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2 The Language: Rationale and Fundamentals 47
Resource-Initiated Execution – Allocated Work Item corresponds to the situation
where a resource starts a work item that has been offered to them.
Resource-Initiated Execution – Offered Work Item corresponds to the situation
where a resource commits to undertake and immediately starts a work item that
has been offered to them.
System-Determined Work Queue Content corresponds to the ability of the sys-
tem to impose an ordering on the sequence in which resources see and/or can
undertake their work items, for example, display all work items in order of
priority.
Resource-Determined Work Queue Content corresponds to the ability for the
resource to impose an ordering/reordering on the sequence in which they see
and/or can undertake their work items, for example, reorder work items in date
received sequence.
Selection Autonomy corresponds to the ability for a resource to choose which
work item they undertake next.
All of the patterns discussed to date consider the “normal” state of affairs where
the work distribution approach captured in the underlying process model is essen-
tially followed directly. While desirable, this approach does not always allow for
actual events that occur in practice, for example, resources are unexpectedly absent,
become overloaded, etc. The following set of patterns – detour patterns – recognize
approaches for dealing with these unexpected situations.

Detour Patterns

Detour patterns identify approaches for deviating from the work distribution strategy
implied by the process model and provide various means for resources, as well as the
enabling system itself, to deal with unexpected or undesirable workload situations
that may arise. There are nine detour patterns as described below.
Delegation corresponds to the situation where a resource allocates a work item
that is currently allocated to them to another resource, for example, user jsmith
delegates the pick-order work item to user fbrown.
Escalation corresponds to the situation where the system changes an existing
work item offer or allocation and redistributes the work item to another user
with the goal of expediting a work item, for example, the system identifies that
the finalize-audit work item currently allocated to user jsmith has exceeded its
intended completion deadline and chooses to remove it from jsmith’s worklist
and allocate it to fbrown.
Deallocation corresponds to the situation where a resource (or group of re-
sources) chooses to make a work item previously offered or allocated to them
available for redistribution to other resources, for example, user jsmith recognizes
that the run-trial-balance work item allocated to them will not be completed in
time and chooses to make it available to other resources who may be able to
complete it sooner.