Simone and Divitini start from the complementary aspect of internalizing process
knowledge. They argue that workflow management systems can be “knowledgeenabled”
by moving them to a higher level in the value chain: from systems for
executing processes to systems for learning about processes while they are executed.
This means essentially that the workflow management system must come with
different levels of sophistication in the definition of a given process, just as a search
engine may provide basic search features for casual users and more sophisticated
features for advanced users. As workers get more acquainted and confidential with
the process, they will choose and experiment with more sophisticated ways of doing
things. This in turn may lead to the creation of new process knowledge, as workers
may decide to design themselves new definitions for certain parts of the process, or
to add new sub-processes. Simone and Divitini describe an experimental workflow
management system that supports this free interplay between learning and creation
of process knowledge, and present a case study of its application in a typical
organization of knowledge workers, namely a funding agency for R&D projects.