[australia] australia Digest, Vol 10, Issue 7

[Matthew Moore]

Hi,

The clearest exaplanation of the issues around workflow, collaboration & knowledge work I have read recently is "Thinking for a Living" by Tom Davenport.

Not sure I have a lot to add here except: I have seen several attempts to introduce editorial workflows in knowledge management systems - i.e. contributor, sub-editor checks for spelling/formating/tagging, expert approves, document published.

Two comments:

1. If the assigned roles in editorial workflows are not taken seriously, the whole thing falls over. You often end up with a massive bottle-neck around an expert who views this activity as a low-value intrusion in a busy day.

2. The workflow itself is an inaccurate idealisation of the use of documents by staff. The aspects of document use that occur after publication (i.e. the important bits) are ignored.

There is a tendancy to treat all content management activities as compliance-based (rather than creative or collaborative) when this is not always appropriate.

Regards,

Matt

-----Original Message-----
From: australia-bounces at lists.cmprofessionals.org
[mailto:australia-bounces at lists.cmprofessionals.org]On Behalf Of White,
David
Sent: Thursday, 20 July 2006 10:35 AM
To: australia at lists.cmprofessionals.org
Subject: Re: [australia] australia Digest, Vol 10, Issue 7


Hi Bill,

You make a good point, and in retrospect my comments weren't complete. I
should add that an example where I think the 'traditional workflow'
model works well is with formal processes (eg compliance processes) that
already exist within the business.

For example in a government department where a document must be drafted,
reviewed, approved, submitted for consideration to a committee,
reviewed, comments gathered, redrafted, etc etc.  Where these (linear)
processes are well defined, implementing them in a workflow just adds
that extra degree of control, reporting and, with a bit of luck and a
strong breeze, efficiency.

In my experience, you get this more with document management. The
business process management systems that I think are interesting are
those that cater for ad-hoc processes such as those so prevalent in
'knowledge work'. ActionTech (actiontech.com - no I'm not affiliated in
any way) for example.  But then that's more a BPM approach than a
CMS+Workflow approach.

D.

--
David White - Senior ECM Specialist, RailCorp - (02) 820 22280

Quoted....
Melanie,

I totally agree with this. The advantage that electronic workflow
systems offer in the kinds of systems we have used in Tenix is that they
can be readily tailored to fit whatever organisational requirements you
have.

In the one for the ANZAC Ship Project. By starting simple, it proved to
be very easy to include the Client in our review process. We are still
managing ANZAC Ship documentation and continuing engineering work on the
ships after the last ship has been delivered and the project itself
finished. We have quite a reasonable expectation that as long as we
continue to deliver the goods that we will be providing in-service
support for at least another 20 years for the full life-span of the
ships because our workflow management systems allow us to deliver
high-quality, reliable service on time - in good part because there are
no stuff-ups with the documentation.

The concept that someone might implement a workflow system BEFORE they
understand their business processes is a sure fire recipe for failure.
We did that with a manufacturing resource planning system because we let
a supplier guide us. Two years later they were told to leave the
premises and take their stuff with them - at a cost of several $M.
Having learned the hard way the importance of doing the analysis first,
the content management implementation was quite successful.

Regards,

William P. (Bill) Hall, PhD
Documentation & KM Systems Analyst
Head Office/Engineering
Nelson House Annex, Nelson Place
Williamstown, Vic. 3016 Australia
Tel: +61 3 9244 4820
Email: bill.hall at tenix.com
URL: http://www.tenix.com

Evolutionary Biology of Species and Organizations
http://www.orgs-evolution-knowledge.net/

Visiting Faculty Associate
University of Technology Sydney

Senior Fellow
Australian Centre for Science, Innovation and Society
History and Philosophy of Science
University of Melbourne
email: whall at unimelb.edu.au
URL: http://www.acsis.unimelb.edu.au/

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