ECM and BPM evil doers beware! The days of creeping requirements … endless application rollout delays … one-size fits all user experiences … and blaming IT for all of it are over!
Advanced Case Management is here to save us.
Long before this superhero capability arrived from a smarter planet, we’ve had to use a bevy of workflow and BPM technologies to address the needs of case-centric processes. In most cases, this has not worked well. That’s because case-centric processes are different.
Traditional BPM processes tend to be straight-through and transactional with the objective of completing the process in the most efficient way and at the lowest possible cost and risk.
Case centric processes are not straight-through. They are ad-hoc, collaborative and involve exceptions … sometimes, lots of exceptions.
In certain cases, these processes are so ad-hoc or collaborative that it is not realistic or possible to map them. That’s because the objective is to make the best decision (within the context of the case) and the path to the right decision may not be known. Speed and cost are always important but take backseat to achieving the best outcome … which usually involves customers, partners, employees or even citizens / patients. You get the idea.
Why should you care?
Most “C” level survey these days lists Reinventing Customer Relationships at a top priority. The same goals are seen again and again:
Get closer to customers (top theme)
Better understand our what customers need
Deliver unprecedented customer service
From a technology perspective … this means we need new tools to build those solutions that enable us to get closer, better understand and deliver optimal service to our customers. Most customer oriented processes are case centric involving human interactions. They tend not to be straight-through.
The traditional BPM model which depends on (1) process modeling, (2) process automation and (3) process optimization works fine for the straight-through processes … not so much for case management.
As such, a big gap exists today to build solutions that drive better case outcomes. To close this gap, new tools that bring people, process and information together in the context of a case are needed when:
Processes are collaborative and ad-hoc
Activities are event-driven
Work is knowledge intensive
Content is essential for decision making
Outcomes are goal-oriented
The judgment of people impact how the goal is achieved
Process is often not predetermined
The discipline of case management is deeply rooted in industries like healthcare, public sector and the legal profession. Case management concepts are being applied across all industries – and though organizations describe case management differently – they consistently describe the lack of tools needed for their knowledge workers to get their jobs done. Some organizations may describe their challenges as complaint / dispute management, investigations, interventions, claims processing or other forms of business functions that have a common pattern or problem but not a straight-through process. Cases also typically involve invoices, contracts, employees, vendors, customers, projects, change requests, exceptions, incidents, audits, electronic discovery and more.
Faster then a speeding bullet!
Yesterday’s BPM development tools simply don’t work for case management applications. By the time you build the application, too much time has past, requirements change and IT usually gets the blame. Time-to-value suffers. I have nothing against BPM application development tools. I just wouldn’t use a screwdriver to hammer a nail … and neither should you. Case management solutions require a new kind of development environment and tools.
We need tools that are easy to use and allow a business user (not just IT) to very quickly build a solution. They should be able to address the comprehensive nature of all case assets and provide a 360 degree view of a case. They should leverage templates for a fast-start and represent industry best practices. In the end, they need to significantly shorten time-to-value relative to other approaches.
More powerful then a locomotive!
Since the objective is to empower case based decision making, we need user experiences that are more robust and flexible then those of the past. We need those experiences to be role-based and personalized so the end-user gets exactly the information they need to progress the case. The user experience needs to be flexible and extensible … not to mention configurable, to meet unique business, case or user requirements. The user experience should provide deep contextual data for case work and eliminate disjointed jumping between applications. It must bring people, process and information together to drive case progression and optimal outcomes. That way, a single case worker has all the information they need to improve case outcomes.
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!
Proactively advising case workers of best practices, historical outcomes, fraud indicators and other relevant insight is also needed. Leveraging analytics to detect and surface trends, patterns and deviations contributes to better and more consistent outcomes. In other words, we need powerful analytics for better case outcomes. Comprehensive reporting and analysis gives case managers visibility across all information types to assess and act quickly. Real-time dashboards help understand issues before they become a problem. Unique content analytics can discover deeper case insight. Bottom line … case managers need insight in order to impact results.
Anatomy of a superhero
Before being rocketed to Earth as some new problem solving superhero technology … a combination of capabilities are needed to address the needs of case management solutions. Under the cape and tights of any case management superhero technology, you will find six core capabilities in a seamlessly integrated environment:
1 – Content. By placing the case model in the content repository, information and other artifacts associated with cases are not only selected and viewed but also managed in the context of the case over its lifecycle. These include collaborations, processes steps, and the other associated case elements.
2 – Process. Cases may follow static processes that are prescribed for certain business situations. They may also follow more dynamic paths based on changes to information associated with a case. Straight through, transactional processes can be called as can more collaborative processes.
3 – Analytics. Analytics help case workers to make the right decisions in case of fraudulent claims for insurance, social benefit coverage, eligibility for welfare programs and more. Analytics help detect patterns within or across cases or simply optimize the overall case handling to optimize case outcomes.
4 – Rules. Many decisions in a case depend on set values, e.g. interest rates for loans based on credit rating, approval authority for transaction amounts, etc. By separating rules from process the case handling becomes much more agile as rules can change in lockstep with market changes.
5 – Collaboration. Finding the right subject matter expert is often critical to make an ad-hoc decision required to bring a case to an optimal closure. Collaboration in form of instant messaging, presence awareness, and team rooms enables an organization and its case workers to work together to drive outcomes.
6 – Social Software. Dynamic To Do Lists that are role based help case workers establish conversations and actions that must take place to close cases and link to information about the people that can help. Users can brainstorm on appropriate solutions and actions and create wikis linked to particular case types to assist colleagues in their case work.
If you can’t do those six things … seamlessly … you aren’t very super … or advanced … and you certainly can’t meet the demands of case management solutions.
Advanced Case Management is now saving the world one case and solution at a time.
So “up, up and away” to better case management solutions and outcomes.
As always leave me your thoughts and comments here.
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