Workflow for Business Process Management

Before starting on how Workflow approach is best suited for business proecss management (BPM), let me first define what BPM is all about and what all does it encapsulate.

There are several definitions of BPM floating around. At the core of all definitions is tracking official processes and activities, tracking all items at each step in the process.

You have guesses correctly. This is exactly the job of any workflow. The only point to be always kept in mind is the complexity involved.

DO NOT automate all processes, especially those that are losely defined and cannot be put into a formal structure. Note that putting them into a predefined workflow has two sides - it helps in recording all activities and making them (the nodes) efficient as required, while at the same time it takes off the flexibility.

It is always a good idea to remove any vagueness in inorganic process but keep the flexibility in organic process for example how to get a proposal accepted. Having said that the processes before acceptance of proposal - like forwarding to all concerned authorities and taking feedback accordingly - must be put in workflow.

Hey, that reminds of another beautiful term - IdeaStudio^© and yes, yes, I know that you know that I will say, "I will write on it later".

eLearning - Part 2: Re-attempt to define

We have focused on 'e' of eLearning but where's learning? It's the same thing that Dr. Srivathsan says - we have had lot of 'T' of IT but where's 'I'?

As we saw in Part 1, most of the definitions have been trying to tackle the technological part of the systm.

eLearning does all those things provided the system has good design and delivery. However, it should be kept in mind that at the heart of it just pure learning, and not technology, which drives all system. e-Learning has to keep in mind the people it is designed for.

How do we learn? How do we acquire and retain skills and information to help us develop? Only when we address individual learning styles can the "e" in e-learning factor in. Then the technical side—the electronic delivery—can be adapted to the learner.

Just passive reading, automating assessment, creating forums et al won't suffice. We should make use of technology to actually try and capture the thought process, or at least provoke it in the correct direction.

One crutial part of any eLearning application / system should be to create (at least attempt to) an aura similar to classroom or study-table.

In next article on eLearning, we shall see how can the aura be created and what it takes to create this environment.

Workflow - Softwares

Here's a list of some of the softwares that do nothing but workflow management.

• WARIA
• Workflow Toolkit
• e-Workflow

There may be more... if you know, please do add them in comments and I'll ensure that they are incorporated in the list.

Some more like TeN™ Trans-e do not only do Workflow Management but take a holistic and integrated view of an organization with services like Event Notifications System, a.k.a. Alerts, Calendar, Schedular, Document Management System etc.

If you want to learn more about the product, mail me at gvaish @transversal or gaurav.vaish @gmail for more details.

eLearning - Part 1: An attempt to Define

This is what Google gave to me when I asked for eLearning definition and "e-Learning" definition, somewhere around 40k and 80k results.

Let me give some of the definitions that I consider a fairly good attempt. This is "fairly good" only as per my thinking. You may differ.

Learning Circuits Glossary reads: Term covering a wide set of applications and processes, such as Web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual classrooms, and digital collaboration. It includes the delivery of content via Internet, intranet/extranet (LAN/WAN), audio- and videotape, satellite broadcast, interactive TV, CD-ROM, and more.

Dereck Stockley reads: The delivery of a learning, training or education program by electronic means. E-learning involves the use of a computer or electronic device (e.g. a mobile phone) in some way to provide training, educational or learning material.

HowStuffWorks.com provides an interesting station: E-learning is to classroom learning as cell phones are to a pay phone at the bus station.

Here are some more definitions that I found:

• The convergence of the Internet and learning, or Internet-enabled learning.
• The use of network technologies to create, foster, deliver, and facilitate learning, anytime and anywhere.
• The delivery of individualized, comprehensive, dynamic learning content in real time, aiding the development of communities of knowledge, linking learners and practitioners with experts.
• A phenomenon that delivers accountability, accessibility, and opportunity allowing people and organizations to keep up with the rapid changes that define the Internet world.
• A force that gives people and organizations the competitive edge to allow them to keep ahead of the rapidly changing global economy.

Workflow - A Step closer to 100% automation

Everybody's looking for some or the other kind of automation. An employer needs to automate the process of hiring as much as possible. An employee needs to automate the process of applying for jobs. A teacher wants to automate the process of creating grade-sheet while a student wants them to be collected automatically. I need to automate the process of earning money!!

Workflow, I believe, is the base ingredient of any automation. Be it testing before satellite/shuttle launch or alerting an individual about his pending tasks.

Again, I took help of Google on Workflow and I got more than 1 million results. I'm in dilemma again - do I have lot of choices or whether most of them just describe the well known problem?

Thankfully, I got some solutions -- some promissing while others not. Anyway... today, I would blog about how workflow can help achieve automation.

Let us analyse both the processes - workflow and automation - closely. What is the job of an automated process? It does some predefined tasks governed by some predefined rules. In case of an unexpected result at any point of time, alerts may be sent to the concerned people - may be over an SMS or as simple mails.

What is a workflow? My definition of workflow would be - "A diagramatic representation of a predefined process following certain predefined rules". If you say I am wrong, put a comment and I'll respond on it. I found an strikingly similar definition at e-WorkFlow.

My definition of workflow concludes that workflow and automation are one and the other thing. Easier said than done. More often than not, the processes are not well-defined. It is not that there's something wrong in the process but it's just that the processes are more humane and have more tolerance and flexibility.

For example, if my boss is absent, I may just sent a note on his desk, inform HR and get out of the office. What if the HR was absent? What if the next concerned (after HR) was also absent? Well, there are umpteen number of possibilities and to take care of each of them makes automation very very complex.

Today, I conclude by saying that workflows are good starting points towards automation. How do we take care of "human and flexible" process - I'd talk about it sometime later.

The GoogleAds in the sidebar will give upto 4 sponsored links on websites related to Workflow. Just go and check... how people are making money using Workflow -- towards automation.