The Difference between Workflow and BPR

1 1 Page 1 Keith Swenson,The Difference between Workflow and BPR Copyright 1995, Fujitsu OSSIFew things have recently been hyped more than Business ProcessReengineering (BPR). Reengineering the Corporation by Hammer andChampy has by far outsold any other book on management practice. BPR isboth much talked about, and much misunderstood, but nevertheless asignificant trend is quite possibly the fastest growing software market today, havingtripled in size for two years in a row. In such an expanding market there isbound to be a lot of differences between the products, as well as BPR and Workflow deal with processes, so it is natural to assume thatworkflow might be the perfect tool for implementing BPR, especially if youbelieve much of the Workflow marketing literature. While Workflow has a lotto offer, it also has a lot of technical limitations.

2 It will work well for someorganizations, in some cases, but it might fail to offer any benefit in session will cover the ways that Workflow can be used to support a BPReffort, what kinds of organizations will best fit this effort, and what kinds oftasks should not be implemented on Workflow at this is, after all, a lot of Difference between Workflow and DifferenceBetweenWorkflow and BPRK eith SwensonChief Architect, GroupwareFujitsu OSSI2 Page 2 Keith Swenson,The Difference between Workflow and BPR Copyright 1995, Fujitsu OSSIThe first section will allow us to step back from the bits and bytes of computertechnology to afford us perspective on the problem that we are really trying tosolve: how can computers help people work more effectively can help dispell a lot of myths about how organizations second section will give an overview of BPR, and at the same time try tocut through all the hype that normally surrounds is a rapidly changing technology.

3 Section 3 will cover the featuresthat you can now expect to see in Workflow , especially with respect to theneeds of organizational issues with Workflow will center around workflowsystem interoperability. This sections will go into a little more technical detailabout standards activities of the Workflow Management 5 then examines how Workflow helps in the BPR process, but moreimportantly, where it falls , what would a tool that is designed especially for BPR do for evaluating tools to support BPR, look for these tutorial is structured in this manner to allow you flexibility to optimizeyour time. I will work hard to stay on schedule, so that you can step out if youchoose during sections that you are already very familiar Schedule9:009:3010:0010:3011:0011:3012:0 0 Work, Organizations, CoordinationBusiness Process ReengineeringWorkflow State of the ArtWorkflow StandardizationApplying Workflow to BPRThe Future of Workflow1234563 Page 3 Keith Swenson,The Difference between Workflow and BPR Copyright 1995, Fujitsu OSSIPart 1 covers the big picture: What are the goals of Workflow and BPR?

4 Why are we automating work? What makes white collar work different from blue collar work? What are the difficulties, and why?Work,Organizations, andCoordinationPart 14 Page 4 Keith Swenson,The Difference between Workflow and BPR Copyright 1995, Fujitsu OSSIW orkflow systems and office information systems are designed primarily bycomputer scientists. When asked what is needed to support groupcoordination, the answers from this group reflect the kinds of things that theyare familiar with. Recommendations for distributed databases, and transaction processing, and messaging are bulk of experience in computer science comes from learning how tocontrol machines and data files of various sorts. It is quite dangerous toassume that one can control office work being done by humans in the practicing BPR are asked to take a fresh look at the problem, and not tosimply automate existing procedures.

5 Similarly, the design of groupwareshould not simply be a matter of gluing existing individual productivity toolstogether. Let us start with a fresh look at how organizations work, what theneeds of individuals are within organizations, and what they need in order tocoordinate their is a new field. We need to think outside of the and NailsWhen all you have is ahammer, many problemsstart to look like 5 Keith Swenson,The Difference between Workflow and BPR Copyright 1995, Fujitsu OSSIThe people in an office are a team. Actually, they are each part of many teamswhich overlap with each other. The members of a team have common goalsthat they need to accomplish. Team members will perform activities toachieve those goals in a concerted tricky part of this is achieving the coordination. Good coordination isinvisible. It is only the lack of coordination that becomes obvious for all way to achieve coordination is to ridgidly define the jobs.

6 Another way isto appoint a leader who makes coordination decisions for the group. A third,much rarer, possibility is a self managed team. Most real world teams employa combination of all three methods. In spite of these methods for coordination,the bulk of the day-to-day decisions are made by individuals alone. Thesedecisions are so natural and second nature that we simply call it commonsense. It is at the level of common sense that Workflow modelling gets difficult andcomplicated. For common sense to work, individuals often need hints andcues that are not accounted for in simplistic process implementations. Theworkplace involves a lot of rich communications which are so natural to usethat we may not be aware of is Work?Not the activities of individuals, but:Team EffortGoalsCoordinationCoordination is only visible when it is 6 Keith Swenson,The Difference between Workflow and BPR Copyright 1995, Fujitsu OSSIWhen a person approaches a job, assuming that they have the skill to do thejob, they might ask these questions to coordinate their activities with first two are obvious questions about the work.

7 The rest of the questionsat first seem superfluous, because in normal work situations they are rarelyexplicitly expressed. But knowledge of the plan is critical to the quality of thework being QuestionsWhat needs to be done now?What are the supporting materials? Who wants it done?What are the options at this point?What will happen after this?What has led up to this point?Who else is involved?7 Page 7 Keith Swenson,The Difference between Workflow and BPR Copyright 1995, Fujitsu OSSIWhen a person approaches a job, assuming that they have the skill to do thejob, they might ask these questions to coordinate their activities with first two are obvious questions about the work. The rest of the questionsat first seem superfluous, because in normal work situations they are rarelyexplicitly expressed. But knowledge of the plan is critical to the quality of thework being QuestionsWhat needs to be done now?

8 What are the supporting materials? Who wants it done?What are the options at this point?What will happen after this?What has led up to this point?Who else is involved?PlansWork8 Page 8 Keith Swenson,The Difference between Workflow and BPR Copyright 1995, Fujitsu OSSID iscussions of work and BPR need to center on discussions of plans. Thestandard Workflow term for a plan is a Process Definition. A plan is an expression of what is happening; it is more like a document than aprogram. The plan is designed to be read by humans, as a vehicle to explainwhat the process is. In Regatta, it is also used to enact the process and togenerate task lists for are the key that allow coordination, understanding, and change Help Model WorkExpression of future possible who might do those :Communicates current a list of past 9 Keith Swenson,The Difference between Workflow and BPR Copyright 1995, Fujitsu OSSIWhy Model Work?

9 Automating work on a computer requires amodel for how that work is ability for a system to support workdepends on how well that model matches theactual work being answer the question of whether workflowcan support BPR, we need to compare theworkflow model of work, with the BPR 10 Keith Swenson,The Difference between Workflow and BPR Copyright 1995, Fujitsu OSSIMany existing Workflow systems are based on the assumptions that peoplework mainly individually, all work gets done on a document, and thatdocument is passed from person to person with minimal Workflow systems are merely extensions of capabilities that the computersystems had already provided. For example, if the system handles documentswell, the simple addition of routing this document from person to person isadded and called need to start at a more fundamental point: What is work?

10 How dopeople coordinate their actions on a day-to-day basis?Is This How Work Gets Done?11 Page 11 Keith Swenson,The Difference between Workflow and BPR Copyright 1995, Fujitsu OSSIMost work looks more like this. The point is that there are multipleconversations going on. People can overhear others and are aware of whatothers are doing - even if not materially involved in the conversations can be about documents (or other artifacts), but thedocuments are not even required, and in any case not necessarily the center view of work is fundamentally different from that of the last page. Cansuch a picture of work be supported?Or is Work Like This?12 Page 12 Keith Swenson,The Difference between Workflow and BPR Copyright 1995, Fujitsu OSSIO ffice Work is SituatedMany of our daily activities lack the rigorousrepeatability required for a predefinedprocess, yet have elements of is seen as a collection of activities,some of which are enabled at the on activities as a universal of factory work has been fairly successful.