Intensive hands-on training on how to develop
your own framework for workflow product selection

Course Leader: Martin Ader, author of the highly acclaimed
Workflow Comparative Study

Next workshop:
If you want to be notified when the next workshop becomes available, please send us your contact details on our registration form. There is no obligation for you to attend, however, if you need to change your schedule later.

Workshops for IT, Product Marketing, Sales Directors, Consultants and Analysts

A Framework for Workflow Product Selection

Learn how to identify which workflow products fit your needs from in-depth analysis and examples from leading products. Workshop includes short educational demonstrations from selected vendors.

Workshop Description

Special Workshop: Three Days
This intensive workshop covers the main steps of the selection process, including identifying goals, and determining the areas of applicability and constraints. You will be shown how to establish workflow application goals, with the workshop covering four classes of workflow applications, and, using as examples, several workflow products currently available. The strengths and weaknesses of imbedded and independent products will be examined, together with throughput rates and procedure power. Workshop will include short educational demonstrations by selected vendors

Seminar Outline

You will leave with a thorough understanding of the main steps of the selection process: 

Establishing goals of a workflow application and related features

1. Productivity 2. Quality

3. Customer services 4. Control

Determining constraints that a solution must satisfy

1. Networking 2. Existing applications 3. Existing workstations

4. Degree of flexibility 5. EDP existing development technologies

We will cover the four classes of workflow applications, with examples.
You will understand the difference between application-imbedded products and independent products, their respective strengths and weaknesses as well as the value of mixing the two approaches and the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) standards.

You will receive real life examples:
1. A telecommunications operator,
2. A pension fund insurance company

Workshop will include short educational demonstrations by selected vendors. 

Questions about whether this course is right for you?
Feel free to contact the course leader, Martin Ader.

Workshop (Three Full Days)
Includes all sessions and selected vendor demonstrations.

SESSION 1: Concepts and Methodologies
DESCRIPTION: This session introduces an analytical, structured approach to workflow product analysis and selection. The session introduces workflow terminology and techniques, creating a foundation of understanding for later sessions.

OBJECTIVES: This session introduces an analytical, structured approach to workflow product analysis and selection. It is designed to create a firm understanding of the need for workflow applications requirements analysis, and increase awareness of the features required in workflow tools.

TOPICS 

Positioning group technologies against information systems applications.  Understanding workflow benefits.  Relative positions of BPR and workflow technologies.  A methodology for product selection.  An overview of the 12 selection criteria.

Positioning workflow inside the group technologies scope.  Understanding potential impacts of workflow compared to DM and groupware.  Selecting goals of a workflow application.  Ad-hoc, collaborative administrative and production application classes.

EXERCISE 1: Domains identification and selection

Identify several domains that are potential candidates for workflow automation, evaluate the number of potential participants, evaluate participants involvement in workflow (High, Medium, Low), order them by relative importance or priority.

SESSION 2: Main Criteria for Production and Administrative Applications
DESCRIPTION: This session introduces attendees to the two major selection criteria for production workflow applications classes: procedure programming power, organization and dispatching, and activity programming power.

OBJECTIVES: Provide an understanding of various aspects of how a procedure can be defined and how rules can be established for automatic dispatching of activities to users according to organization in place. Understand what facilities can be provided for development of assisted activities. Relate each feature to possible usage and evaluate if it is really required.

TOPICS:

Representation of sequence, alternative, parallelism, loop, multiple path  Variables definition representing the procedure context  Complexity management and re-use  Organization modeling, role, group, participant, authority  Administration, and substitution  Application Programmatic Interfaces  Multilingual support

Expression of pre and post conditions, path conditions, exceptions  Exception processing related to time management  Verification and simulation  Dispatching rules based upon an organization model  Management of deadlines, documents and folders, automatic activities  Events processing mechanisms, based upon time, and external events

EXERCISE 2: Classification of selected processes

Using the processes described in the previous exercise, attempt to classify each one in one of the following workflow application classes: ad-hoc, collaborative, administrative, production.

SESSION 3: Main Criteria for Ad-hoc and Collaborative Applications
DESCRIPTION: This session introduces attendees to the criteria that are essential for ad-hoc and collaborative applications: user agents, easy procedure definition, easy activity definition, and dynamic changes.

OBJECTIVES: Provide an in-depth review of those features that are required for effective ad-hoc and collaborative applications development.

TOPICS

Worklist handler important features: list, order, manage, and select activities.  History management, and graphical status views.  Late binding of subnetworks, late evaluation of dispatching rules.  Activity definition by scripting actions  Graphical procedure definition  Features supported by the workflow engine for simple procedure definition

Activity user agent features: view, manage, enter data, decide and control.  Dynamic procedure definition change capabilities  Activity definition through forms designers.  Libraries of activities and actions  Assisted rules and conditions definition

SESSION 4: Criteria common to all application classes
DESCRIPTION: This session introduces attendees to the criteria that are important for all application classes: throughput rates, server operation, statistics, distribution mechanisms for a multi-server implementation, and work-from-home.

OBJECTIVES: Understand how those criteria may or may not be important depending upon application characteristics.

TOPICS

Typical requirements per application class, and typical products offerings.  Operation, recovery and restart, archiving, exception processing  Cooperation of several workflow engines, call and spawn remote procedures  Infrastructures: network, servers, workstations, development tools

Distributed servers architectures, their potential benefits  Logs, statistics, costs analysis, quality measurements  Home-work support: get work while working, off line batch mode, remote software update.

EXERCISE 3: Establish main requirements

Using a checklist of the important selection factors, establish the main requirements for each of the selected processes.

SESSION 5: Enterprise Wide Workflow Integration and Deployment
DESCRIPTION: This session introduces attendees to the criteria that are important for enterprise wide deployment: integration tools, Internet/Intranet/Extranet operation, choice between integrated or independent workflow tools, WfMC standards and their importance.

OBJECTIVES: Take the proper measure of what is required for enterprise wide workflow deployment with strong integration requirements with existing and future applications.

TOPICS

Internet, Intranet, Extranet, various implementations and their pros and cons.  Applications imbedded products, or independent products, or both  The interoperability specification, its importance

Integration tools for existing and future applications; com, CORBA, others.  The Workflow Management Coalition reference model and specifications  The procedure definition interchange specification, its importance.

EXERCISE 4: Refine your requirements

Review decisions taken throughout the three previous exercises, and try to position more precisely your requirements by attempting to make more adequate tradeoffs.

SESSION 6: Return on Investments Analysis, Two Examples
DESCRIPTION: A simple methodology will be proposed to make preliminary ROI analysis in order to validate projects hypothesis before making in depth investigations. Finally two real life examples will be presented.

OBJECTIVES: Introduce economic evaluation of workflow applications candidates as soon as possible. Illustrate how a strong selection process was conducted according to proposed methodology.

TOPICS

A simple ROI analysis methodology.  An insurance & pension funds example: production workflow together with document management

Two examples showing acceptable ROI.  A telecommunications operator: back-office processing for a call center

SESSION 7: The main workflow selection criteria, synthesis
DESCRIPTION: Presentation of the main selection criteria, as a synthesis of sessions 2 to 5.

OBJECTIVES: Summary and review of sessions 2 to 5.

TOPICS

Throughput Rates  Activity Programming Power  Operation and Statistics  Home Work  Dynamic Changes  Easy Activity Definition

Procedure Definition Power  Organization and Dispatching  Distribution  Internet Support  Easy procedure definition  User Agents

SESSION 8: Ad-hoc and Collaborative Workflow Engines
DESCRIPTION: presentation of the compared features of collaborative and ad-hoc workflow engines

TOPICS

Ensemble (Filenet).  InConcert (InConcert)

TeamWARE Flow (TeamWARE Group)

SESSION 9: Pure Production Workflow Engines
DESCRIPTION: presentation of the compared features of production and administrative workflow engines

TOPICS

Eastman Software Workflow.  FlowMark (IBM)

Visual Workflo (Filenet)  COSA Workflow (COSA Solutions)

SESSION 10: Production and Administrative Workflow Engines
DESCRIPTION: presentation of the compared features of collaborative and ad-hoc workflow engines

TOPICS

W4 (W4).

Staffware (Staffware)

SESSION 11: Outlook on other products of interest
DESCRIPTION: a short introduction to other products of interest, not part of the Workflow Comparative Study.

TOPICS

WFX (Eastman Software).  Action Workflow (Action Technologies)  AWD (CSC)

InTempo (JetForm).  FlowMan (Logical Software Solutions)  .......

About your course leader:  

	Martin Ader has 12 years of in-depth experience in workflow research and development, competitive analysis, and consulting. He is author of the highly acclaimed Workflow Comparative Study Mr. Ader set up and managed the Bull Workflow research team. In ten years his team built two successive prototypes of workflow distributed engines and produced the well-received FlowPATH Bull workflow product. The team was later transferred to Eastman Software (formerly Wang), where Ader became responsible for European Workflow Marketing. In 1996, he created his own consultancy firm, Workflow & Groupware Stratégies (W&GS). Ader was Wang Software representative at the WfMC technical committee. W&GS is a funding member of the WfMC. Ader also participates in the Workflow And Reengineering International Association (WARIA).
Registration Fee: Please see online registration form   Fee includes  Continental breakfast every day.  The Workflow Paradigm book and all course materials  Graduation Certificate -- Three days -2.8 CEUs (Continuing Education Units)  Register ONLINE or call 1-800-74 WARIA (800 749.2742). Register six weeks ahead of any workshop for the Early Bird Special
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For more information on this or any workshop (see WARIA events calendar) contact: Claire Busch WARIA Academy Tel: 954-782-3376 Fax: 954-782-6365 waria04@waria.com