Using AdaPro Workstream Platform for Knowledge Work

Using the AdaPro Workstream
Platform for improving
Knowledge Work
Frank Michael Kraft, AdaPro GmbH, Germany
My chapter Improving Knowledge Work in the book Mastering the Unpredict-
able (Kraft 2010) describes how adaptive case management (ACM) can leve-
rage the abilities of individual knowledge workers. It describes a case study
of Leona, who works in the engineering department in a company of about
one hundred and fifty employees and how she uses ACM to manage custom-
er service and subsequent development planning and coordination for the
phone systems that her company offers. That chapter was without any refer-
ence to an individual tool, but described the holistic approach and how indi-
vidual knowledge workers can draw immediate benefit from it.
This chapter now completes the narrative, by showing how the case can be
performed by a tool, the AdaPro Workstream Platform.
As you know from (Kraft 2010) Leona’s regular job is to design new functio-
nality for the telephone system they sell. This includes requirements for
hardware components ordered from a supplier and software components
developed by their software development team. This week, it's her turn to
provide second-level support: she takes customer calls that cannot be solved
by first-level support to ensure that the more difficult cases are solved.
In (Kraft 2010) it is described, how Leona performs some steps with the help
of the ACM system. These steps are now shown in this chapter together with
some additional functionality.
• Creating a Case in a Workstream
• Using past Knowledge Work Results
• Detailed Process Planning
• Managing Responsibilities
• Sprints and Burndown
• Working with Templates
CREATING A CASE IN A WORKSTREAM
When the telephone rings and a customer is on the line describing a problem
with dropped calls under certain conditions, Leona asks some questions
about when the problem occurs, what the circumstances are, and whether it
is reproducible. Her knowledge of the design of the system guides this line of
questioning.
Leona has the AdaPro Workstream Platform system available and she wants
to create a case—or as it is named in the AdaPro Workstream Platform a
workitem.
A workitem is always part of a workstream. What is a workstream? A
workstream is a group of knowledge workers that work towards a common
purpose, the workitems and documents, that are needed for it, and miles-

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USING ADAPRO WORKSTREAM PLATFORM FOR IMPROVING KNOWLEDGE WORK

tones (or sprints) that are defined to manage the timeline. Also it is a search
unit and a unit for analytics.
One workstream can have many members (user accounts) and one know-
ledge worker having one user account can be member of many workstreams.
Workstream members can be added and removed from workstreams as
needed, also while the workstream is ongoing.

Figure 1: Assignments of Knowledge Workers to a Workstream
In Figure 1 we can see the workstream for AdaCom Telephone System Sup-
port Cases and the assigned members, which are Leona,
Steve and one user account for the hardware supplier
AdaPhone. AdaCom is Leona’s company that offers the
phone systems, while AdaPhone is the hardware suppli-
er. AdaPhone has only one user account in this exam-
ple. Of course each individual knowledge worker of Ada-
Phone could have an account.
Here we also can see why it is important, that the Ada-
Pro Workstream Platform is software in the cloud.
Workstreams can be cross company or cross organiza-
tion in general. They may include some knowledge
workers from the own organization and some from oth-
ers. However they work together in a network—
depending on the actual workstream. Which organiza-
tion will host the workstream platform in this case? This
is not always clear. However hosting the workstream
platform in the cloud makes it possible to participate in
many workstreams across many organizations and still
have one central place to manage knowledge work in- Figure 2: Work-
cluding search over all own workstreams (which will be streams of Leona
explained later).

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If Leona logs in, she can see that she is part of the AdaCom Telephone Sys-
tem Support Cases Workstream and that she has a personal workstream for
her own workitems. Her personal workstream content is not visible to any-
body except herself. All content of other workstreams is visible to those
members of the other workstream—depending on the knowledge worker as-
signments. It is an advantage of the AdaPro Workstream Platform that Leona
has all workstreams at one glance with only one user account. She does not
have to log out and log in again to a different workstream, if she wants to see
different content. Still the visibility of the individual workstream content to
others is different.
Now Leona chooses the menu item workitems under the menu section Ada-
Com Telephone System Support Cases Workstream. By this she makes sure
that she enters the new workitem into the right workstream. She would
create a Workitem, take notes about the symptoms, and try to estimate for
the customer how long it will take to close the case.

Figure 3: Creating the Workitem

Figure 4: Editing Workitem Details
USING PAST KNOWLEDGE WORK RESULTS
Leona remembers that some weeks ago there was another similar case where
she attached some documentation. So she searches the AdaPro Workstream
Platform for that past case and she gets the link to the documentation.

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Figure 5: Search Results from different Workstreams

Figure 6: Search Results from personal Workstream

Figure 7: Attached Documentation in old Workstream
A search in the AdaPro Workstream Platform is a global search in all
workstreams of the user account. In this case, Leona finds three entries in
the workstream for telephone support, that she shares with other co-workers
(see Figure 5) and one entry in her personal workstream (see figure Figure 6).
Her colleague, Steve, would find three entries as well in the workstream for
telephone support but probably none in his personal workstream. The global
search is an advantage, because in this case it is not necessary to log in to
different user accounts to search. It is easier to find the entry, if you do not

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exactly remember in which workstream you had the entry you are looking
for.
After reading the documentation, Leona decides, that it is a different problem
that must be analyzed in more detail. This will take much longer because the
problem cause must be analyzed and mitigated. In the next step Leona pre-
pares a plan—she defines a process for this.
DETAILED PROCESS PLANNING
To plan the details of the problem analysis and mitigation Leona needs to
involve different parties. Because of the nature of the problem, she is quite
sure that some software checks and hardware checks are needed. The soft-
ware check can be done by own personnel, but the hardware check needs to
be done by the supplier of the module. So, as next steps, Leona creates all
these sub-workitems she can tell for now—drawing from her knowledge and
experience. Figure 8 shows the diagram from (Kraft 2010), Figure 9 and Fig-
ure 10 show some of the steps that Leona performs in the AdaPro
Workstream Platform. In Figure 11 we can see how the resulting structure
looks like in the workstream platform. This is a tree where Leona can drag
and drop sub-trees—if necessary.
Of course, she cannot be sure at this point in time, that the goal Find the
Problem Cause is reached, if all sub-workitems including all planned checks
have been executed. Therefore she describes the goal of the workitem Find
the Problem Cause as text in the detailed description as well. This is impor-
tant, because this is a difference to classical process modeling and also clas-
sical project management. In classical process modeling a super-task is
completed, if the sub-tasks are completed—or if the defined sub-process has
reached a defined end—and only then. In adaptive case management this
does not fit. The super-workitem may be completed earlier than planned—if
the problem cause is found earlier than planned. It may also not be com-
pleted, even if all sub-workitems have successfully been finished. Even then,
maybe, the problem cause has not been found yet.

Figure 8: The plan that Leona has in her mind

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Figure 9: Maintaining Sub-Workitems

Figure 10: Maintaining detailed Checks

Figure 11: Resulting Structure of Workitems

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Leona has always estimated the effort for the detailed workitems. This effort
can be aggregated by pressing the button Aggregate for one level aggregation
and Aggregate All for aggregation of all levels below, so that the resulting
overall effort can be seen (see Figure 12).

Figure 12: Aggregating the Remaining Effort
There is no definite sequence in the planned activities, only one she can
think of: The problem can only be mitigated if the problem cause has been
found. Often, in process modeling and project planning many dependencies
are modeled. This makes processes and plans inflexible. Sometimes it makes
sense, as sequencing the problem analysis and the problem mitigation. Very
often too many dependencies are modeled. We can even discuss what the
advantages to model this dependency are. Most knowledge workers of the
case know the dependency anyway. They would not prematurely start to
solve the problem. They even do not know what to do. If they want to start
problem mitigation, even before problem analysis is completely finished, then
it often has a reason. For example there may be two problems, while one is
already analyzed and the other ones analysis is still in progress. So it is fine
to start mitigation of the first problem already, even if the problem analysis
is not yet fully completed. I do not speak absolutely against sequencing con-
straints. The workstream platform will offer them as well later, after the re-
search about them has finished. But I want to emphasize, that oftentimes
they are less decisive than people tend to think. Sometimes they are even
part of the problem, not of the solution, because they create inflexibility. I
have met many people who have started to manage their knowledge work
with project plans and they have given up, because it just was annoying.
This has a reason: Too many dependencies. So—if dependencies are used—
then they should be different than in the past. That's why there is an ongo-
ing research project about them.
However the AdaPro Workstream Platform offers a hierarchical structure of
the workitems—which is already a dependency—and which is more than a
flat worklist. We know this also from project planning solutions. But the typ-
ical project planning solution is not a multi-user online application for day-
to-day knowledge work. In the following sections we will see more advantages

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compared to project planning solutions—for example the template library or
analytics to mention two.
In my opinion the most important ingredients of a knowledge worker process
is a clear definition of the goals and sub-goals (workitems), a clear status, a
clear responsibility, priorities and analytics about remaining effort versus
the timeline.
Later, as it turns out for Leona, the problem was not identified after all steps
have been completed. The status is updated and a new Workitem is planned,
a conference between the supplier AdaPhone, the customer and some Ada-
Com employees. Therefore Leona creates a new workitem as described in
(Kraft 2010). You can imagine how this looks like in the workstream plat-
form. However it is important to mention, that the status of the workitems
can not only be Open, Started, Completed or Error—as in many workflow
applications—but also other statuses are possible like Postponed, With-
drawn, In Approval, Approved, Rejected. The status values in classical
workflow applications are very technical. The status values in the AdaPro
Workstream Platform have more meaning for the knowledge worker.
MANAGING RESPONSIBILITIES
During the conference call, Leona and the team determined that it is a com-
bined hardware-software problem. This allows the problem mitigation to be
planned.
In this example, it turned out that the hardware must be changed, which
breaks down as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13: Plan for Problem Mitigation
It is necessary to negotiate with the supplier, create a specification for the
new functionality, and test the new device that the supplier delivers. The
software problem must be fixed by her development team. Since it is Leona's
area of expertise, she takes over the software problem but she delegates
management of the hardware problem to Steve—however, she remains the
overall case manager. Steve will detail the hardware part of the case, while
she details the software part of the case.

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Of course it is necessary to assign clear responsibilities. So workitems on all
levels can be assigned to the members of the workstream (Figure 14). Each
user can see his own workitems (see Figure 15 till Figure 17). It is possible to
filter by status, for example, exclude finished workitems.

Figure 14: Assigning Responsibilities

Figure 15: Worklist of Leona

Figure 16: Worklist of Steve
Workflow engines additionally filter by tasks that are not yet active, because
their predecessors are not completed. This makes sense, if there are
workflows that are executed very many times. In knowledge work it is ques-
tionable if this makes sense. It is often good to know, what the pipeline of
work is. This helps to prepare or even start already, to plan the effort, even if
it only starts later and to actively make sure, that preconditions will be ful-
filled in time. Again I am not completely condemning predecessor relation-
ships. I only want to say, that they also cause problems—especially in know-
ledge work. As soon as the AdaPro Workstream Platform will offer predeces-

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sor relationships, after the research project has been finished, it will also
support filtering workitems by that.

Figure 17: Worklist of AdaPhone Hardware Supplier
SPRINTS AND BURNDOWN
Leona has to manage the remaining effort versus the timeline. For this she
creates some milestones or sprints (see Figure 18). Now individual workitems
can be assigned to sprints (see Figure 19) by Leona. After that it is possible
to aggregate the remaining effort for the sprints (see Figure 20). It is also
possible to see all workitems that have been assigned to each sprint (see
Figure 21).

Figure 18: Defining Sprints

Figure 19: Assigning Workitems to Sprints

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Figure 20: Aggregating Remaining Effort for Sprints

Figure 21: Listing Workitems that have been assigned to a Sprint
If Leona regularly performs the sprint aggregation, she can take advantage of
the burndown diagram.

Figure 22: Sprint Burndown of Telephone Service Workstream

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The burndown diagram shows the remaining effort history. So when Leona
looks at the burndown diagram for the telephone support workstream
(Figure 22) she can see that the effort in the beginning was relatively low.
That was, when she thought, the problem is relatively easy to solve. Then,
after the problem analysis and after the full planning for the problem mitiga-
tion the remaining effort was much higher. However it was not yet assigned
to individual sprints. One day later Leona had assigned the remaining effort
to individual sprints. That is visible by the different colors in the curves. The
sprint dates are marked as vertical lines in the diagram. By this it is always
possible to see, if the remaining efforts decrease is fast enough to reach zero
at the sprint in question. If not, some countermeasures can be taken ahead
of time – re-planning, delegating work, postponing work, and withdrawing
work. This helps Leona to keep the timeline under control.

Figure 23: Sprint Burndown of Leonas personal Workstream
Each individual workstream has an individual burndown diagram. Leona’s
personal burndown diagram can be seen in Figure 23. In the personal
workstream Leona has different sprints; here she has planned to complete
some problem with her company car until her vacation starts; which she did
not completely achieve—as the diagram shows.
However having different workstreams, it is important to have an overall
overview. Figure 24 shows a combined burndown diagram for all of Leona’s
workstreams. It contains the combined efforts as well as the combined
sprints. Here she can see that she might have a problem with her vacation
and the remaining work. She has to make sure to delegate the work before
her vacation starts. Of course the overall burndown diagram would look dif-
ferent for Steve, even if the burndown of his telephone service workstream is
the same as for Leona. But he also has other workstreams.

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Figure 24: Overall Sprint Burndown of Leonas Workstreams
WORKING WITH TEMPLATES
As I have written in (Kraft 2010) in adaptive case management case in-
stances emerge as they are necessary. This means the knowledge worker can
start the work without any templates: just with the empty ACM system. A
knowledge worker enters the first case, just as the working day requires from
them. If they want, they can work in that way forever adding case by case. In
the beginning, one case looks different than all the others. As work becomes
repeated, the individual knowledge worker identifies snippets of cases that
he might want to convert into a template and reuse.

Figure 25: Creating a Template from existing Workitems
In our example, after having several similar cases, Leona recognizes that
some checks for the software appear regularly, so it would be best to include
them in a template. She thinks that if she can make the template available
to John, a new colleague, she might ask him once in a while to perform the
checks for her so that she saves some time. Therefore, she looks for the case

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that contains the checks she has in mind, copies the part that she wants
into a new template, and edits the template with instructions so that John
will be able to follow them (see Figure 25).
In the AdaPro Workstream Platform each Workstream has its own template
library. Therefore Leona can create personal templates as well as templates
for the telephone support. The template creation works with simple drag-
and-drop. Leona drags a part of one workitem tree and drops it into the tem-
plate library (see Figure 26); it then becomes a template. The template items
do not have a status (see Figure 27). This then can be dragged and dropped
into a new workitem. By this, all status values of the process snippet will be
set to Open (see Figure 28). Now Leona can navigate to the workitem and edit
the sub-workitems—independently from the template (see Figure 29).

Figure 26: Create Template
So from now on, the work for Leona has become even easier. She has created
a template in the template library for telephone service. John can now access
the template. If John is on duty and he has a similar case, then he can copy
the template into his case. And if Leona is on duty and has a similar case,
she quickly copies her template into her case but assigns John to perform
the checks. So in effect, Leona has saved some time for herself, while still
giving guidance and instruction to John.

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Figure 27: Use Template in new Workitem

Figure 28: Resulting Workitems

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Figure 29: Edit resulting Workitem
By the way—the drag-and-drop functionality can also be used between one
workitem tree and another one like it is needed in the example in Figure 30.

Figure 30: Using synergy by concentrating some Sub-Workitems into a
new one
Leona had different customer cases that required documentation updates.
Instead of doing each update separately and starting the review of the docu-
mentation change separately, Leona found it more practical to cluster the
changes into a user documentation release and review it collectively. She
could reassign these user documentation update work items into the case for
the user documentation update. By clustering work, overhead for each
change of the documentation is minimized, and again, time is saved that can
be used for more important things.
You can easily imagine how the drag-and-drop will work in the AdaPro
Workstream Platform. This is only one example for the so-called patterns of
knowledge work that AdaPro has researched. These patterns describe how a
knowledge worker typically manages his workstreams and processes. There
are about 20-30 patterns of knowledge work known today, that cannot de-

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scribed here because of brevity. However the AdaPro workstream platform
has been built to support these patterns in an optimized way—with special
focus on user interaction. This makes the use of the AdaPro workstream
platform feel natural—it is a natural flow of work.
SUMMARY AND FUTURE
First users especially appreciate that the workstream platform is a central
storage for their knowledge work, accessible everywhere at every time. If they
are at the site of their customers, for example, then they need not to install
anything, they just can use any browser to access their knowledge work in-
formation needed for the project situation. It is easier for them to manage
the workload including the regular interruptions of the work by phone calls
and emails. It helps to create a workitem or some, give it a clear status and
goal. Also it is helpful that there is always a clear status of all the knowledge
work in question. This is especially helpful, if the manager calls and wants to
know about a certain project situation. Also it is found helpful to see the
progress of a workstream and to be able to guide less experienced workers in
how to do certain things by creating workitems for them or using templates.
This is the feedback by the first users. However also additional predecessor-
successor relationships for workitems have been requested which is—as I
said—part of a research project. Two other research projects are
• graphical display with simulation and
• process/workstream analytics.
There are great ideas, but they have not yet been finished. This is, because
the solutions to these challenges must be different than in standard process
modeling, if they are to be useful for knowledge work. Find out more at
http://www.AdaPro.eu/
REFERENCES
(Kraft 2010) F. M. Kraft, Mastering the Unpredictable (Editor: Keith D. Swen-
son). Meghan-Kiffer Press, 2010, ch. 9: Improving Knowledge Work, p.
181 ff. See http://goo.gl/KxOPl

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Using AdaPro Workstream Platform for Knowledge Work

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