A framework for development of a Case Management Maturity Model

Blog: KWKeirstead's Blog

Case is a methodology that helps you to manage short and medium term business activity based on orchestration received from background BPM, plus governance from rule sets at the run-time environment hosting a Case.

Bridging the gap between operations and strategy

Case Managers/workers typically need supplementary services such as Case-level resource allocation, leveling and balancing (R.A.L.B.), Decision Support services, Figure of Merit Matrices (FOMM) and Data Exchange.

BPM posts the next-in-line step(s) following completion of any step comprised within a BPM template instance.

RALB allows workers to prioritize their work and allows supervisors to level and balance workload across workers.

DECISION SUPPORT services allow users to make decisions in respect of the next intervention to perform at each individual Case.

FOMM hosts Case Objectives and allows Case Managers to carry out periodic non-subjective assessments of progress toward meeting Case Objectives.

DATA EXCHANGE accommodates bi-directional data flows to/from 3^rd party local and remote applications and systems.

The Nature of Work

All operational level “business activity’ can be described in terms of steps that are elements of processes.

A process can consist of a single step or a structured sequence of steps interconnected via directional arcs.

All process steps convert inputs to outputs and require some action that ranges from a simple “done” declaration by a user/system/robot to recording of data at data collection Forms by the users/systems/robots.

The essence of Case Management environments is to allow Case Managers to a) view Case Histories and receive decision-support in respect of the “next” intervention needed at a Case and, in some situations, gain access to predictions regarding forward interventions, b) periodically assess progress toward meeting Case Objectives and c) decide when to close out Cases.

Given that BPM is an integral part of Case, it is worthwhile to review what BPM is and what BPM is not.

BPM doesn’t manage business processes, you do.

BPM isn’t “the” methodology of choice for managing the operational aspects of a business, there are a number of methodologies needed to manage business processes as detailed above.

BPM is the methodology of choice for managing repetitive structured business processes.

CPM is the methodology of choice for managing once-through structured business processes.

A question that often arises is how well is the organization managing its Cases?

Maturity models are useful for answering questions like this.

Clearly, they have to be simple and easy to understand, otherwise comparisons across organizations will not be valid or even possible

Here below is a proposed five-stage maturity model for implementation of Case within an organization.

Able to map a BPM process (template) and refer to it as part of achieving runtime operational efficiency and effectiveness at and across Cases.
Abilities to compile a template and generate instances that provide guidance to workers in respect of their work performance at and across Cases.
Ability to host other methodologies/capabilities such as RALB. FOMM, ECM, CPM.
Ability to consolidate runtime data across instances and carry out analytics on the data.
Ability to improve the quality of decision-making using real time predictive analytics.

Filed under: Adaptive Case Management, Business Process Management, Case Management, FOMM, R.A.L.B. Tagged: ACM, adaptive case management, BPM, business process management, Case Management