CLEANING THE AIR ABOUT WORKFLOW: WHAT'S FACT AND WHAT'S FICTION

You'd think workflow would be well understood stuff by now. Wrong. There's just as much confusion surrounding this key technology as ever. Watch a half-dozen workflow myths debunked.

When I wrote The Workflow Imperative four years ago, the workflow tools and technologies markets were just emerging. There were less than 20 vendors selling workflow. Even the most ardent workflow proponents had barely graduated out of the imaging paradigm. The technology craze was imaging and the business craze was reengineering.

Four years later, imaging has become an intrinsic part of the operating system. Reengineering has fallen out of favor and workflow has nearly lost its meaning, becoming the standard metaphor for process improvement.

Even so, workflow is still surrounded by hype. Worse, it's caught up in the maelstrom of activity generated by the evolution of desktop computing, groupware, the Internet and the trend towards applications devolution -- just look at the rise of Java and applet technology. Separating the workflow chaff from the wheat is still as important as ever.

Let's start by debunking the myths that surround this important but often misunderstood technology.

MYTH 1: Workflow ties the entire enterprise together. In its ideal form, workflow is the greatest unifier of processes and people. The problem with today's workflow products is that they take different approaches to everything. This includes platform support, DBMS, definition language and graphical mapping tools.

As workflow horizontally infiltrates the enterprise, it needs to undergo an even greater metamorphosis, transforming into a fundamental building block of information systems. This transformation requires developments to strengthen workflow's integration with desktop environments. Until workflow finds its way into the operating system, it may be impossible to create true enterprise workflow systems without using a single proprietary product.

The situation isn't hopeless. The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) is moving along at a good pace. Still, interoperability is a long way off. Even when it arrives, it will be one thing to have multiple products that talk to each other and quite another to have a single cohesive architecture for an entire enterprise.

MYTH 2: Workflow can model and simulate the entire enterprise. If you're an analyst or a consultant, stop laughing. Enterprise modeling is done in textbooks and in the daydreams of reengineering gurus. (Try to model the interactions of 50 people and you'll see why.) This isn't simply a technology issue. Most workflow products can't simulate workflow procedures before they're implemented. Even if they could, there's little demand for simulation.

Simulation requires benchmarks and precise measures to get reliable results. Although these measures may exist in the factory, the critical mass of workflow isn't yet able to provide these for the office. Process redesign must become more of a science before workflow technology can support it.

It took factories a 100 years to quantify their processes (from the late 1700s to the late 1800s). Since computing is only 50 years old, we need at least a few more years to reach the same state of precision in the front office. (And given the more fluid nature of mental versus physical labor, we may never fully achieve it.)

MYTH 3: Workflow is ubiquitous. This may be the first myth that becomes a reality. Nonetheless, it's something to consider seriously. Today, workflow imposes a fair degree of its own desktop in the form of inboxes, forms, work lists and a proprietary desktop GUI (graphical user interface). There's no doubt that there will be significant developments to assimilate workflow into operating systems.

Ultimately, this will lead to workflow being included in desktop environments like Microsoft's Exchange and Lotus Notes. Notes is the introduction to workflow for many workgroups. This will become more evident with Notes Version 4, as Lotus attempts to create a dominant desktop environment. But it's not going to happen overnight. This means you need to decide how much of your desktop will belong to the workflow system.

The most dramatic shift will occur in the next two years as workflow becomes the enabling technology for business process automation. When workflow reaches this point, it will have become the most ubiquitous of all technologies -- an icon on the desktop. These icons, or agents, will do many of the tasks now done by office workers. Using knowledge accumulated through business process analysis and simulation, these simple icons may become the most valuable information asset of any enterprise.

MYTH 4: Document management and workflow are one. The lines between workflow and document management are blurring. These lines will continue to blur as vendors cross-pollinate both technologies. There are now two product types: workflow engines for document management, and document management environments with workflow. While the issues and challenges facing both technologies and user groups are different, the technologies do intersect.

However, best-of-breed workflow and document management products come from vendors with core competencies in each area. That's the simple truth. That's why FileNet (Costa Mesa, CA 714-966-3400) acquired Saros (Bellevue, WA 206-646-1066), a best-of-breed document management vendor, for perhaps the most noteworthy blending of workflow and document management. Saros' Mezzanine and Document Manager product lines offer FileNet industry-leading document management technology. Saros has been a first-choice integration partner for other workflow vendors seeking document functionality, including Wang. But the key for FileNet is how well it can integrate Saros' technology into its Visual WorkFlo product line.

There are other examples of partnerships between workflow and document management vendors. Products such as Reach's (Sunnyvale, CA 408-733-8685) Route&Track and Action Technologies' (Alameda, CA 510-521-6190) DocRoute provide plug-and-play workflow preconfigured for document management applications, such as those from PC DOCS and SoftSolutions. These workflow engines are a subset of their parent applications' functionality. They're marketed directly to document management vendors, rather than end users.

Products such as Keyfile Corporation's (Nashua, NH 603-883-3800) Keyfile and Portfolio's (Newark, CA 510-226-5600) Office.IQ provide low- to mid-range workflow functionality with minimal document management capabilities. The emphasis has been on workflow instead of true document management. Recently, Keyfile enhanced their product to support Unix and Windows NT servers, icon-based workflow definition and enhanced library functions such as versioning and check-in/check-out. This puts Keyfile ahead of vendors who claim document management but are limited to the scanning and viewing of images. Further moves by Keyfile into Microsoft Exchange's world may be what Keyfile needs to continue as a market player.

MYTH 5: Workflow will be replaced by the World Wide Web. No information technology has captured more attention recently than the World Wide Web. The hype has eclipsed and threatened virtually every technology, from desktop operating systems to the telephone. The facts are less radical. The Web actually enhances and promotes other technologies like workflow in ways we never imagined.

Workflow vendors are scrambling to release Web-based products. Edify (Santa Clara, CA 408-982-2000) is one of the first to do so successfully. Their Electronic Workforce is an information agent-based workflow system which previously used the telephone, vis-a-vis IVR (Interactive Voice Response), as its only user interface. Electronic Workforce users can now supplement telephone-based appli- cations with Web access.

The typical Electronic Workforce installation is a customer service application, with IVR technology replacing a live call center. These applications are particularly well suited for Web-based interaction. Customers pick and choose from a visual options menu instead of having to listen to a complete audio message.

Action Technologies released Workflow for the Web. Like Edify's product, they're targeting customer service applications. Action's Metro Web-based product is bundled with the ActionWorkflow system. This comes with 20 preconfigured workflow applications, including personal action items, customer service, sales and marketing, human resources, finance, accounting and engineering. They can be used "as is" or modified with an HTML editor.

Action and Edify's technology incorporates Web-based interaction into the workflow process. With these products, the HTML browser (including Netscape's Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer) is the user's sole window to the process.

Several other products use the Web as another way to view documents. Feith Systems and Software's WebFDD and Blueridge Technologies' OptixWeb are two examples of this. By mid-1996, the majority of workflow solutions will have this level of Web functionality.

MYTH 6: Workflow will remain what it has been -- a monolithic application. Workflow's role as commodity technology -- instead of as a complete application -- will continue to mature. So will the market for workflow development tools.

This trend is evident in two recently developed sets of workflow tools: Powercerv's (Tampa, FL 813-226-2378) FLOWBuilder toolkit for PowerBuilder and Template Software's (Herndon, VA 703-318-1000) Workflow Template. Both are based on an object-oriented application development environment.

FLOWBuilder lets you add basic workflow functions to PowerBuilder applications. This opens the door for homegrown and custom-developed workflow applications from PowerBuilder developers. All of this speaks to workflow becoming a key, if not dominant, paradigm for application development during the next decade.

Finally, a word about knowledge-based workflow. Although nobody yet supports knowledge-based workflow, it's one of the most interesting and significant developments that lie ahead. Many vendors are already expressing an interest in this type of workflow.

In a true knowledge-based workflow system, the workflow uses statistical, heuristic and artificial intelligence routines to infer correct routing, scheduling and exception routing. This requires integration with AI tools. It's at least two years away. But when it arrives, it will be one small step for man, but one giant leap for workflow and the evolution of intelligent organizations.

Thomas M. Koulopoulos (tk@delphigroup.com) is president of Delphi Consulting Group (Boston, MA 617-247-1511) and author of The Workflow Imperative (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1995). U