=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1859/bpmds-09-paper
|storemode=property
|title=Beyond Activities: Business Process Models from a Knowledge Management Perspective
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1859/bpmds-09-paper.pdf
|volume=Vol-1859
|authors=Pavel Kraus,Gil Regev
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/emisa/KrausR17
}}
==Beyond Activities: Business Process Models from a Knowledge Management Perspective==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1859/bpmds-09-paper.pdf
Beyond Activities: Business Process Models from a
Knowledge Management Perspective
Pavel Kraus1, Gil Regev2,3
1AHT intermediation GmbH, Churerstrasse 35, 8808 Pfäffikon, Switzerland
Swiss Knowledge Management Forum, skmf.net
pavel.kraus@aht.ch
2
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), School of Computer and
Communication Sciences, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
gil.regev@epfl.ch
3
Itecor, Av. Paul Cérésole 24, cp 568, 1800 Vevey 1, Switzerland
g.regev@itecor.com
Abstract. When conducting workshops with business people, there is a
significant risk to become bogged down in the details of the underlying
business process rather than seeing the big picture of the value provided by the
process to its stakeholders. In this paper, we describe combination of methods
that we use in workshops with business people to entice them to be more
creative when thinking about new products and services. These techniques
range from top-down value modeling to bottom-up business process modeling.
We bring together knowledge and information management in order to
understand what information the stakeholders need that provides value to them.
1 Introduction
Business process modeling often boils down to describing activities and their
relationships. This is good when explaining the way the work is done now. When
trying to innovate it is less useful [7]. Innovation primarily requires reflection about
the new not yet realized options without distractions by too many details.
Today's pressures arising from digital transformation forces companies to radically
challenge what has been done up to the very present. The first step however, is to
realize what type of business model they had up-to-now meaning their value
proposition and value chain, their customer types, right timing, geography and the
type of profit generation.
For many companies it is difficult to think outside their own industry logic.
Today's environment has a strong influence on the mindset of the leaders and they are
locked into one type of thinking [2, 3]. In our experience, when asked to describe
their work, it is quite natural for people to list the activities they perform and forget
about the value they deliver to their stakeholders. This list of activities neatly
corresponds to a simple business process model. To think of the value provided by
these activities (by the business process), they need to abstract from their daily work,
which is hard.
82 Business Process Models from a Knowledge Management Perspective
What is needed is a set of methods that help business leaders to break out of their
existing thought patterns and embrace a view on a bigger whole. As the time for such
strategic workshops is always limited, one has to neatly orchestrate and choreograph
the flow of the workshop. The facilitation challenge is to deal with the attention span
of the workshop participants and therefore to use the right mixture of techniques that
support the knowledge flow and document only so much as is needed to take-up the
red threat in the next workshops.
2 The approach
During two projects aimed at improving a Real Estate Development Company
(REDC) or redefining business services at a Global Med Tech Company (MDTC), we
have applied two series of workshops each with a different focus.
The goal of the REDC project, done in 2014, was to embed best practices and new
creative solutions into real estate product development and thus surpass competition
through innovation. It consisted of three times two consecutive workshops about three
weeks apart. There were eight participants from REDC: the department head, site
heads and team members.
In these workshops we created a big picture of the service delivery at each site by
compiling various processes in terms of their past and future success factors,
frequently encountered problems, applied techniques and in-between results to reach
each project milestone. In the subsequent workshops we built on the previous results
and refined them.
The goal of the MDTC project was to critically reflect upon current value chain
processes and related digital transformation options. The idea was to subsequently
change these processes by identify ways to introduce disruptive innovations. The
project consisted of four consecutive workshops and was done in 2017. There were
six participants: the department head, a customer representative and team members.
The first workshop helped to identify the company’s role and business model in the
setting of its industry. This goal has been reached by identifying the stakeholders,
their specific goals and the overall business value chain. By placing the company into
the value chain using a simplified business process modeling notation the current
existing positioning has been visualized and thus clarified. The method we used was
based on SEAM, as described in [7] and helped to speed up the reflection process by
hiding the activities comprising the business process and focusing on the service
provided by the company’s value chain to its stakeholders. Figure 1 shows the generic
initial model that was used to train the workshop facilitator. In this diagram, the
whole business process is viewed as a black box in the hexagon shape called
“Treatment” (without showing the activities).
In the second workshop the current setting was expanded to encompass the whole
ecosystem. This was done through various techniques and methods. In one case, over
50 business models have been considered, twelve chosen and six discussed in detail.
This approach helped the business leaders to think outside the box and to reconsider
the usually not reflected assumptions of their own business.
Business Process Models from a Knowledge Management Perspective 83
In the third and fourth workshop, particular services or products have been
designed and brought into the value chain. Their fitting into the ecosystem was
challenged against the background of good understanding of the business process and
business models. These workshop series in both projects were built on each other,
creating and reusing some parts again and again (clever recycling).
Both project approaches, specifically the workshop designs and applied facilitation
techniques (process, orchestration and choreography) ensured to speedily work out
and clarify the success factors and reflect on the possible current and future activities
of the company. Thus, it enabled the workshop participants to see the big picture and
thus move away from their old activity based business process thinking, unleash
creative thought processes and fire their imagination to envisioning different options.
Figure 1: SEAM Service Diagram hiding the business process details (from [7])
3 Time sensitivity of knowledge and information transfer
processes
In any human collaboration, face-to-face or virtual, one is engaged in a flow of tasks
that form the communication process. These tasks have to do with knowledge or
information and mostly with both simultaneously.
The orchestration and choreography of these tasks and the corresponding
techniques with both domains (knowledge and information) will define if one is
successful or not and will create value for the stakeholders.
Orchestration and choreography means to engage with the group so that the
commitment stays high even though the mood might go up and down. To know when
the focus needs to be changed, when to prevent distraction or apply a specific
technique or illustration. Or when the process has reached a critical point that needs a
84 Business Process Models from a Knowledge Management Perspective
stop over: to allow the group to struggle if necessary in order to reach the
breakthrough. Although there are countless workshop techniques, they have been
hardly looked at under the knowledge management perspective.
The distinction between knowledge and information is key to the right choice of
workshop techniques. This distinction is based on the definition that knowledge
resides only in the human mind and is inseparably linked to people [6, 9]. As soon as
knowledge is captured in any way, it is explicit and therefore becomes information.
Knowledge has a half-life. As humans we forget and this half-life can be as short
as only a few minutes. From empirical experience in workshop facilitation we know
that an idea can get lost within five minutes and if not captured, it cannot be recalled
anymore.
This places a key focus on the interplay between speaking and capturing within
various time spans. The longer one speaks without visible capturing, the higher is the
risk to lose the thoughts, break their flow and thus risk losing the ideas. The quality of
the collaboration depends on the right mix of speaking and capturing, and on bringing
the captured information again into the attention of the speakers to build on it at a
later stage The orchestration and mastering of individual techniques dealing with
knowledge or information is therefore key.
Although these are known and somewhat trivial basic facts, one has to look into
these granular details in order to formulate strategies on how to improve this
interplay.
Knowledge and information are constantly transformed into each other as depicted
in Figure 2. During workshop facilitation, knowledge is developed during
conversations (process 1) and becomes information when captured (process 2); this
recorded information (on cards, slides or audio) is then placed into a new context
(process 3) and used to build up knowledge later on in the workshop (process 4).
Often, these four processes occur simultaneously during collaborative work [1].
Business process models appear in the information layer (bottom part of Figure 2).
The knowledge of the participants has been made explicit into cards, post-it notes and
sketches. A formal business process is created by process 3.
Figure 2: Knowledge - Information Transfer Processes (from [1])
Business Process Models from a Knowledge Management Perspective 85
In our projects we have chosen the techniques and tools in the right mix to support
all four knowledge information transfer processes. In addition, they had to be chosen
and applied under consideration of their dependency and sensitivity on time aspects.
Time is needed for thinking, speaking and writing. But one can much more think
than speak and much more speak than write. Another issue is that all of these three
activities tend to foster, but also to hinder each other. For example, speaking can
disturb or prevent somebody else’s thinking process. This shows how the time
sensitive management of knowledge and information processes is critical.
In order to apply these learnings in similar situations one has to become sensitive
to the time aspects and observe and manage the various processes sequentially or
simultaneously. This requires proficiency in keeping these processes in balance
respective to their real time contribution to the success during the workshop.
Unfortunately, in most cases Process 1 (just talking) is too dominant, leading to
documentation gaps and thus to losses of the resources invested into the workshop.
4 Orchestration of knowledge and information interplay
The workshop choreography aims to mix the various techniques in order to grasp
emerging ideas and to encourage the participants so develop them further. The
orchestration of this mix is time dependent. In face-to-face meetings, when there is
possibility to communicate non-verbally and to ask back and clarify the points made,
the documentation can be on the light side. This is true for short discussions or
meetings.
During the face-to-face phase in the workshop, the information notation can be
done quickly and superficially, with the main emphasis being on process 1, i.e. the
direct knowledge exchange. Process 2, 3, and 4 are used just enough to support
knowledge flow among all participants. In this way, for example the benefits of a
service were modeled and roughly sketched on cards. The cards were used to trigger
new creative ideas.
In a longer workshop - half day or longer - knowledge capturing and especially the
quality of captured information tends to become more and more important (Process
2). This was done e.g. by taking the cards depicting the service flow and rearranging
them in a new way. The information on the cards was also clarified and possibly
improved in this step.
After rearranging the cards in a new context, the workshop moved on, bringing
new aspects as for example value modeling into focus. The longer the collaboration
and communication period, the more emphasis was there on the documentation. All
workshops were audiotaped. Between the workshops process three had the highest
priority. Time was spent for transcribing, editing of the information, visualizing and
reflecting upon the results as well as modeling. The goal was to produce high quality
business process information so that in the next workshop the process four (learning)
would work just fine and people would be able to prepare, onboard and get into the
subject matter as quickly as possible (next workshop inception).
To be successful in such workshops one has to find a way to enable people to think
freely and creatively in a first step, to capture their knowledge visibly to others in the
86 Business Process Models from a Knowledge Management Perspective
second and to use this information to further increase and enrich common knowledge
in the third step. State-of-the-art workshop designs orchestrate these steps well and
enable the participants to go beyond what they have imagined.
5 Time aspect in managing knowledge and information
There is often a specific discrepancy in experience when aiming to creatively handle
knowledge and information. There is experience of comfort when handling real time
knowledge during the face-to-face workshops. However, this comfort often misleads
the participants to use poor and inadequate techniques in the knowledge intensive
moments [5]. One thinks that one will remember the insights later on. Therefore one
does not pay attention to carefully developing the thinking, reflecting or associating.
Furthermore, the subsequent capturing of the insights is done poorly. As a result,
there is frustration for not being able to remember and rebuild knowledge from this
poor-quality information quickly enough at a later point in time [9].
This discrepancy between the remembered comfort (in dealing with knowledge) on
one hand and the frustration (in dealing with information) on the other often leads to
the false conclusion that IT modeling or other IT tools would help to solve this
problem. In reality only the stringent application of the right mix of techniques at the
right time can help to solve this dilemma and to create value for the stakeholders.
The graph in Figure 3 shows examples of adequate techniques for specific
knowledge - information ratios and time spans:
Figure 3: Adequate techniques for specific knowledge-information ratios and time spans
Business Process Models from a Knowledge Management Perspective 87
Both of our projects helped us to reiterate a fatal fallacy known in knowledge
management. In the past, people mistakenly identified the cure of the issues in the
knowledge intensive area (top-left) with the tools and technology typically used to
deal with information in a longer time span (bottom-right).
Seeking the remedy for frustrations caused by poorly dealing with knowledge in
the first place in tools with a heavy emphasis on information management is a
classical fallacy of knowledge management in the 90's. Still today, often the hope
prevails that tools like wikis, DMS, search engines or collaboration suites etc. will
bring the expected benefits [5].
The cause of these frustrations, however, lies in the mismanagement of short time
knowledge exchange of up to one day. Here tools and techniques, mainly in the area
of face-to-face facilitation, value based process modeling and rich knowledge
capturing bring the expected value, if applied stringently and systematically.
Note that before the workshop begins (bottom-left), the participants usually have
what we have termed “business process thinking.” They know, often tacitly, the
activities they do. The workshop facilitator’s role is to draw them to the top-left where
their knowledge of the business model will begin to be challenged (workshop
inception). After the workshop an improved business process model can be drawn.
6 Lessons learned and conclusions
Practical experience gained during the series of workshops showed that the
importance of orchestration and choreography in the usage of the various tools and
techniques has been underestimated, especially their critical time dependency in
supporting the innovation and creativity processes. We realized how sensitive and
time dependent the interplay between knowledge work and the information capturing
is.
One needs to apply the right techniques for the right time span and pay attention to
the granularity of the applied techniques and tools. The longer the working phases are,
the more the weight shifts from knowledge to information. While within short time
frames we deal with a ratio of 90% knowledge and 10% information this ratio
changes in favor of information when we prolong the working phase into days, weeks
or months.
During the workshops when the knowledge was still present, the transfer of
knowledge and learnings from one section of the workshop to the next was easier and
techniques for reflection and re-evaluating of the captured information were needed
[4]. Often people sketch ideas or parts of business process on cards in silence and thus
enrich their thinking while creating high quality information. After three to seven
minutes silence the discussion starts again. Questioning techniques for instant support
of creating new thoughts, serious game type cards, context related triggers are other
examples for useful techniques for a 3 - 15 minutes time frame.
For intermediate support between 15 and 60 minutes «fish bowl» type
arrangements were helpful. This means applying simple rules when and how to speak
and contribute to the discussion. The advantage of this technique is to improve
88 Business Process Models from a Knowledge Management Perspective
participants’ reflections and associations by consciously providing time for it. This
triggers new ideas and thus supports innovation.
Between the workshop's sections one needs more time to rearrange the captured
information and enrich it through audio transcripts and subsequent reflection. The
goal of the workshop inception was to become productive as quickly as possible
again, either with the same or with new participants.
Business process depictions (detailed or big picture) are indispensable for starting
to develop innovative ideas.
Value modeling and business process modeling techniques helped to develop
knowledge in a better quality and richness than through classical facilitation. To
evoke this richness, we aimed at codifying knowledge to information just enough not
to break the flow of new ideas and creativity, but to be able to capture and visualize it
after the workshop. The outcome of the MDTC workshops was a set of simplified
business process models, each representing the implementation of a business model
selection listed in [3].
Shifting the view from just activities to the final outcome (e.g. satisfied customer)
and providing the context as a big picture provided an alternative approach to service
innovation. The role of digitalization played a key role in this modeling, as well as the
introduction of a new intermediary service. As shown in Figure 4 the company now
offers a new service it did not provide before, which is only possible through a new
way of communicating with the customer through an app. In this way the company
captures additional value and strengthens the relationship with the customer.
Figure 4: Service process flow for new digitalized services
A by-product of these projects has been also found highly valuable. It revealed the
reason why so many improvement projects, be it in knowledge management or
business process reengineering, have failed and are still failing. The reason can be
found in the mismatch of expectations. People are looking for remedy of issues
caused through inadequately dealing with knowledge through technological solutions
that are in reality aimed at dealing with information. The thorough understanding of
this mismatch is of utmost importance when designing business processes that lead to
innovation and breakthroughs.
Business Process Models from a Knowledge Management Perspective 89
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