Too many good topics today, so many mention and discuss “adaptive”, but not enough time to write more than a few words on each:

1. Agile-, AdHoc-, Dynamic-, Social-, or Adaptive Process

Max Pucher attempts to clarify these different types of process and what they ultimately mean.  Max is the “Adaptive Guru” and his definitions help a lot to clarify things. One gem is this quote that really helps get at the essence of adaptive:

“if you need consultants to design or change your processes it may be agile but not adaptive.   Endusers do not just influence the design, they actually create the process on the fly.“

This is really key: adaptive processes are not pre-defined as processes, but only really become processes when the components are assembled at run time by the user.  Another contributor to “Mastering the Unpredictable“.

2. Presenting Case Management Benefits in Plain English

Ann All posts about a conversation with Forrester’s Connie Moore and and Craig Le Clair.  A good overview emphasizing how it supports knowledge workers.  Mentions Craig’s three categories of case management

• Investigative
• Incident management
• Service request

I particularly like the description that the purpose of BPM is to design the tacit elements out of the work, and to make it so that the workers don’t have to think.   That works for many routine processes, but never for knowledge work.  More and more I am seeing the term “tacit” associated with knowledge work.

3. Adaptive BPM – No Mapping tools…

Andrew Smith touches on the subject of “Adaptive”.  A very healthy comment discussion below it.

I don’t think that “Adaptive” and BPM go together, and even though I am confident that many will  argue the case, the point is that BPM in the eyes of most consumer, and in the big vendors (IBM, SAP, Oracle) is about pre-defined processes that are designed to perfection, but that is the antithesis of “adaptive”.

4. The Difference between Modeling, Mapping and Directions

Jacob Ukelson blogs on the meaning of a “map” when it comes to processes.  I don’t quite agree that BPMN fails to serve as a map, but I completely agree that a pre-defined map of any kind is not useful to warn about hazards which are constantly changing, such as lions by analogy, but in real life business is constantly changing.  Another contributor to “Mastering the Unpredictable“.

5. An Audience With….Jacob Ukelson

Theo Priestley’s interviews Jacob Ukelson, who gets to touch on his concept of  Human Process Management (HPM) which I know from past conversations he describes as similar to Adaptive Case Management.

6. An Audience With….Tom Shepherd

Don’t miss Theo’s interview with Tom Shepherd, who can do a deep dive on Case Management like no one else.  Another contributor to “Mastering the Unpredictable“.

7. Is Lightweight Workflow Here at Last?

Andrew McAfee brings up an excellent quote from Ward Cunningham:

For questions like, “What’s going on in the project,” we could design a database. But whatever fields we put in the database would turn out to be what’s not important about what’s going on in the project. What’s important about the project is the stuff that you don’t anticipate.

It is the unpredictable things, and the ability to handle them, that make a successful organization successful.  Not the routine things.

8. JBOSS Community Dynamic BPM

Kris Verlaenen delves into the Adaptive Case Management subject and compares to the similar terms: dynamic-, unstructured-, ad-hoc- processes.  I will be looking forward to the promised Drools implementation of ACM.

9. BPMN Tool Interoperability – Make Your Voice Heard!

Bruce Silver makes a passionate plea, and if you care about the future of BPMN, I advise heeding his call.  It is important.

10. It’s time to define ‘BPM’ for a new era, just forget about the name for now

Theo Priestley again, touching on how there seems to be a new groundswell for the next thing after BPM.  He sidesteps the name for now, but again the subject is dynamic-, ad-hoc-, or maybe “adaptive case management” again.

11. Using Adaptive Discovery- A BPM Best Practice

Even BPM vendor Ultimus is getting on the “adaptive” bandwagon.

Trying to track all this is making my head spin….