Project INKA

Research project: Integration of business process support with knowledge management (Inka)

Participants:

IbisSoft AB Stockholm, Sweden (a consulting company in the borderland between Management and IT)
DSV - Department of Computer and Systems Sciences of Stockholm University and Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
HGF - Association of Tenants, Region - West Sweden Gothenburg, Sweden (an interest organization)

Project leader:

Dr Ilia Bider, Director R&D of IbisSoft

Duration:
1 September 2003 to 31 August 2006

Sponsor:

Vinnova - Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems

Budget:

7 000 000 Swedish crowns

Project methodology:

A version of action research

Project summary:

For knowledge management to be of use in an organization, it should be seamlessly incorporated in everyday business activities. Much of business activities, especially on operational level, are structured around business processes, for example, order processing, preparation of budget, or negotiation. Knowledge management needs to be integrated with these processes, which means that a system that supports business processes should also support knowledge management. The objective with the project is to work out techniques for developing integrated process and knowledge management systems, and investigate effects of introducing such a system in operational practice, e.g., effects on productivity, internal cooperation, democracy in organizational life, etc. The project’s objectives will be pursued through field studies at an interest organization that is currently introducing an integrated process and knowledge support system in its operational practice. In addition, new features for integrated systems will be investigated, designed and implemented as prototypes

Motivation:

To operate friction free, an organization needs to have a system for operational knowledge management. Such system is aimed at gathering, storing and giving access to:

Knowledge on operational goals, policies, and procedures (routines)
Knowledge on current state of affairs in the organization
Knowledge on past experience

Usually, knowledge of this kind is distributed through the whole organization. A great part of it sits in the heads of people who:

are working in a particular department (goals, policies, and procedures),
are engaged in a particular project/case/sale (current state of affairs), or
have experience of past projects/cases/sales.

If the knowledge resides only in the heads of people, the organization is extremely vulnerable to temporal absence of the staff members. Nobody can answer a question about the state of affairs in a particular project/case/sale. Nobody can help to determine what to do next, or give an example of how we managed to succeed in the past. In addition, adding new members to the staff in exchange of those who are quitting becomes quite a tricky task. Thus, the main business objective of having a Knowledge Management System is to ensure that the knowledge belongs to the organization as a whole, not just to the individuals who work for it.

To introduce a separate knowledge management system is not economically feasible, especially for small and medium size organizations. A separate system would result in an extra burden on the members of the staff. It will require that they not only complete their everyday tasks, but also spend their time on registering and distributing their knowledge. A more promising solution would be to introduce a business support system that helps to complete everyday tasks and at the same automatically gathers and distributes the operational knowledge (without extra burden on the people engaged in the business).

Operational knowledge is structured around business processes, such as processing an order, insurance claim, bug in a software system. All mentioned types of knowledge, i.e. operational goals, polices, procedures, state of affairs, and past experience, always concern some specific business process. For a business support system to be able to automatically gather and distribute knowledge, both the business and support system should be process-oriented.

Project base:

The Inka project is based on the pilot installation of an integrated process- and knowledge management system currently being introduced in the operational practice of HGF. The system, called ProBis, was developed by IbisSoft based on the analysis of business processes at HGF completed in cooperation with all participants of the Inka project.

The heart of ProBis consists of

Historical database that automatically stores information on all events and all past states of all projects, cases, sales, documents, and other business objects.
Principle of dynamic and distributed planning.

The system, among other things provides with:

Virtual calendar that allows the users to plan tasks to each other, and gives immediate access to all information required for completing individual tasks. The latter includes information on the currents situation and all relevant events and documents in the past and future.
Automatic support of history that allows not only to see what happened in the past, but also how things looked like at that time.
Document management that facilitates getting access to any internal or external document without knowing its name or storage placement. The documents are found through association to their usage (e.g., purpose of creation). In addition, via support of history, all internal documents are automatically versioned.

The system has been built based on own research (IbisSoft & DSV) that exploits state-oriented view on business processes.

Objectives:

The objective of the Inka project is to get answers on the following questions:

How does an introduction of an integrated process- and knowledge management system affect an organization? What are consequences on productivity, transparency, relations between managers and subordinates, etc.
How can the knowledge in such system be made active? What needs to be done in order to make the system more intelligent so that it can suggest the best course of actions based on goals, policies and procedures from one hand, and on the knowledge on the current state of the business process on the other?
How can ProBis be made open to distance workers, the ones that need access from outside LAN?

In addition, the objectives of the project include:

Commercialization of results in form of IT products
Dissemination of results among Swedish industry, public sector and non-profit organizations

The project made presentations at:

Databases and Applications (DBA 2004), Innsbruck, Austria, February 2004

5th BPMDS workshop on Creating and Maintaining the Fit between Business Processes and Support Systems, Riga, Latvia, June, 2004

5th International Conference on Practical Aspects of Knowledge Management, December 2-3, 2004, Vienna, Austria

3rd Conference on Professional Knowledge Management, April 10-13, 2005, Kaiserslautern, Germany

6th BPMDS workshop on Business Processes and Support Systems: Design for Flexibility, Porto, Portugal, June 2005

Saudi Third Annual IT Managers Forum, Riyadh, Saudi Arabian, February 2006.

7th BPMDS workshop on Requirements for flexibility and the ways to achieve it, Luxembourg, 5-6 June 2006.

IIMA'2006. 17th Annual Conference International Information Management Association. Iona College, New Rochelle, New York October 4–7, 2006.

6 th International Conference on Practical Aspects of Knowledge Management, November 30-December 1, 2006, Vienna, Austria.

Project publications:

Regev G., Bider I., Wegmann A. Defining Business Process Flexibility with the help of Invariants. Software Process: Improvement and Practice (SPIP), Wiley, V12(1), 2007, pp 65-79.

Bider I., Johansson L., Perjons E., Striy A. Activation of Knowledge in an Integrated Business Process Support / Knowledge Management System. In: Dimitris Karagiannis, Ulrich Reimer (Eds.): Practical Aspects of Knowledge Management, 6th International Conference, PAKM 2006, LNCS 4333, Springer, 2006, pp. 13-24.

Perjons E., Bider I., Andersson B. Building and Exploiting a Business Process Model for Lobbying: Experience Report. Communications of the IIMA (CIIMA ISSN: 1543-5970), Vol. 7. No 3, 2007, pp. 1-14.

Bider I, Striy A. Controlling the level of business process instance flexibility via rules of planning. CaiSE'06 Workshop's Proceedings, 2006, Pressesuniversitaires de Namur, pp.127-136.

Andersson B., Bider I., Perjons E. Business Process Support as a Basis for Computerized Knowledge Management, LNCS 3782, Springer, 2005, pp. 542 - 553.

Andersson B., Bider I., Johannesson P. and Perjons E. Towards a Formal Definition of Goal-Oriented Business Process Patterns. Business Process Management Journal (BPMJ), Emerald, V11(6), 2005.

Andersson T., Bider I., Svensson R. Alignig people to business processes. Experience report. Software Process: Improvement and Practice (SPIP), Willey, V10(4), 2005, pp. 403 - 413.

Bider I. Masking flexibility behind rigidity. Notes on how much flexibility people are willing to cope with. In Proceedings of the CaiSE'05 workshops, Vol. 1, FEUP, Porto, Portugal, 2005, pp. 7-8.

Andersson, B., Bider, I., Perjons, E.: Analyzing Loosely Structured Business Processes Using a Minimal Software Prototype. In Managing Modern Organizations with Information Technology. IRMA 2005 Proceedings, pp 611-613. Idea Group Publishing, 2005

Andersson, B., Bider, I., Perjons, E.: Computerized Knowledge Management. What is needed to motivate the user?, In: VM2005: Professional Knowledge Management Experiences and Visions. Contribution to the 3rd Conference of Professional Knowledge Management Experiences and Visions, April 11-13, Kaiserslautern, Germany, DFKI, pp. 451-456, 2005.

Andersson B, Bider I., Perjons E. Integration of Business Process Support with Knowledge Management - A Practical Perspective. In: Dimitris Karagiannis, Ulrich Reimer (Eds.): Practical Aspects of Knowledge Management, 5th International Conference, PAKM 2004, LNCS 3336, Springer, 2004, pp.227-238

Andersson T., Bider I., Svensson R. Introduction of BPS Systems into Operational Practice: Achievements and Setbacks. CAiSE'04 workshops. Volume 2. Riga, 2004.

Practical activities:

Practical activities of the INKA project. Working report.

Technical reports:

External User Access to Internal Business Processes

Testing of mobile devices in operational practice (In Swedisdh)

Effects from introduction of process support systems and how they can be measured (In Swedish)

Accessing an ongoing introduction of an IT system in operational practice (In Swedish)

Rules for activating knowledge (In Swedish)

Andersson B, Bider I., Perjons E. Business Process Support System as a Tool for Communication/Collaboration. IbisSoft AB - Internal Report – August 2004.

Short questionnaire to analyze needs and means for internal communication (In Swedish)

Result of processing for short questionnaire (In Swedish)