Process-Aware Task Management Support for Knowledge-Intensive Business Processes: Findings, Challenges, Requirements

The operational support of knowledge-intensive business processes constitutes a big challenge. In particular, this process type is characterized as non-predictable, emergent, goal-oriented, and knowledge-creating. Today, knowledge-intensive business processes are solely driven by professionals utilizing their skills and expertise whereas no support is provided by processaware information systems. In particular, the management of knowledge-intensive tasks (i.e., defining, updating, distributing, enacting, monitoring and assessing of tasks) is still accomplished manually by the knowledge workers based on pen and paper with the well-known drawbacks. This work presents two case studies of knowledge-intensive business processes. Based on the insights gained from these studies, we derive the core challenges as well as the requirements for an process-aware information system supporting knowledge workers in the management of the tasks emerging in the context of knowledge-intensive business processes.