It has been a long time since I have written anything but I have been really busy.? If anyone is interested I was just in CIO magazine in an article about workflow.? If you would like to read it you can visit: http://www.cio.com/article/148309/Making_Workflow_Work_and_Flow_for_You/1

Enjoy and happy 2008

In the following article a couple of guys discuss their reasons behind their view that Workflow and BPM are different.

http://www.transformmag.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=16400140

I disagree with many of there arguments.

Nathaniel Palmer writes:

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.