Workflow is concerned with the application-specific sequencing of activities via predefined instruction sets, involving either or both automated procedures (software-based) and manual activities (people work)…BPM is concerned with the definition, execution and management of business processes defined independently of any single application. BPM is a superset of workflow, further differentiated by the ability to coordinate activities across multiple applications with fine grain control.
First off I have not heard of a modern workflow system that did not control the definition, execution and management of business processes defined independently of any single application.
Second workflow systems coordinate activities across multiple applications.
Third the phrase fine grain control does not differential between anything. A bicycle is a bicycle whatever the size.
Palmer then writes: As workflow processes are tied to single applications, process flow is hardwired and does accommodate alternative means for reaching the same task or goal.
Again I have not come across any modern workflow system where this is the case, perhaps he is confusing a system with workflow and a workflow system.
Finally Palmer writes: Distilled into single-word definitions, workflow is about repetition and BPM is about coordination (also automation and orchestration, respectively)
So if workflow is not about coordination, automation and orchestration what is workflow about?
Next in the article Jim Sinur gives his definition:
BPM is supercharged workflow that has sophisticated flow design through process modeling and analysis. BPM supports hyper volumes of work and numbers of users with sophisticated event-state engines for long-running business events and transactions. It is user friendly, “insanely open,” has smart agility features supported by rules engines and utilizes commodity integration technologies.
OK I have highlighted all the rediculous sales adjectives here. What he is saying essentially is BPM is workflow with more adjectives. According to Sinur BPM is more supercharged, sophisticated, hyper, long-running, friendly, open, and smart workflow. So he is either saying BPM is workflow with more adjectives in front of it. A bicycle is a bicycle whatever the hyper-superchargedness it may have.
In summing Sinur declares:
Finally, BPM links to legacy composite components and applications, orchestrates Web services, measures business activity and optimizes processes for better business result and work throughput.
Again workflow systems have done all of the following for a long time now, except for web services which is a relatively new technology. In addition Business Activity Monitoring in someform has always been a part of some workflow systems it just didn’t have such a fancy title.
Now this may be an almost religious belief but to me it seems that workflow + marketing = BPM, and that is the only real difference.
PS let me apologize for the long delay between posts. I have been away alot.
Sorry this post is totally unrelated to the rest of the blog, but hey it is the only blog I have. Sorry if you are interesting in reading my latest musings on workflow then read no further.
The post involves ad words and its spiraling costs. Not long ago google changed its algorithm for what the minimum cost of a word could be. It use to be 0.09 AUS per click for some pretty unlikely adwords. For instance the name of my company and the product (Web and Flo, and Kontinuum respectively) each cost 9 cents. So if someone searched on our company name it would cost us 9 cents if someone clicked on our paid ad as opposed to our natural listing ad. Today it costs $13.00.
This happend a while ago and OK fair enough maybe there were not alot of people searching on our name. Today I noticed something else. I have an ad campaign with about 1000 key words it in. Almost half were disabled. I went in and increased the cost on many of the disabled keywords so that they would meet the new requirement and thus become enabled. As soon as I clicked to submit my changes Google increased the minimum cost of some of my other ads. I increase the minimum payment for some of my other ads and guess what? Other ads became disabled.
It was like I was playing a game against Google. Everytime I agreed to spend a little more money it responded in the very next minute by saying oops the price just went up. At the rate the Cost per Click is increasing it is only a matter of months before Google has become to cost ineffective for most of its current clients.
Hi I am back from a very interesting holiday to thailand. Alot of fun but very touristy unlike when I was there 20 years ago. I just am doing a quick post about the new workflow patterns website http://www.workflowpatterns.com . For those of you who dont kow about this site they are effectively organising and naming all the different types of workflow patterns that they encounter. Sort of like a botanist would the first time he or she enters a jungle. And it is a jungle out there. There are so many types of patterns out there and even more names for those types of patterns. That is why this site is so important. It is definately giving order where there was chaos.
PS you can even check out how Kontinuum satisfies the patterns (or doesn’t in some cases) since many, many new names for patterns have arised since our control patterns document was created by clicking http://www.workflowpatterns.com/vendors/kontinuum.php
Since Kontinuum is a web based product alot of our clients simply subscribe to our service. There are various factor which determine when it is best to subscribe to a workflow software service or simply to buy the workflow software and host it locally. Here are a few factors which should be considered. Furthermore many of these factors can be applied to the Software as a Service adoption whether it be workflow/BPM or not.
What is the level of risk aversion?
With SaaS you don’t have to make a huge initial investment. You can try before you buy. You can then buy a little and a little bit more as need be.
How dispersed are your users?
With SaaS everything is generally set up so that it can be accessed from anywhere. This does have alot of benefits but there are some drawbacks when it comes to security
How transaction intensive are the workflow applications in dealing with legacy systems?
With web services you can exchange information with legacy systems via web services. You can do it. That doesn’t mean it may be all that worth doing. If you transaction rate is very high exchanging information over the web gets ugly.
How much data is required to be uploaded / downloaded?
Speed can be an issue with SaaS. Especially if you need to upload or download 100Mb files.
How big an issue is security?
Remember SaaS is more likely to be a web based product these days. There may even be legal requirements for data that the information you have is not available on-line.
How much effort is required to get software installed locally?
Sometimes this can be a major issue. One of the largest banks in Australia came to us and they wanted a system up and running in under two weeks. Meanwhile another division within the bank wanted a system to be hosted locally. The division which wanted a local system had to wait about 4 months to get approval where as the hosted workflow applications were created and deployed in 2 weeks. So it took 8 times as longer to get something approved as to get something done.
These factors are just a few off the top of my head but I am sure there are many more
This is a history of workflow not as it actually is but as I understand it.
The early years:
A hominid grabs a stick.With said stick he or she makes decisions on how to best maximize the usefulness of the stick.After picking us several sticks they start to realize that not all sticks are created equal and eventually the start to carry the really good sticks with them so they can re-use the later.Continually over time the stick is improved by sharpening tying rocks to it. The adoption of the stick and other tools and there continuous improvement causes much success within the hominid community.
After a while certain hominids became good at doing different things with sticks and rocks.Some became good a making things of sticks into boats, others became good at turning rocks into swords; still others became good making food.In short the hominids got jobs.These jobs meant that in order for the hominids to achieve maximum success different people had to become skilled at different things but they still had to communicate with each other to ensure that the processes needed to keep their families and communities alive were followed.
The middle years/ages
At some point around 2000 B.C. in
India people came up with the idea of a guild.A guild being a group of dudes who decide that they really know a lot about something and can deliver whatever incarnation of food, sticks and rocks that they work.The also can deliver their products at a high quality.Humankind adopts standards.Not only do they adopt standards for quality but they standardize the methods in which they make their products.
The Modern Age
Some guy in France creates a new kind of standard, a specification.While other standards govern quality and process this guy decides he wants to create guns to such of a standard that all his guns look exactly the same.Not only do the guns look the same but bits from Gun A can replace the same bits from Gun B.
I know what you are thinking, sure this article is incredible well constructed and probably deserves a Pulitzer Prize but are we really talking about workflow?Well yes and no.I believe that at its core workflow is really about the things that I have talked about.Getting the most of the tools you have, providing standards for production, eliminating waste, continuous improvement and re-usability.While workflow software might be a somewhat new thing, workflow itself has been around almost as long as we have.
This is very off topic for the blog but it is funny and related to the blog so I am going to mention it in hopes it brings a smile.
Every few weeks I goto my blog control panel and check out my stats. I look at things like where people are coming from, what they are reading and what they searched on to find my blog. Today I found out that someone seached on ‘Does Craig Cameron love me?’ to find this blog.
I find this funny for a few reasons
1) Someone is asking Google for personal relationship advice
2) Someone expects Google to know which Craig Cameron (a very common name) they are talking about
3) Someone expects Google to know who ‘me’ is
After poking a little fun at this person I just hope this is not someone I know…..
I have just had a quick look at http://www.google.com/trends and thought I would share the results and my analysis.
First I typed in: workflow
It seems the volume is down from 2004 but more than 2005
The top 5 normalized countries are:
India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa
Next I typed in: workflows
This was not tracked in 2004. 2005 and 2006 have approximately the same number of searches.
The top 5 normalized countries are:
India, Australia, Austria, Germany, United States
Next I typed in: Business Process Management
This was not tracked in 2004. 2005 and 2006 have approximately the same number of searches.
The top 5 normalized countries are:
India, Pakistan, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore
For all searches new reference volumn increased year on year.
So what does this mean. Well at this point I can only speculate. One thing seems to be that a high percentage of people in India are searching for workflow/BPM the other is that in different countries some tend to use the word workflow more often then they use the words BPM and vice versa.
I was looking at one of my favorite sites today, the workflow patterns site by Wil Van Der Aalst, and it occured to me that if you are writing in a procedural language such as C you are effectively doing the same thing as writing out control patterns. So then it occured to me that there might be some constructs in languages such as C or VB that are not covered by the existing list of workflow patterns (as I understand them).
Here are some VB,C language contructs that dont really have the same kind of thing in the workflow patterns.
1) Goto:
Yes an outdated language construct and with good reason. The goto is used to exit out of a context and goto another one and it pretty much forgets where it came from. With the workflow control patterns they are alot more controlled. They don’t skip all over the place as is the case with goto.
2) Kill Process / Exit Application
If I am in a proces within a process within a process there does not appear to be a way to exit the high level process without creating a whole bunch of control logic with the currently defined control flow patterns.
3) Wait
I am not really sure if this qualifies as a control flow pattern but it kinda is. When getting to this stage just don’t do anything for a period of time (irregardless of what else is going on in the system).
4) Queue and Stack
You could argue that both of these structures are not control patterns but for the sake of arugement I am going to argue that they are. Lets say we have 3 tasks running in parallel 1.1, 2.1, 3.1
after one point 1.1 comes 1.2 after
after one point 2.1 comes 2.2 after
after one point 3.1 comes 3.2 after
here is the catch however for queue: 1.2 can only be complete if and only if 1.1 was complete before 2.1 or 3.1 or x.2 is completed i.e. First In First Out
here is another possible scenario 1.2 can only be completed if it has not been completed and it is x.1 has not been completed later than it or x.2 has been completed. i.e. Last In First Out. The interleaved parallel routing construct doesn’t exactly cater for this behavior. You may argue that it is more of a resourcing pattern but I would need to be convinced. You could also argue that this is more of a multiple choice, which in many ways it is. However the logic at the point of choice could become very difficult to express at the point of choosing which x.2 item is next.
Workflow Strategies for getting around chokepoints
Forgive me readers but it has been 3 weeks since my last post.
What are chokepoints?
For the sake of business processes chokepoints are usually a single location within a larger process in which a disproportionate amount of time is spent either waiting for the activity to become accessible of waiting for the activity to be completed.
What’s wrong with Chokepoints?
Over the 6 years I have been involved in the workflow/BPM space I have found that the majority of time spent completing a process from beginning to end is usually dependent on less than 20% of the activities within that task.These slow activities can be costly.Those costly exercises can be anything from, constant follow up by Managers to deadlines being missed.
Why do they occur?
Lack of sound process design
Lack of resources
Lack of process knowledge
Lack of automation
Poor Scheduling and allocation of resources
How do you find them?
Within many workflow systems there are built in reporting facilities which at a glance shows you where the most time is spent from when it arrives in a Task List to when it has been completed.If you don’t have such a system all is not lost.Most often you can just ask the people who work within the process what or who they are usually waiting on. In fact they have probably volunteered this information to many people many times.
How do you eliminate chokepoints or minimise the effect of chokepoints?
It is important to ask several key questions to begin the chokepoint elimination process
1) Can your single chokepoint activity be broken up into more then one activity?
1.1) If it can be broken up can the two or more tasks be placed in parallel?
2) If it can not be placed in parallel can different resources be given to some of the newly created tasks or activities?
3) Can the chokepoint activity be placed more in parallel with other activities?
4) Can more resources be assigned at the chokepoint?
5) Can any part of the chokepoint be automated?
6) How can you escalate this task if it is taking to long?Can you reassign it?Can you send an alert when it is taking to long?
7) Can scheduling play a difference (your task has been placed in a queue at position x and will be completed in x amount of time) helps the resource performing the task as they no longer have to spend their time responding to queries regarding an activity status.
Can you establish an overflow mechanism?The overflow mechanism means taking a path of least resistance once the resource is operating above capacity.(This may have negative effects on quality however an ever growing queue is likely to have an even greater effect.)
What to do once you have eliminated to slowest link?
Once you have eliminated your chokepoint you will find that you have a new, although somewhat less problematic, slowest point in the chain.So you must start the process all over again.The thing to remember about Business Process Management is that it is not about providing a once off increase in efficiency it is about providing a platform and a methodology for continually increasing efficiency.
It has been a few weeks since my last blog and reason why is that we have just finished implementing the first of a few applications for one of the four major banks here in Australia. The interesting thing about this project was not the hours spent creating working workflow applications, but the weeks making things look pretty. Or in some cases not that pretty but to customer specifications. As a techie I am still struck by how most users would much rather have something semi-functional that looks pretty as opposed to something that actually works. I think in the end adopting a workflow system is not a rational decision based on return on investment but rather still an emotional decision.
While the workflow industry is still in growth there is relatively little head to head competition. However as more and more companies start competing head to head it will not be the feature set that customers will look at in making decisions. It will not be support. It will just be, is it pretty to look at and easy to use. I am not sure any analysis by Garter et al really comes close to capturing this information.
Workflow Design, Logic Synthesis and Multi Level Logic Minimization
First let me try and tell you what I am babbeling on about.
What is logic synthesis? According to Wikipedia Logic synthesis is a process by which an abstract form of desired circuit behavior (typically register transfer level (RTL) or behavioral) is turned into a design implementation in terms of logic gates.
What is Multi Level Logic Minimization? Well once we have reduced a circuit into gates MLLM uses a series of computer algorithms to redesign the circuit using as few gates as possible.
Why should I mention this in the workflow blog? Well first off workflow design and circuit design are VERY similar. You only need to look at the www.workflowpatterns.com and see how so many of the patterns are common logic circuit gates. Second with the uptake of workflow software I think that workflows may become more complicated because the added power will allow people to create more complicated and more variable business rules (but that is a different debate). In addition workflow systems are being used to handle larger and larger systems with more and more integration. So effectively our workflow circuitry is getting bigger. This means it will become more and more difficult for a mean mortal to optimize the workflow. This is where MLLM steps in.
Imaging one day having a system that does the requirements gathering from the users and then hitting a magic button and a workflow system is created. This created system is not an electronic version of the current ‘AS IS’ process but a 100% optimized and re-designed system. The time delay from when a business decision maker makes a business decision could be non-existent…..maybe I am just dreaming.
Can business users make their own Workflow/BPM Applications
le>Can business users make their own Workflow/BPM Applications
http://workflow.wordpress.com/2006/08/29/can-business-users-make-their-own-workflowbpm-applications/
http://workflow.wordpress.com/2006/08/29/can-business-users-make-their-own-workflowbpm-applications/#commentsMon, 28 Aug 2006 23:55:02 +0000workflowProgrammingworkflowSpreadsheetBusiness Usershttps://workflow.wordpress.com/2006/08/29/can-business-users-make-their-own-workflowbpm-applications/
OK or atleast went hollywood. Has anyone ever seen the Coen Brothers movie The Hudsucker Proxy starring Tim Robbins, Paul Newman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, the dad from Frasier and my personal fav Bruce Campbell?
Well it has the best illustration of workflow I have ever seen in film. The sequence starts with the go ahead to produce a new toy and follows the series of events and signoffs needed to approve the toy for production and then ultimately the production, distribution and sale of the toy. It is really quite amusing and one of the best parts is when you see hundreds of rubber stamps flying in the air approving various things.
It does illustrate how long before email, networks or even computers workflow was an important part of the function of large organisations.
I am just reading the book Crossing the Chasm. To summarize the book (and not do it justice) the book is about the a period in selling whereby clients transition from people who are deem in the early adopter category (people who see a new technology as way to give them a radical technological advantage over thier competitors) to the early majority (those people who see the adoption of the technology as a way to steadily increase the efficiency of thier business).
The book also a few other categories: the late majority - those who are very trepid to adopt technology and will only jump onboard when they feel they are being left behind, the laggards - those people who will only adopt the technology when they are forced into it, the innovators generally those who came up with the concept or enthusiasts who are just excited by new technology.
So what does this have to do with workflow? Well I think that the market is crossing the chasm if it has not crossed it already. It has been my experience that the companies who are adopting workflow software are for the most part doing it because they see an incremental efficiency gain. They are also not willing to place there bets on unproved technology. An arguement could be made that we are still in the early adopter phase. Currently some of our clients see it as a way to dramatically alter they way they compete, however these clients may be less tech savvy or in more niche industries.
When designing workflow systems you may be faced with try to optimize the performs of your resources (by resources mean anything from people, machines, parts, space in a warehouse). Well there are a few things you may need to consider. Lets take for example a manufacturing environment. In order to schedule a resource to perform a task you need to ensure that the task can be done by the resource.
It may need an array of constituent parts or componenets to perform the task
It may need to have an allocation of time
It may need to have capacity downstream
It may need to have an alignment or syncronization of all of the above.
Lets say I am making computer equipment. I have a giant machine that can make computers and monitors, I just pour in silicon and out pops a computer or monitor. In sucessfully make a run of 10 computers I may need to ensure that
A: I have some silicon
B: I have a spare slot where I can use the machine
C: I have space in my warehouse to store the machines once I have made them
D: I need to ensure I have the silicon, slot and space available at the same time.
In some ways resource scheduling is like a game of chess, you are much better off if you can think several moves in advance.
BTW I am off to Beautiful British Columbia (Victoria and the couv) for a friends wedding - weddingabovetheclouds.com talk about overkill, anyways that means that I will most likely not be posting anything until mid august.
So what is the most important workflow tool? According to the BPM Trends diagramming software was the most important BPM tool. I must say I disagree. The humble pencil is probably the most widely used. It just didn’t make the list because it is not a software tool. Yes no matter how complex or sophisticated the software whenever it comes to initial design the pencil or pen or marker is always the place to start. Sure other tools can automate, make prettier diagrams, report information or all of the above, but without correct pencil usage not technology is going to save you. Also the user interface could not be easier to understand. The design capabilities of the pencil are not limited to the workflow BPM arena either. With Software, Automobile, Graphics, Interior, Building, Landscaping Design generally the pencil is the best place to start.
Over the past couple of weeks we have been including more and more AJAX functionality into our product. AJAX is quite cool. It really does enhance the user experience. It is my personal opinion (I am not speaking for Web and Flo here) that of all the things that people are developing for workflow systems not enough is being done to give users a truly pleasurable experience. OK pleasurable may not be to strong a word. I think alot of effort these days is going into modelling and simulation. Which is alot of use for the tiny percentage of workflow system users who happen to be designing and modelling such high throughput processes that it is really important. For the vast majority they could not care less. I believe that many workflow vendors are spending alot of time creating these simulation tools because of the ability to market them not for the actual use to clients. I guess it may be easier to sell a workflow system that has simulation that you will never use as opposed to one that does not but is easier to use. Maybe it is just to much selling the sizzle.
PS I may be biased as the companies we deal with are generally smaller.
PSS Also this is just my gut feel and I do not base my assumptions on any hard scientific data.
A few more quotes before I get back to actually writing my blog. These ones come from two of my favorite films.
All he’d wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got?
-Bladerunner
Stanislavsky said the actor should constantly ask himself as a character: “Who am I? Why am I here? Where do I come from? And where am I going?”
-My Dinner with Andre
These top two quotes are essentially the same. How do you relate them to workflow. Well I think for every user or character within a workflow system they need to easily see within a processes: where they are, how did they get there, what they are suppose to do, what is going to happen next and how long do they have to complete the step.
And if you’re just operating by habit, then you’re not really living. I mean, you know, in Sanskrit the root of the verb “to be” is the same as the verb “to grow” or “to make grow.”
-My Dinner with Andre
This quote seems to get at the heart of what empowers workflow management systems or BPMS. That is the notion of continual improvement or continual growth. It also implies that if you cease to grow you cease to be. So many people working in systems today are really just operating by habit, without a thought of how could this process be easier. It is not thier fault they are just not exposed to seems that allow them a view of what they are doing to the point where they can make suggestions or changes.
Again I am taking some quotes and applying them in the context of workflow.
“The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed -
it is a process of elimination.”
- Elbert Hubbard
I like this quote and it is in essence what process reengineering is all about.
Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Although perhaps not immediately apparent this is a key benefit inherent in workflow systems. That one initial person or team can create something but that it can be improved upon by others.
I am a bit tired of all these so-called standards for workflow running around these days. In fact I am a little tired for alot of these so-called standards that are plaguing the IT industry in general. Many of these standards are simply marketing tools. So I have decided to release my own standard as a silent protest. The Workflow Area Network Control Standard pronounced Wank. In order for a site or product to comply with this standard somewhere in the site or product you must have written: This site is WANC Compliant.
I know this will have gone to far when some day someone tells me with great pride that thier site or product is WANCs Compliant or I get a call to do some WANC consultancy.
Show your support against meaningless standards and support this equally meaningless standard by becoming WANC Compliant Today!!!!
Many moons ago I wrote an article on neural workflow. The concept of taking a neural net approach and adopted it to business processes instead of how they are currently done which is more of a source sink based concept. I have thought a little bit more about the concept and I thought I would share my thoughts.
First businesses gain a lot by having systems that help automate and manage their source/sink based processes however businesses are more then the sum of their processes. If you were to draw a directed graph of communication or the flow of information within an organization it would look a lot like a neural network. Workflow / BPM as it becomes more advanced is moving away from merely trying to automate ‘Standard Processes’ to automating larger, more dynamic and disorganized processes.
When you start to embed workflows within multiple other workflows you are starting to create a kind of neural net. Although I have never had a hand in creating a workflow A, which creates an instance of workflow B, which in turn creates a new instance of workflow A I can envisage many instances where this may be required. I am sure one if not more tools can already handle these kinds of scenarios, but are they effectively communicating the overlaying structure to designers in an easy to understand way?
How do we learn to speak neural net as opposed to flow chart?
Well the current tools / Notations / Standards for expressing neural nets are not as easy to work with as with sources as sinks. Source Sinks can usually be read top to bottom or left to right. Even the most complex processes can usually be mapped onto a two dimensional piece of paper. With Neural nets it’s a lot more difficult. There are just too many interconnections and not enough and there isn’t a side of the page for sources and one side of the page where the sinks are suppose to be. Maybe we need some sort of 3 dimensional structures.
I believe ‘neuralness’ is the way forward as businesses are neural entities and not just a series processes. The challenge for workflow will be to deliver easy to understand solutions for these problems.
HTML is great. It is everywhere. It is universally adopted. Why?
Well first off it has well and truly exceeded critical mass. It has not changed much. But perhaps most of all is because it was a technological fit. Browsers get information in the form of HTML, parse it then display it. The data in HTML is all very linear. It is always read top to bottom.
Data in almost any database is not linear. Fully normalized databases need different types of data in different places. They need indexes for quick searching and matching information from location A to location B. When it comes to having complex information structures or just a lot of information having a flat file that needs parsing just is not going to do the trick.
Danger Will Robinson Danger.
All standards that people seem to be coming up with these days, not only for workflow but everywhere else seem to have an XML basis. XML is easy to understand and you can store any kind of hierarchical data in it very nicely. You can also store normalised data in it. The problems arrive from the performance issues of trying to retrieve information from the data. The current technologies are pretty slow. Without some sort of indexing mechanism they will continue to be slow. If such an indexing mechanism is built we congratulations you pretty much built a database system.
The second problem I have with XML is the high sugar content. Syntactic sugar of course. A while ago I worked with a program where logic rules were written in XML and maybe it damaged me psychologically. Consider the following VB code
If a > b then c
In the xml language it translated to
<if>
<comparison type=”>”>
<firstvalue>a</firstvalue>
<secondvalue>b</secondvalue>
</comparison>
<then>c</then>
</if>
So instead of 15 characters I now had to type 110. Now this language may now have been al that well thought out but any kind of XML based language where you have to perform some kind of logic is going to be a little too sweet for my taste buds.
My third problem with the current standards is that there are so many. How many standards can you have being used before all of them can no longer be called a standard? There are also many new ‘standards’ on the way. Oh Tim Berners-Lee where art thou?
So now that I have rambled seemingly aimlessly for a few paragraphs perhaps I should share with you the point I am trying to make for this article. My point is this: is there a better option for an underlying technology for creating standards for all the things in which we are starting to use XML in regards to workflow. (I don’t really have any suggestions btw). The technologies like BPEL and wf-XML etc could be good for exchanging information between other compliant systems but I don’t think they should be built upon for doing the grunt work in large multi-workflow implementations.
PS If you feel that I am wrong or just plain delusional feel free to post a comment.
Christopher Koch writes an interesting article about SOA and BPM, and I think I will weigh in on this debate.
The Koch Article
In short it is about the disconnect between IT and the commercial side of a business. It argues that in workflow/BPM business has found its champion to bridge the business/IT divide while IT wants to use SOA to fill the gap.
Well there are a few comments I would like to make on this article.
First BPM is a Service Oriented Architecture in a sense. It is just that it is not as open and available as most SOA. BPM/workflow products can act as services and they are part of architecture.
Second (and let me point out I am in IT and geek blood pumps through me veins) is to never let IT be the guide. IT will create the most amazing technically challenging things that will be of not value to the business.
To read the referenced article in its entirety (and it is a interesting way to spend a couple of minutes) visit.
http://blogs.cio.com/node/310
Now that is under state-ing it.
A lot of BPM/Workflow systems use a state to provide some information to the user as to where a workflow instance is at. Other systems rely on this state as a key piece of information to keep control of where a workflow is at.
This may be less then a good idea. The reason only becomes apparent when many tasks within one workflow instance can be worked on in parallel. Lets pick an example where there is only one task in each of these 3 parallel lines of control. Each of these steps is either completed or not completed. Therefore there are 8 possible states. Having a process that has 8 different states is already at the limit.
Now consider there are 5 parallel lines of control. In each of these paths there are 3 tasks which need to be completed and are done some in a series. So in each path there are 4 states no tasks completed, 1 task completed, 2 tasks completed and 3 tasks completed. Because we have 5 parallel lines of control we have 4 to the 5th possible states or 1024 states. And having this many parallel lines of control is not by any means extreme.
All I can say is be weary of any kind of workflow system that is overly reliant on a state concept for tracking the progress of a workflow instance because it can leave you in a very sad state.
A workflow by any other name
In an interesting article http://kswenson.wordpress.com/2006/05/06/workflow-is-back/ K Swenson write about the changing of the word workflow into BPM over time and how the term workflow has gone out of favour. In fact if you look at Google trends the searches for the words workflow has gone down a few percent over the last few years. (Although the news items containing workflow seem to have doubled). Is this the end for workflow as a technology? As a name? Well neither.
Workflow as a Technology
I read via Gartner that workflow is still expected to increase in the 5-10% range over the next few years. Although referred to workflow systems as Business Process Management Suites by Gartner. Also an increasing number of companies have recognized that they need to invest in workflow systems.
Workflow as a Name
People are starting to use many other terms in place of workflow: such as Business Process Management, Enterprise Application Integration, Service Orchestration Architecture. That is the way of people that work with computers. We love a good acronym. The marketing people also love a good acronym. It can make their products sound better. Instead of a workflow systems why not have a Business Process Management Application Integration Service Oriented Uber-Mega Platform. Well there is one group that is less swayed by all the fancy talk. The people who buy workflow systems. Most after initial investigation realize that all these other systems are workflow but just using another name and from my experience they just want it to be called workflow.
Some lesser known motives for purchasing workflow
There are a lot of different reasons why people purchase workflow systems. Generally they break down into a few major categories: To reduce costs, to provide better service to their customers, or regulatory requirements.
To Reduce Costs:
When you automate a process or maximize the use of resources you start to save money, and that is generally where most of the savings can occur. However often money is saved because workflow systems can be easier to understand then traditional systems and less training and knowledge is required. This helps you save money because if you have high staff turn over you are saving on training costs. Costs can also be saved by centralizing information into one place with one common data access paradigm so that users always know the right place to look for something, thus saving further time. Mobility can also save you money if you have a web based workflow system.
To provide better customer service:
With a web based workflow system you can offer your clients better real-time reporting on various things like: How their orders are progressing or how much they have spent with you this quarter. As such they will also spend less time calling you time find out how things are going and this can save you many man hours.
Other motives:
Some people want a new toy. OK this may be the worst reason to purchase workflow software but that is not to say it doesn't happen.
Some people just want a tool to model their processes so they can see what is going.
Some people buy because their competitors have bought something. Again maybe not the best reason.
Reporting on workflow throughput can give management better information and guide them towards better decisions.
Can allow for greater collaboration especially if it is web based.
Workflow Wikipedia Style
I have an idea. It may be a good idea and it may be a very bad idea. To quote spinal tap - "such a fine line between stupid and clever". What if most of the way in which a company operates was based around a series of workflow applications that used a single workflow suite. Now what if you decided to give everyone within the company access to create, modify and delete workflow templates? Would this be a good idea?
Consider Wikipedia.
Anyone can access it. Anyone can modify the information. It seems to be a well-spring of information the vast majority of which is correct.
The benefits could be immense.
The Company would adapt quickly to change. Also if anything happened outside the scope of the workflow the workflow could be quickly adapted so that all information is held together. There would be no alternative flows because these could easily be catered for in the new system.In short the company would be making its IT systems incrementally better on a daily basis.
The Risks are enormous
Imagine coming into work one day and some or even all of your core systems do not work. The problem is many workflows may reference different aspects of many other workflows or systems and changing one could adversely affect many others. What if changing a workflow sends the wrong information to clients.
What would be required at minimum
Some great things about Wikipedia is that it tracks who made changes, when and why. It also allows you to easily rollback information to a previous version. These would be absolute requirements for free for all workflow development environment.
The Workflow Design Studio would need to be as easy to use as something like Wikipedia.
The Workflow Design Studio would need to tell you if you change something what else might be affected.
The Design studio would need to be web based for larger dispersed organizations.
The Design studio would need to ensure that information is not lost when workflow templates are altered.I think some day some small company will try this.
They will either be very successful or will never want to speak of it in public.
When is a Workflow System not a Workflow System
A while ago a friend of mine was talking about the workflow capabilities of a data capture system he was working on. He said that it managed the flow of information from step A to B to C and then repeated steps B and C until C was deemed correct in which case the workflow instance ended. He believed that he had a workflow system.
Well he was wrong but he was not alone. A lot of people think they have workflow systems because in some small component of their system it manages the flow of information or tasks.
So what makes a Workflow System something different from a System that merely has workflow capabilities?
Well Workflow or BPM systems by their nature can be reconfigured at the drop of a hat so in my friend’s case he could add a step D without ever having to touch a line of code. In addition workflow systems were not designed for one process or a set of processes or an industry or a particular problem or set of problems. Instead workflow systems were created with the idea of a continually evolving set of requirements and continually increasing efficiency, automation and reach.
BTW I am trying to compile a list of quotes from famous or semi-famous people where the quotes in some fashion promote a workflow and workflow software in someway. For instance "The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order." - Alfred North Whitehead
If you have any quotes could you please post them as a comment.
Workflow Trends
For those of you who don't know I live in Australia. As such the trends in Australia with respect to workflow and BPM are behind parts of the world and ahead of other parts of the world. In this little post I will be discussing the workflow trends I am seeing from here in Australia and this may not reflect other places.
First from what I can tell more and more businesses are adopting workflow although government is still a little behind. I think that in Australia we are still at the early adopter phase. As for its growth it is a bit hard to tell. I can look at our websites and say that we increase on average by 10% a month but this doesn't mean that the demand is growing by 10% a month (although that would be nice).
Another aspect is that smaller companies are realizing that workflow is becoming more of an issue.
Finally the reasons for purchase are a little different. It used to be all about cost savings, and while the is still a large part of it the trend is more towards risk mitigation. Even on the other side of the world Enron has made waves. Increased regulations and reporting now seem to be major reasons for investing in workflow.
A little workflow poetry
When I started this little blog I wanted it to be both fun and informative. Well I can't for certain say it has been informative to everyone who has read it. So hopefully this next post will add a little fun.
A workflow haiku
Like a flower grow
with all the power to know
just add some workflow
Poetry attempt number 2
Is your staff working in the blind?
Do feel somehow misaligned?
Do your systems have creaky joints,
and far to many chokepoints?
Are things slower then they should be?
Is data not stored centrally?
Is your data safe from attacks?
Are things falling through the cracks?
A simple answer is what you need
and you will find sucess shall breed.
If not much separates you and them.
You just need some BPM.
OK so it wasn't that good but hey nothing rhymes with workflow.
Workflow and Human Resources
I am a little too busy to write a blog entry this week so I have asked an associate of mine to write one for me. In her article she is drawing on the experienced gained from using a workflow management system in the HR arena.
Human Resource processes cover the entire business, whether you are discussing Travel or Leave Requests or even the task of hiring a new Employee. For every HR process, there is a series of activities that involve other people, managers and staff from at least one other department within the company.
Workflow Management or BPM can automate any HR process where people, systems and businesses interact. It calls upon the appropriate tools and supplies necessary information, business rules, check lists, task lists and reports to the Employee.
A HR process may require interaction from many departments. Therefore, HR processes are well suited for automation because typically these processes are paper based, manual and prone to error and delay.
Employing a workflow management system to automate high throughput, repetitive processes, such as Performance Reviews, can have a profound effect on every aspect of the process. For example, when the Performance Review process is automatically started each month, it can check to see which Employees need to be reviewed and creates an instance of that process in the appropriate Employee and Managers task list for action.
The steps may then follow as such:
The Employee completes their part of the Performance Review
The Manager is then alerted that the Employee has completed their part and the Manager reviews the Employees responses
The Manager and the Employee meet and discuss the results
The Manager may then enter the details of the discussion with the Employee
The Manager marks the review as complete and forwards either to their Manager or to HR
Business Rules are placed throughout each activity or step in the process to ensure that data is entered correctly and escalations occur if any of the steps are delayed unnecessarily
Everyone in the process is notified of the completed process
The results of the review can then be exported to the companies Payroll system if required
Using workflow management to automate these types of process streamlines operations by reducing the data entry to key people; thereby reducing errors. Automated steps do away with many of the Employees most mundane tasks, leaving them time to focus their energy on their jobs. A business process is structured so each instance is managed according to the same business rules, every time. This consistency provides stability in the business and predictability for Employees.
– Anna Fogarty
Kaizen
The driver behind workflow has been around for a long time. It is only recently that the technologies on which most workflow systems are based have enabled vendors to create quality workflow management systems. So what was the original driver for workflow. One word Kaizen.
Kaizen is the Japanese term for improvement; continuing improvement involving everyone: managers and workers. In manufacturing, kaizen relates to finding and eliminating waste in machinery, labour, or production methods. Also see: Continuous Process Improvement (definition taken from schools.cbe.ab.ca/logistics/k.html)
Workflow Management Systems are not about taking an As-Is process and creating something better. They are about taking a process and providing it with a framework so that is the process is easier to improve over time.
Kaizen originated at Toyota and I have read and heard several comments with how the concept of continuous improvement is what has lead them to become the worlds largest automaker. Well I am no expert in Kaizen but I do believe that that organizations that seek to continuously improve stand a much better chance survival.
For more information on Toyota and Kaizen you can check out the flash heavy website at http://www.planetkaizen.com
Philosophy of Workflow
I wrote this several years ago for the kind of system that I wanted Kontinuum to be and has grown into today. I am including it in the blog because it may be of some interest and it is a slow news day.
Web and Flo Kontinuum Philosophy
1) All data is best held in a database where ever possible.
a. Within a database data is structured
b. Within a database data is easily searched
c. Within a database data is easily manipulated
d. Data within the database should be in Boyce-Codd Normal Form.
2) All Functionality should be extensible by third parties
a. How users answer questions (Answer Box Types)
b. What functions can be performed by Gates/Activities
c. How answers grouped together can be represented to the user and stored in a table (Sub Form Types)
d. Input Masks
e. Template Files for Drawing outline HTML
f. Style Sheets
3) Kontinuum must be able to be customized to fit any business process
a. Configurable and Embeddable Workflows (For any circuit/Petri Net you can design you can design a Kontinuum Workflow)
b. Configurable Forms
c. Configurable User Management and Organization Structure
4) Admin users need absolute control over who can view/edit/delete/add anything in the system based on any criteria
5) Users should not have to enter in the same information more then once
6) Every new version of Kontinuum will have increased functionality
7) Every new version of Kontinuum will run faster then the previous version
8) Every new version of Kontinuum will aim to reduce the new of clicks necessary for navigation, and creation of records
9) Every new version of Kontinuum will allow the end user greater ability to customize their own user experience
10) Every new version of Kontinuum will operate on more platforms/browsers then the previous version
11) Every new Version on Kontinuum will interact with a greater number of industry standard applications.
As a side note looking back we appear to have delivered on all of the goals we set out on, although I am sure that luck must have played a part somewhere along the line. To this list I should have added:
12) Every new version will be backwards compatible
13) Every new version will provide greater ROI for our clients
14) Every new version will look better then the previous version
15) Every new version will have a higher version number then the previous version
How to Model a Process Part Two
First off sorry that it has taken me a little bit longer then expected to come up with part two. Let's begin shall we.
HUMAN DATA CAPTURE GATE
At each step in the process or workflow you need to determine what information is collected, displayed, allowed to be modified, validation rules, business rules the list is a bit long.
Let's start at the smallest unit at least in our system, the question.
You need to determine a lot about a question and its corresponding answer. At a minimum you need to determine:
What it should look like
Where it should appear on the page
Is this question repeated
How should it be stored in a database
Where should it be stored in a database
How does it behave / business rules
Does it react to answers supplied to other questions
Does is have default or automatically calculated values
Does it have a list of static or dynamic options available as answers
Who gets to see, edit the answer
Once you have determined all the questions being asked you need to group them together so they can be stored in the database in a logical way.
Here you need to determine if the groups of questions you are asking are answered only once, an indeterminate amount, a determinate amount. This contributes to how you should layout the group of questions on the form.
You may also need to determine if logically one group of questions can be considered as having a parent-child relationship with another group of questions.
AUTOMATIC DATA MANIPULATION GATES
In other steps of the process you may need some sort of data manipulation to happen. I.e. data is translated from one system to another and back again. The main things you need to be asking yourself are:
For each column (or field) what is it, how is it stored, does it need to be parsed in some way and where is it going.
For each row (or record) does it need to be broken into multiple records in the new system or do multiple rows or records need to be combined in some way into the new system.
INFORMATION DISPLAY GATES
In these types of gates where information is displayed or sent to users the questions you need answered are simply:
What do you want to see
How do you want it presented (layout, color etc)
Who do you want to see it
When do you want them to see it
By which method (email, webpage) do you want it presented
New Version of Kontinuum
We are just releasing our new version of Kontinuum. It has plenty of goodies for 2006.
First it has what we call the workflow modeller. We have always been able to model our processes but the modeller is something a bit different. It is a workflow that assists you in asking questions so that you can save time modelling exists work practices. Once you are done you hit a magic button and it creates a framework for an as is and a to be model. You then simply add what questions you want asked at each of the steps and voila an instant workflow application you can enjoy with the whole family.
Next there are hierarchical records. Some of you may be using access or some other type of technology where you fill in a master record and you can hit a little expand button and then you can fill several child records. You can also click on a collapse button which hides all the child, grandchild records. When would you use this? Well, say for instance I have a form that asks me for information for a country. I also want to be able to fill out information for each of those states, provinces, counties or regions within that country. For each of the major cities within those states I want to fill in other information and for each of those cities I want to fill in information about the suburb. Effectively I want to capture one to many to many to many type information within the single form. With the new version you can set up these forms and the database to store the information within a matter for minutes….minutes I tell you.
The new version is also a little more drag and droppy. Laying out forms and workflow is just a little bit easier.
We have also added in a very pretty charting component. Actually it is a third party charting component but we added in a interface so you can design your pretty charts over the web.
As always we have added to our library of gates and form widgets.
So far all our clients that we have upgraded have been fairly enamoured with it. Hopefully we can have some screen shots up on the web soon.
Do you spend too much time dealing with workflow.
Top 5 indications you spend to many hours dealing with workflow
1) You try to type words like ‘flower’ and ‘workplace’ and end up typing ‘workflow’.
2) You find yourself terms like ‘continuity’,'Process Instance’ and ‘workitem’ like in casual conversation.
3) When you need to cook you find yourself trying to automate as many steps as possible.
4) You say something stupid and wish you had designed your reality to have a rollback function.
5) You find yourself reading this list.
How to Model a process Part One
There are a range of questions I need to ask in order for me to effectively model a current workflow process.
I won’t go into all of the different methodologies but will just briefly tell you of one of the two methodologies we use. This methodology was specifically developed by us to do our requirements gathering for implementing workflow applications. As such we made it into a workflow application that guides us through the steps to create a requirements specification and an AS IS workflow diagram(s)
Question 1
What am I trying to do?
What is the commercial driver for putting in this workflow system?
Question 2
Who am I trying to make happy?
Question 3
What do I want to be able to show at the end? Most people have some idea of the must have or nice to haves of what they want from their system. Also if they have any reports or example reports that they want the system to produce look at these almost immediately.
This will tell you the minimum amount of information the system will need to collect in order for you to deliver the report.
Question 4
What are the end points of the workflow/process i.e. when does the process terminate?
Remember an end point is a high level goal and this most be looked at key to the systems success.
Question 5
What is the step or steps immediately preceding the endpoint(s)? Our philosophy is working from the back (i.e. the goals) to the front. This allows us to better capture all the steps. People who work from beginning to end sometimes skip steps whereas if they are asked what must immediately follow step a they are less likely to leave things out.
*Please note that we define a step as a placeholder where ONE person or ONE machine is able to supply all the information required for that step to be completed at a single point in time.
**A step is also often referred to as an activity.
Question 6
Are there any rules under which a step is omitted?
Answering all these questions allows us to create a workflow diagram (in the application I mentioned above the diagram is actually created for us)
but we still need to find out what information is displayed, created, updated at each of the steps. I will get into that in my next blog entry.
In Part Two, of this discussion I plan to go into more depth about understanding what is going on in the current process.
In Part Three, I will examine what questions you should be asking to take your current workflow and determine what steps can be:
1) eliminated
2) automated
3) done in parallel
4) divided into multiple steps
5) combined into single steps
6) outsourced
7) assigned business rules for escalations
Neural Workflow
A brief discourse on a new workflow software paradigm.
I am often asked “why should I use workflow software?” To which I often retort “why use software in the first place?” We use computer systems to make life easier for ourselves, but at a more basic level we use them to replace ourselves. Computers have moved away from being calculators into the realm of worker surrogates. In short as systems become more and more complex and are required to replace more and more human tasks they need to behave more and more like humans. To extrapolate further their brains need to work like our brains, hence neural workflow.
Traditional systems are process oriented. They behave like circuits. They have AND Gates, OR Gates decision points etc. A workflow instance is started and a process is followed until that instance comes to some sort of resolution. This is not how people work and ultimately not how highly optimised organisations should work. When we have an idea to do something we usually start with a strategy to come to a resolution. In following the strategy we are often required to complete several unexpected sub-strategies to come to the resolution. We also may need to re-evaluate our strategy entirely and adapt the strategy for the next time we need to employ it.
Take the example of a help desk request. A request comes in and we think we have sent it to the right place for a resolution. If we have not we need to re-evaluate the process come up with some new strategies then trial those strategies over time to find the ones that best solve the different requests we may get. These new strategies may also need to be approved by others within an organisation and thus we may want to create a whole range of different types of activities resulting from this one initial support request.
Traditional workflow systems would have considerable trouble with these types of problems.
Enter Neural Workflow….
Unlike the source and sink model of traditional workflow systems a neural workflow system is set up in a neural network like our brains. Events can trigger signals from all over our brain these events then give rise to strategies for resolutions, over time our brain modifies itself to adopt the strategies it has found to most successfully resolve situations. Employing a neural workflow system could allow an organisation to function like one large brain with the benefits there of.
Neural Workflow requires several key points of functionality. First the system needs to easily adapt over time. Second the system needs to have the ability to score success and failure. Third the system needs to be able to trigger any activity based on the results of any previous activity. Finally the system needs to provide high visibility so tracking of all the different tasks and flows is easily understood.
Show me the Money….
A neural workflow system is superior to a traditional workflow system in that it provides a method of perpetual efficiency improvements or to put it another way it provides a cost saving continuum.
Windows Workflow Foundation
I recently went to go and see a presentation on Microsoft Workflow Foundation. They are coming out with a workflow engine at some point and I was going along to see if they had any good ideas for Kontinuum.
As Workflow Foundation is just a set of DLLs and programming interfaces i.e. it is just an engine I did not feel that it would compete in the same space as Kontinuum.
The guy presenting Workflow Foundation was about 5 minutes into his presentation (btw he couldn’t actually demo the beta do to some sort of error) but he told us that Workflow Foundation can only handle two types of workflow sequential and non-sequential. This means it can only do A->B->C or you can do A, B or C at any time. In all the workflow systems I have been involved with maybe only 20% fit into these two categories. The vast majority have other things happen in them that control behaviour.
1) Most have decisions i.e. if A is done due B or C depending on some result from A.
2) Most have some points that are combinations of sequential and non-sequential i.e. once A is done you can do B or C, but you can not do D until both b and c have been completed.
3) Some have loop back mechanisms i.e. continue to do instances of B until some condition is met
4) Some spawn 1 or more sub workflows
and those are just the bare bones basics….
Editors Note: Apparrently the above paragraph is not correct however I am leaving it in here as some of the comments that follow refer to this paragraph
I am not sure where Microsoft is going with workflow foundation. I suppose it is just meant for extremely simple single user workflows that are designed by people just getting comfortable with web browsers, but if that is the case then why is there only a programming interface. My main gripe however is the acronym WWF. Which in my mind is either the World Wrestling Federation or the World Wildlife Fund. The WWF acronym is overcrowded already.
Editors Note: It appears that since I posted this article Windows Workflow Foundation is now being abbreviated as just WF. Although if you query google on “Windows Workflow Foundation” or “Workflow Foundation” you get pretty much the same number of hits.
What are the best things to put into workflow systems?
Well there is no tried and true scoring sheet for determining what are the best things to convert into workflow applications
However here are some guidelines as to the types of applications that will provide the highest return on investment.
1) Throughput - how many times is this process used per month.
2) Escalations - What effect does missing a deadline on one of the activities have for your organisation.
3) Number of Steps - the more steps the more it lends itself to a workflow application.
4) Number of disparate systems currently needed - a workflow application should eliminate the users’ experience of dealing with information over more that one interface.
5) Staff Turnover - Workflow Systems (at least Kontinuum) provides a more straight forward learning experience as people see how the process works, these means there is less down time for new employees to get up to speed.
6) Management Reporting - How important is it for management to see at what stage everything is at.
7) Data Integrity - What is the current state of data integrity.
8) Security - Is the data secure from: malicious users, the departure of key personnel.
Those are just some of the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I am sure I will be adding to this list as the weblog progresses.
Workflow weblog
Hi my name is Craig Cameron and I am the workflow strategist for a workflow vendor . I have started this blog for a few reasons. One is to provide a resource for some of the latest goings on in workflow. Another is to educate converts and skeptics on the kinds of benefits that workflow can bring. Finally and perhaps most challenging I aim to show the more humorous side of workflow. In real life I am an avid in-line hockey player and live in Melbourne Australia.
Can you establish an overflow mechanism?