Towards a System Support of Collaborative Knowledge Work

Knowledge work is becoming the predominant type of work in developed countries. Leveraging their expertise, skills, and experiences, knowledge workers daily deal with demanding situations. Therefore, they widely work autonomously, but usually collaborate in multiple contexts. Further, their work is influenced by dynamic factors like time constraints, costs, and available resources, and thereby it cannot be pre-specfied like routine work. The lack of an appropriate context and process support, in turn, reduces their productivity and hinders the reuse as well as the continuous improvement of elaborated solutions. This paper structures collaborative knowledge work and presents its characteristics and dimensions. Moreover, we introduce a lifecycle methodology to support collaborative knowledge workers holistically

Knowledge-Intensive Processes: Characteristics, Requirements and Analysis of Contemporary Approaches

Engineering of knowledge-intensive processes (KiPs) is far from being mastered, since they are genuinely knowledge- and data-centric, and require substantial flexibility, at both design- and run-time. In this work, starting from a scientific literature analysis in the area of KiPs and from three real-world domains and application scenarios, we provide a precise characterization of KiPs. Furthermore, we devise some general requirements related to KiPs management and execution. Such requirements contribute to the definition of an evaluation framework to assess current system support for KiPs. To this end, we present a critical analysis on a number of existing process-oriented approaches by discussing their efficacy against the requirements

A Framework for the Intelligent Delivery and User-Adequate Visualization of Process Information

A continuously increasing amount of data makes it difficult for knowledge-workers to identify the information they need to perform their tasks in the best possible way. Particularly challenging in this context is the alignment of process-related information (e.g., working instructions, best practices) with business processes. In fact, process-related information (process information for short) and business processes are usually handled separately. On one hand, shared drives, databases, and information systems are used to manage process information, on the other, process management technology provides the basis for managing business processes. In practice, enterprises often establish (Intranet) portals to connect both perspectives. However, such portals are not sufficient. Reasons are that process information is usually delivered without considering the current work context and business processes are presented to process participants in a rather static manner. Therefore, enterprises crave for new ways of making process information available. This paper picks up this challenge and presents the niPRO framework. niPRO is based on semantic technology and enables the intelligent delivery and user-adequate visualization of comprehensive process information

Determining the Link and Rate Popularity of Enterprise Process Information

Today's knowledge workers are confronted with a high load of heterogeneous information making it difficult for them to identify the information relevant for performing their tasks. Particularly challenging is thereby the alignment of process-related information (process information for short), such as e-mails, office files, forms, checklists, guidelines, and best practices, with business processes. In previous work, we introduced the concept of process-oriented information logistics (POIL) to bridge this gap. POIL allows for the process-oriented and context-aware delivery of relevant process information to knowledge workers. So far, we have introduced concepts to integrate business processes with process information. A remaining challenge is to identify the process information relevant for a given process context. This paper tackles this challenge and extends our POIL approach with techniques and algorithms for identifying relevant process information. More specifically, we introduce two algorithms for determining the relevance of process information based on their link and rate popularity. We use a scenario from the automotive domain to demonstrate and validate the applicability of our approach

Configurable and Executable Task Structures Supporting Knowledge-intensive Processes

The operational support of knowledge-intensive processes (KiPs) constitutes a big challenge. As KiPs tend to be unpredictable and emergent, KiP execution is driven by knowledge workers utilizing their skills, experiences, and expertise. For coordination and synchronization, knowledge workers rely on simple task lists (e.g., to-do lists or checklists). Though these means are intuitive and prevalent, their current implementations are ineffective as well as error-prone: tasks are neither made explicit nor synchronized nor personalized. Furthermore, media disruptions frequently occur and no task lifecycle support is provided. Consequently, the effort knowledge workers invest in task management is not preserved for future KiPs. This work presents the proCollab approach, focusing on the generic concept of task trees. The latter enable to constitute digital task lists of any kind and to establish a task management lifecycle in the context of KiPs. Further, a configuration approach for reusable task lists (i.e., templates) is included to support knowledge workers in configuring task lists at both design and run time. proCollab is implemented as a proof-of-concept prototype and validated along a real-world use case from the healthcare domain. Overall, proCollab improves coordination and synchronization among knowledge workers, prevents media disruptions, and enables the reuse valuable coordination knowledge

Flexible Task Management Support for Knowledge-Intensive Processes

Knowledge-intensive processes (KiPs) are driven by knowledge workers utilizing their skills, experiences and expertise. As KiPs are emergent and unpredictable by nature, their operational support is challenging. For coordinating and synchronizing their work, usually, knowledge workers rely on simple task lists like to-do lists or checklists. Though these instruments are intuitive and prevalent, their current implementations tend to be ineffective and error-prone. Tasks are neither made explicit nor are they synchronized. In addition, no task lifecycle support is provided and media disruptions aggravate task management. As a consequence, the efforts knowledge workers spent in task management are not exploited for optimizing future KiPs. This work presents the proCollab approach, focusing on its stateful and customizable components of processes, task trees, and tasks. proCollab processes may constitute KiPs in the shape of projects and cases, while generic task trees and tasks support required digital task lists of any kind. To enable domain-specific task support, the proCollab state management allows to integrate domain-specific procedure models (e.g., Scrum) and to enrich proCollab components with customized states. Finally, this customizable task management support fosters knowledge workers' coordination, increases work awareness, reduces media disruptions, and enables the reuse of valuable coordination efforts and knowledge

Knowledge agents as drivers of environmental sustainability and business performance in the hospitality sector

This study examines the role of knowledge agents as key enablers in the process of creating and updating the environmental knowledge base of a firm and, in doing so, having a positive effect on business performance. From the perspective of a hotel as the most important cog in the machinery of the hospitality sector, knowledge agents are those individuals who can provide information and knowledge that enables the firm to deal with environmental issues effectively. The paper describes an empirical, longitudinal study of 87 organisations in the Spanish hospitality industry. The results highlight the importance of the relationship between knowledge agents and environmental knowledge for business performance. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the role of knowledge agents is also relevant for the future management of the environmental knowledge base of a firm within the hospitality sector.We thank the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Ref: ECO2017-88987-R) which has supported our objectives

Flexible Support of Healthcare Processes

Traditionally, healthcare information systems have focused on the support of predictable and repetitive clinical processes. Even though the latter can be often prespecified in formal process models, process flexibility in terms of dynamic adaptability is indispensable to cope with exceptions and unforeseen situations. Flexibility is further required to accommodate the need for evolving healthcare processes and to properly support healthcare process variability. In addition, process-aware information systems are increasingly used to support less structured healthcare processes (i.e., patient treatment processes), which can be characterized as knowledge-intensive. Healthcare processes of this category are neither fully predictable nor repetitive and, therefore, they cannot be fully prespecified at design time. The partial unpredictability of these processes, in turn, demands a certain amount of looseness. This chapter deals with the characteristic flexibility needs of both prespecified and loosely specified healthcare processes. In addition, it presents fundamental flexibility features required to address these flexibility needs as well as to accommodate them in healthcare practice