The Case for Humans
Where BPM Falls Short
Perhaps the most unusual aspect of case processing is that it is simultaneously knowledge-worker and data-intensive. Groups of people—both internal and external—can collaborate on a case to complete the process, even when the case is ad hoc in nature and still changing during a process. This collaboration is achieved through a user-defined configuration approach instead of a developer-oriented coding approach to the process: Users can manipulate the process as needed to optimize their access to information, make decisions, and create resolution.
What’s needed is a convergence of technologies designed to support the knowledge worker, allowing people to process information with an accelerated approach and to easily collaborate in nondeterministic workflows.
As shown in the illustration (download PDF), a case folder is a virtual document folder that contains all the processes, people and information relevant to the case. This case folder provides a workspace that allows the workers to exchange information involved in the research, assessment, evaluation and resolution of the case. Events can be triggered by the individuals working on the case or by the case processes dependent on the situation. Reports, policies related to the case (such as compliance requirements), history of the case (including audit trails, change controls and version controls) and any other data necessary to resolve the case are included in the case folder.
Because case management is such a highly dynamic process—although structured at the same time—it becomes BPM at its most effective: repeatable and agile. Risks created by ad hoc handling of issues, such as those presented by compliance or governance demands, untimely follow-through or client expectations, are substantially reduced. Even though each case follows its own processes, the team still tracks and reconciles it to ensure conformity where required.
The repeatability in flexible situations offers the blueprint for success in case management. If your organization hasn't taken a case management approach yet, it’s time to look into it. It can:
- lower costs;
- require fewer resources;
- reduce risks associated with compliance/governance issues; and
- increase productivity.
In today’s economy, all these elements require thoughtful consideration.
A Case In Point
Here’s an example of why BPM is just not enough in some situations. EMC recently worked with a large insurance company to review a billing process that was getting bogged down in standard process management procedures. As you read the process, you’ll see why case management is the only solution to the problem:
A bill is received and routed to a reviewer, who either accepts or rejects it. If it is accepted, a case is created and sent to a claim handler. So far, this is standard BPM. But here’s where BPM breaks down.
The claim handler then uses human judgment to decide whom the case needs to go to next: to a legal reviewer, to a nurse reviewer or to special investigations. There is no automated way to make this decision. A human must make a decision. In addition, when any of those people are finished looking at the case, he or she can reroute it—either to a queue (for example, "any legal reviewer needs to look at this") or to a particular person ("Bob in legal needs to look at this, because he is an expert in injury law"). At any time, the case can be returned to someone who has already looked at it.
The number of individuals who need to look at any case—and the particular people who need to look at any case—is completely unknowable in advance. In every case, it involves a human being using experience, knowledge and judgment to decide where the case needs to go. The process continues until the claim handler—using experience and judgment—decides it is complete.
There is, in fact, no practical way to model this process using traditional BPM tools. Instead, this case demands a case-processing tool capable of handling ad hoc routing and robust case modeling.
Other industries, too, benefit in similar ways from case processing. When applied directly to transactional applications, the possibilities for use are extensive—think employee on-boarding, issue tracking, policy management, tax processing. In fact, any industry is ripe for cutting costs and reaping improvements through case management.
Case management is critical to expanding the use of BPM into more strategic and knowledge-driven processes. Although BPM is certainly a must-have, it’s inevitable that higher-order processes will require human judgment, collaboration and document management that BPM cannot provide independently.
Driven by market demand to build case-based solutions better, faster and at a lower cost, EMC created the Documentum xCelerated Composition Platform (xCP). Configuration-based with the user in mind, it uniquely combines processes, people, information, customer communications and compliance into a single comprehensive yet highly integrated application composition platform. Documentum xCP further differentiates itself by providing an application composition platform which enables customers and partners to build case management applications with minimal project risk. Application xCelerators provide case-processing best practices in the form of reference applications, process templates, pre-built components and design guides.
With Documentum xCP, you can reliably automate your most important processes and thereby reduce operational costs, delight your customers, and cut organizational risk.
1 Forrester Report 41037, Sept. 24, 2007.
2 Mark Kerremans, Case Management Is a Challenging BPMS Use Case, Dec. 8 2008.