Patterns of work and their do’s and don’ts
Blog: Process transformation - interventions for meaningful change
Based on an earlier blog-entry, I defined 4 typical patterns of work. In this article, I repeat these patterns of work, as I want to use them to position (in a next article) when discussing various coordination patterns in processes.
These patterns of work are derived from my observations on how people tend to organize the execution processes that have different characteristics.
Direct Execution
| Aspect | Work pattern |
|---|---|
| Number of employees involved in specific execution |
One single employee |
| Process | No process (in terms of coordinating activities among multiple employees, but a single direct set of tasks, performed in coordination with the customer by one employee at one time one place (otopop) |
| Activities | One standardized activity (which will be composed of various standardized tasks, done by one person directly) |
| Responsibility | Clear (based on the job title and responsibilities of this one person, or persons with the same role) |
| Typical situations | Call center – answering a question Buying item in a store |
| Do’s and don’ts | Do: Provide all data and usable systems the employee needs, and make sure these systems are fast enough. Make sure they have a 360 view on the customer. Don’t: Put them in situations where they can not meet customer expectations |
This work pattern is typically used in service delivery where:
– The service is simple (but might be knowledge intensive)
– The service can be done by one person
– Interaction with the customer can be low to high
Procedural Delivery
| Aspect | Work pattern |
|---|---|
| Number of employees involved in specific execution |
More than 1. People each perform certain activities (as part of their role). A limited number of roles. |
| Process | A clear, predefined, process (based on a clear procedure, that defines trigger, activities, roles, decision points with their business rules, and all possible paths). |
| Activities | Multiple standardized activities. |
| Responsibility | Clear, using roles. |
| Typical situations | Processing of incoming invoices, expense claims Simple insurance claims Opening a bank account, closing a commodity based insurance contract Standardized service delivery (McDonalds, simple Public services) Simple IT-incidents and changes |
| Do’s and don’ts | Do: Create workflow driven solutions, that provide the right contextual information when an employee performs an activity. Use business rules technology to support routing and decision making. Create process visibility Don’t: Force people to go and try to find the status of a certain customer request or force them to manually collect and report performance data |
This work pattern is typically used in service delivery where:
– The service requires people with different skills
– The service can be laid out as a series of predictable steps
– The service is standardized
– Interaction with the customer is low to moderate
Dynamic Adaptive Delivery
| Aspect | Work pattern |
|---|---|
| Number of employees involved in specific execution |
More than 1. Various people with various roles may be involved dynamically. |
| Process | An emergent process, as the path at run-time is not clear. Based on inputs, data, new insights and events, new activities might be required, assigned to currently involved employees or other employees, leading to new information, leading to new activities, etc. |
| Activities | Multiple standardized activities, and possibly some ad-hoc activities. |
| Responsibility | Usually clear, using roles. However, sometimes people need to handle ad-hoc activities that may not be part of their role & typical responsibilities. |
| Typical situations | Medical diagnosis and treatment Invoice disputes Complex claims processing Coordinating more complex IT-problems Legal trial Handling complex life events of customers (death of partner of customer) Case management of unemployed citizens |
| Do’s and don’ts | Do: provide an information rich, case based environment, in which case managers can easily plan activities, supported by patterns and next best action suggestions driven by events, data and rules. Think navigator. Provide easy access to the case status, history and information for all participants. Don’t: lock people in with rigid workflows, as they will be forced to ‘tweak’ the system or place valuable information and work-activities outside of the system |
This work pattern is typically used in service delivery where:
– The service requires people with different skills
– The service can not be laid out as a set of predictable steps, but emerges
– The expected value of the service is (fairly) standardized
– Interaction with the customer is typically high
– During the service process, expected and unexpected events and insights might require unanticipated activities (and support of certain people/roles)
Collaborative Coordination
| Aspect | Work pattern |
|---|---|
| Number of employees involved in specific execution |
Many |
| Process | A very dynamic and emergent process, that might (or not) converge to a certain desired outcome, that might not be fully know yet |
| Activities | Many ad-hoc activities, very limited are standardized |
| Responsibility | Usually unclear, but in some cases supported by roles. People may shift in or out the process, as a result of new insights. A clear owner of a specific execution might lack (when multiple organizations need to collaborate) or might shift due to evolving circumstances. |
| Typical situations | – Crisis management – Creating a strategic plan – Complex negotiations – Severe and urgent IT-problem |
| Do’s and don’ts | Do: create clear objectives (and let these evolve over time, and communicate them often), define clear roles and mandates, and let people self-organize where possible. Make sure all information (including decisions) is available in real-time for everyone. Don’t: overstructure the process |
This work pattern is typically used in service delivery where:
– The service requires many people with different skills but also different mandates (for instance partner-organizations)
– A lot of collaboration is needed to converge to a certain result
– The service or expected outcome is not standardized and not clear at the beginning
– Many new insights, events or partner policy / strategy changes can be expected
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