My colleague Jim Sinur commented in his blog, “Processes need to wrap themselves around people in way that seems unthinkable today. This will only happen when the processes are context enriched. The process knows who, where and when to be involved with a person or persons in a collaborative and social way in context of conditions, conflicting goals and physical device that happens to be the closest and desired.” See Jim’s complete post: Winds of Change
Applying context awareness to processes is a natural extension of technology to collaborative work activities. Today’s gadgets can tell us where the nearest restaurant is based on our current physical location. So why shouldn’t context information help us find a expert in, say molecular biology, who works for the same company I do, has an office in the same building and is currently available for a call. Great information to know if I am a research scientist trying to complete the design of my next experiment.
There are any number of situations where individuals and teams must use their discretion and judgment to carry out their work. Gartner calls these “unstructured processes.” They are most commonly those processes where work is complex and many people are involved. For more information on unstructured processes, see Expand Your BPM Horizons by Exploring Unstructured Processes
Context could inform such processes with information about people, prior art, the environment or other context helpful to the execution of the work. The result would be better execution, fewer errors and insight that could be reused next time around.
I’m really looking forward to the day when we get that boost in organizational productivity from teams that can collaborate and more effectively use the knowledge inherent – but often hidden – in the social network.
