Demonstrating Flexible Support for Knowledge-Intensive Processes with proCollab

Knowledge-intensive processes (KiPs) are driven by knowledge workers utilizing their skills, experiences, and expertise. As these processes are emergent and unpredictable, their support constitutes a big challenge. For coordinating and synchronizing the various tasks of a KiPs, knowledge workers still rely on simple task lists like, e.g., to-do list or checklists. Though task lists are intuitive, their current implementations are very ineffective: tasks are neither made explicit nor are they personalized or synchronized. In addition, no task management lifecycle support is provided and media disruptions frequently occur. This tool demonstration presents the proCollab framework supporting a wide range of KiPs (e.g., projects and cases) through integrated, lifecycle-based task management. In particular, proCollab task trees support the provision of task list templates and to constitute digital task lists of any kind. For customization, it further allows integrating domain-specific methodologies as well as configuring task lists at design and run time. Overall, the proCollab framework shall improve coordination among knowledge workers, increase work awareness, and record valuable coordination efforts

Design and Implementation of a Dynamic Web-based User Interface for the proCollab System Supporting Knowledge-intensive Business Processes

Globalization and the change to post-industrial societies have led to an increased value of knowledge-intensive processes. Areas creating and utilizing new knowledge, such as research and development are of high importance for today’s companies. In these areas, knowledge workers drive the creation of value in knowledge-intensive processes. However, there is still no established process-based support due to the dynamic nature of these processes. The latter requires a high level of communication and cooperation between all involved workers. The proCollab research project, hosted at Ulm University, aims to holistically support knowledge workers and knowledge-intensive processes. The concept of proCollab relies on the lifecycle-based task management in the context of processes. In particular, knowledge workers may use digital task lists to synchronize and coordinate their work more effectively. To demonstrate the capabilities of proCollab, a sophisticated proof-of-concept prototype has been developed. This work presents the design and implementation of the dynamic, web-based user interface of the current version of the proCollab prototype