Evaluation of WfMC Awards for Case Management: Features, Knowledge Workers, Systems

Abstract

In recent years, many production case management (PCM) and adaptive case management (ACM) systems have been introduced into the daily workflow of knowledge workers. In many research papers and case studies, the claims about the nature and requirements of knowledge work in general seem to vary. While choosing or creating a case management (CM) solution, typically one has the target knowledge workers and their domain-specific requirements in mind. But knowledge work shows a huge variety of modes of operation, complexity, and collaboration. We want to increase transparency on which features are covered by well-known and award-winning systems for different types of knowledge workers and different classes of systems. This may not unveil gaps between requirements and offered solutions, but it can uncover differences in solutions for varying user bases. We performed a literature review of 48 winners of the WfMC Awards for Excellence in Case Management from 2011 to 2016 and analyzed case studies in regard to targeted knowledge workers, advertised features, and type of system. Different types of knowledge workers showed a different bias on certain system types and features in regard to collaboration and variability of processes.