This is the orientation that frames our definition of ACM used throughout this book: Systems that are able to support decision making and data capture while providing the freedom for knowledge workers to apply their own understanding and subject matter expertise to respond to unique or changing circumstances within the business environment. In many

scripting the work process in advance offers little benefit for increasing knowledge-worker productivity, much less the ability to adapt to changes in the business environment.

business processes with a high percentage of unstructured or ad hoc work.

supporting the knowledge worker requires a different set of tools than those that have largely defined the common IT environments and office automation investments over the last few decades.

The increased use of collaboration and social media to support

Whether it is called dynamic or adaptive case management, there are several reasons for the major uptick in interest in a new level of support that include the following:

business process management (BPM) focus exclusively upon repeatable, predictable kinds

You should not think of knowledge work as necessarily being the work of librarians who collect and organize information. It is instead about work that is not routine work, for which knowledge of the specifics of the situation is required to determine the pattern of the work.

of work. They are designed to enforce a command-and-control management model where the focus is the process route, where the item of work or case information follows a predefined path, and efficiency gains are sought through standardizing how work is performed.