Mastering the Unpredictable Excerpts

‘Mastering the Unpredictable’ Excerpts

“Mastering the Unpredictable: How Adaptive Case Management Will Revolutionize the Way Knowledge Workers Get Things Done” covers the problems associated with managing unstructured business processes and discusses how adaptive case management (ACM) can help solve them.

Featuring contributions by several business process management
(BPM) experts, Keith D. Swenson’s “Mastering the Unpredictable: How
Adaptive Case Management Will Revolutionize the Way Knowledge
Workers Get Things Done” (Meghan-Kiffer Press, 2010) covers the
problems associated with managing unstructured business processes
and discusses how adaptive case management (ACM) can help solve
them.

For executives and managers of knowledge workers, “Mastering the
Unpredictable” will:

• Explain the need and why previous technological approaches
  don’t meet the need. Explain the current technology gap, and the
  new technology that can close the gap.
• Lay out the options that can increase the efficiency and
  effectiveness of their organizations. Equip them to best take
  advantage of this evolving trend.

The first excerpt from the book, taken from chapter 3 (Tom
Shepherd’s “Moving from Anticipation to Adaptation”), shows how
case management tools provide strong support for knowledge work by
allowing workers to move past anticipation of change to being able
to adapt quickly to change. As Shepherd puts it:

“We need to move past assembly-line thinking, where we
try to eliminate every variation, and focus on how to deal with the
reality of work that changes from one situation to the
next.”

The second excerpt, from chapter 11 (Dermot McCauley’s
“Achieving Agility”), explains the need for organizations to
overcome “inertia” and develop the agility required in the face of
increasing global competition and technological advances.

The attached Zip file includes:

• Intro Page.doc
• Cover Sheet and Terms.pdf
• Moving from Anticipation to Adaptation.doc
• Achieving Agility.doc