As a developer I am really enthousiastic about the new Windows Vista related technologies, and especially Windows Workflow Foundation.
Being a developer, I have lots of stuff to read about this subject. There are many good-quality articles, whitepapers, webcasts and forums such as this one to help me get started.
The problem is, however, that if I want to convince the management team of my company that WWF and WCF are the way to go (which I think it is), I can't seem to find (really) good information from a business perspective.
All presentations directly dive into code on slide 3 or 5 or so, and most articles I found are too developer-focused in my opinion to present to more non-technical people.
I recently found the (very good!) paper "Service Orientation and ICT" written by Dick Bijl, Architect Advisor at Microsoft Netherlands (BTW this paper is written in Dutch and contains about a 100 pages, all readable by a non-technical person). This convinced my management team that Connected Systems and Web Services were worth looking further into.
Now I am looking for the same kind of quality stuff for WWF and WCF. Can anyone provide me with some good pointers
Windows Workflow Foundation from a business perspective
Mark Mrachek
Thank you, Bayer!
There is definitely some good information on your blog. I have decided to spend a bit of time for research and create my own report for the management team, using the information I google together.
vbdotnetguy
Thanks John.Doe,
Useful information, but I need a more complete document that describes business value, ROI, time-to-market and all that other non-technical stuff that convinces managers to make me spend more time on this subject ;-)
But, no problem, the information is out there, between the lines of code. I think I'll just have to compile my own report on WinFX technology.
mam282
Hey Arnold,
I have been speaking on WF at some local conferences in Florida, and I have some good postings that might help explain the benefits and theory behind WF. If you get a chance check it out and see if they help answer some of your questions.
Bwarbis
Well, the reasons to use workflows are the same as they always were:
Business activities modeled as workflows are more likely understandable from a management perspective than plain code. Usually you face scenarios where
- a developer has to develop a program for a business scenario he does not fully understand
- a manager is unable to specify what he wants because he does not approach the problem systematically
- changing business environments where the software must adopt to new conditions
Modeling business process as workflows gives the management level a tool to systematically define what process they need and leaves the opportunity open to adjust processes without reprogramming the software.
Ideally in a SOA environment and with a sophisticated workflow editor that does not require programming of any kind, a manager could come along and draw his business processes by connecting the dots between the services available and as a result the software does what he wants.
Maybe if you search for stuff like this, that emphasises on business process, you should search for BPEL, BizTalk and SOA+Busines Processes - that should give you something to read ;)
MarcSCN
For information on some of the benefits you could visit
http://www.workflowsoftware.biz/benefits.html
In short the business value is cost savings through automation and increased customer service through quicker response times.
The ROI is of course going to be different for each individual instance. In order to determine what items your should consider for workflow you can check out http://workflow.wordpress.com and it should help you formulate what things you should be considering to put into a workflow system. Keep in mind that with workflow it can sometimes be overkill especially developing in WWF.