You can write a fairly detailed plan of what exactly must be done, how to handle low stock situations, how to get it shipped, etc. in advance without having to know much at all about the specific book that will be ordered. There are exceptional cases, but 99.99% of all book can be handled with a standard process.
Most of the practice of management has focused on optimizing routine work: defining well designed work descriptions or process diagrams. Training people to do the job in a very repeatable way. Continually assessing the performance, and looking for ways to improve it.
In the past two decades we have seen a whole host of technologies (called workflow, business process management, etc.) to help support the automation or facilitation of routine work.
However, such techniques are not applicable for the unpredictable nature of knowledge work. The exact work that needs to be done for knowledge work depends very strongly on the situation. For example, the merger between United Airlines and Continental Airlines with have some things that need to be done that are unique to this particular merger, and that no other merger between companies will need. While there are patterns and similarities between mergers, you can't make a process diagram that represent (to any level of detail) exactly what has to be done for a merger, because every merger is different.
Knowledge workers are people who come to work without a well defined script for what they will be doing that day. Paramedics can not tell you how many emergencies they will handle in the coming day. Lawyers and judges can not tell you what the state of a case will be tomorrow. Product designers can not accurately estimate the number of design breakthroughs they will have in a period of time. Detectives can not tell you in advance everyplace they will need to visit in order to follow the trail of clues. All of these people "figure out" what they need to do, as they do it.
The book "Mastering the Unpredictable" is a collection of writings from 12 different experts in the field to discuss how knowledge work must be handled, and proposes capabilities that a technology would need to effectively support knowledge workers. Since you can't predict in advance exactly what will be done, you need to give people the ability to plan the work as they go along. This means that the planning can not be relegated to a highly specialized skill, but instead needs to be something that anyone and everyone can do.
"Mastering the Unpredictable" lays out a vision for how knowledge workers can use social networks, communications technology, document sharing, in order to be more effective at coordinating work using a collection of capabilities labeled "Adaptive Case Management" (ACM). ACM starts by giving workers a place to express their goals, and subgoals, and then manage those goals to completion. Goal orientation is one aspect of ACM, but you also need strong communications, records keeping, and document management. The purpose of ACM is not to constrain what a person can do at any time, but instead to put all possible actions within easy reach, so that the knowledge worker can execute quickly, responding to any situation as it comes up.
I hope that gives you an idea. Each of the contributors is passionate about the subject, and really try to give you a "glimpse over the hill" for this coming trend in both technology and management practice. More information is available at http://MasteringTheUnpredictable.com/
First and foremost, the book is about knowledge work. Peter Drucker defined this term to mean not just people who have a lot of knowledge (e.g. professors) or manage a lot of knowledge (e.g. librarians) but actually anyone who has a complex job to do that that is hard to define and that requires "experience" to do it. This includes police detectives, investigative reporters, judges, marketing managers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, rescue workers, financial advisers, entrepreneurs, and (most notably) managers and executives. Knowledge workers make up about 40% of the workforce, and growing.
The opposite of knowledge work is routine work. Routine work can be defined and predicted in a standard Scientific Management sense. The job is repeatable enough, that one can define a fairly fixed way to perform the job. For example, from the time a book is ordered on Amazon, to the time that the book is delivered to the customer, all of the work required is routine. You can write a fairly detailed plan of what exactly must be done, how to handle low stock situations, how to get it shipped, etc. in advance without having to know much at all about the specific book that will be ordered. There are exceptional cases, but 99.99% of all book can be handled with a standard process.
Most of the practice of management has focused on optimizing routine work: defining well designed work descriptions or process diagrams. Training people to do the job in a very repeatable way. Continually assessing the performance, and looking for ways to improve it.
In the past two decades we have seen a whole host of technologies (called workflow, business process management, etc.) to help support the automation or facilitation of routine work.
However, such techniques are not applicable for the unpredictable nature of knowledge work. The exact work that needs to be done for knowledge work depends very strongly on the situation. For example, the merger between United Airlines and Continental Airlines with have some things that need to be done that are unique to this particular merger, and that no other merger between companies will need. While there are patterns and similarities between mergers, you can't make a process diagram that represent (to any level of detail) exactly what has to be done for a merger, because every merger is different.
Knowledge workers are people who come to work without a well defined script for what they will be doing that day. Paramedics can not tell you how many emergencies they will handle in the coming day. Lawyers and judges can not tell you what the state of a case will be tomorrow. Product designers can not accurately estimate the number of design breakthroughs they will have in a period of time. Detectives can not tell you in advance everyplace they will need to visit in order to follow the trail of clues. All of these people "figure out" what they need to do, as they do it.
The book "Mastering the Unpredictable" is a collection of writings from 12 different experts in the field to discuss how knowledge work must be handled, and proposes capabilities that a technology would need to effectively support knowledge workers. Since you can't predict in advance exactly what will be done, you need to give people the ability to plan the work as they go along. This means that the planning can not be relegated to a highly specialized skill, but instead needs to be something that anyone and everyone can do.
"Mastering the Unpredictable" lays out a vision for how knowledge workers can use social networks, communications technology, document sharing, in order to be more effective at coordinating work using a collection of capabilities labeled "Adaptive Case Management" (ACM). ACM starts by giving workers a place to express their goals, and subgoals, and then manage those goals to completion. Goal orientation is one aspect of ACM, but you also need strong communications, records keeping, and document management. The purpose of ACM is not to constrain what a person can do at any time, but instead to put all possible actions within easy reach, so that the knowledge worker can execute quickly, responding to any situation as it comes up.
I hope that gives you an idea. Each of the contributors is passionate about the subject, and really try to give you a "glimpse over the hill" for this coming trend in both technology and management practice. More information is available at http://MasteringTheUnpredictable.com/
Read
March 30, 2016Worthwhile read about emerging methods in managing knowledge work-specifically the Adaptive Case Management method. It seems there isn't a lot of literature on this management technique and these seems to be the most recommended book on the subject.
Mastering the Unpredictable is a collection of essays by various authors. I liked the varied perspectives and the various authors don't repeat each other too> much, but the format leads to some authors repeating things that were already explained earlier in the book.
One other nit-picky thing to point out: the tables and charts absolutely don't work on my Kindle. And my Kindle is <1 year old with the updated software. Pretty frustrating as I think many of the charts would have been instructive.
Mastering the Unpredictable is a collection of essays by various authors. I liked the varied perspectives and the various authors don't repeat each other too> much, but the format leads to some authors repeating things that were already explained earlier in the book.
One other nit-picky thing to point out: the tables and charts absolutely don't work on my Kindle. And my Kindle is <1 year old with the updated software. Pretty frustrating as I think many of the charts would have been instructive.
Read
January 6, 2015Just as the forward warns, this isn't really a book of answers but a great bunch of case studies on case management. I enjoyed the different perspectives of multiple papers on the same subject.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews