Pattern Acquisition to Improve Organizational Knowledge and Workflow Management

There is a major gap between the time consuming and obtrusive task of requirement elicitation, for example, in building or refining workflow management systems, and the actual patterns of content use and task execution in the workplace. As groups form and re-form in the enterprise and the tasks undertaken grow, so do the patterns of content and process encountered during everyday knowledge work. Such patterns are a valuable knowledge asset of the organization, which typically go unrealized. We therefore suggest an unobtrusive and systematic way to capture patterns and to manage and exploit their evolution. Pattern detection and acquisition can be used to define and support the evolution of workflow systems. Pattern discovery enables content transformation, which is a powerful tool to help knowledge workers accomplish their tasks. We discuss how to design a system to accommodate content and process pattern learning and content transformation and conclude with a discussion of current and planned implementation work.