Overview of Workflow Learning™: Continuous Workflow Performance Improvement™Achieved with Workflow Learning Resource Arrays™

Introduction to Workflow Learning™

“The intent is to leverage Web services to embed e-learning functionality into business applications such as CRM and ERP. With the foundation of an open architecture in place, the door is opening to Web services -- and the related capability to surface e-learning as events within other applications.”

Finn Grønbæk, IBM, April 2003

Workflow Learning is a new type of learning technology that was discovered during the research for the series of reports entitled, “Workflow Learning: The Convergence of Learning and Web Services in the Enterprise”, published by The Workflow Learning Institute.

Workflow Learning emerged in late-2002, and now it has become a viable learning product category that is experiencing a brisk uptake by customers in academic, government and corporate markets. For example, Knowledge Products grew their business by 70% in fiscal 2003. This is an extraordinary growth rate in the best of times but outstanding in the midst of an IT spending slowdown. Workflow Learning is “hot”.

In October 2003, Microsoft released their new Office 2003 System product which is an XML-native suite of services, applications and servers. Included in the Office 2003 System is Live Office Meeting (formerly Placeware) and a suite of applications that can be used to develop and deploy Workflow Learning, such as InfoPath and Visio 2003. Microsoft has over 400 million Office users.

In late-2003, PeopleSoft announced an OEM deal with Knowledge Products that will expose PeopleSoft’s 11,000 customers to Workflow Learning. RWD and Epiance are experiencing strong growth for their Workflow Learning products. In just over a year, Workflow Learning has gone mainstream.

The Basics: What is Workflow?

The Workflow Management Coalition defines WorkFlow Management as “the automation of business procedures or ‘workflows’ during which documents, information, or tasks are passed from one participant to another in a way that is governed by rules or procedures.” In the WFM model a participant can be a person or a system component.

Microsoft’s Visio, Corel’s iGrafx and CA’s Allfusion Process Modeler are widely used Business Process Modeling tools. These tools create relatively simple decision trees that model the workflow. In HP’s Process Manager (HPPM), the workflow is described by a flowchart that has several different kinds of nodes:

Work nodes represent the tasks assigned to a human or an automated participant.
Route nodes are decision points that route the execution flow among nodes based on an associated routing rule.
Event nodes denote points in the process where a notification is sent or requested from other processes.
Start nodes denote the entry point to the flow of processes.
Complete nodes denote termination points of the flow.

Tools from vendors such as Simul8 and Casewise allow users to not only model and simulate these processes, but animate them as well. Simul8 markets a plug-in that animates Visio diagrams. Casewise’s Corporate Modeler allows a user to view work packets moving through the workflow. As this happens, “delays, bottlenecks and queues immediately become identified.”

Workflow Learning Defined

Workflow Learning™ is characterized by:

A deep integration with enterprise applications assembled from Web Services into composite applications.
Task and work support fused into the aggregated business processes that make up the real-time workflow.
Contextual collaboration with people and systems.
Design and modification achieved by modeling and simulation.
Short, granular bursts of learning and workflow task support embedded at specific “nodes” of a business task.
Bottom-up dynamic generation of on-the-fly tasks as work evolves.
Continuous performance improvement and performance measurement.
Workflow Learning Resource Arrays aggregated “around” workers based on job roles.

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) has created the foundation of both workflow and Workflow Learning. EAI permeates the breadth and depth of innovation in technology today. It is the “glue” that has unified disparate business processes and applications into composite applications that generate workflow.

The Mother of All Inflection Points: Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is now linking all aspects of corporate business processes and applications.

Conventional enterprise application integration is not a new idea. The current iteration of Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is a very new concept and has spawned a vibrant EAI industry just in the last two years. EAI as a distinct market sector crystallized in late-2001.

The most dominant innovation and methodology in EAI is Web Services. Web Services is being adopted by large and small technology vendors in an unprecedented cross-industry cooperative effort.

Vendors, large and small, are now in consensus that Web Services is the EAI method of choice. In the short history of technology, there has never been such a wide adoption of a standard. All roads lead to Web Services and all business processes are fair game for integration in new composite applications proliferating in the enterprise that are essentially assembled aggregations of Web Services. Interoperability has arrived.

As Mark Resmer, CTO of eCollege has stated, “Web Services are probably the most important technological step forward since the advent of the Web”. And as Kendall Grant Clark said in a May 2003 XML.com article, “Much of the value of web services will come from their ability to be combined in novel, complex ways.”

These “novel, complex” combinations have changed learning technology forever. The radical change is the inescapable migration away from the emphasis on learning objects that are “taken” or “accessed” to learning services that are experienced as events in the real-time workflow.

This new primary learning experience is deeply fused with the real-time work experience. Consequently, it captures and integrates the various forms of the contextual on-the-job “informal learning” that account for 90% of how people really learn in the enterprise.

The Consequence of this Convergence: Dynamic Workflow Learning in the Real-time Extended Enterprise

Workflow is the real-time result of collaboration between people and systems (the workforce) in the WorkSpace. In the context of integrated and highly dynamic convergent systems and composite applications, a convergent type of continuous performance improvement framework is needed.

The Continuous Workflow Performance Improvement (CWPI) Framework developed by the Workflow Learning Institute is designed to model, manage, measure and modify performance. The CWPI Framework is the methodology used to assemble Workflow Learning into Workflow Learning Resource Arrays.

The Real-time Extended Enterprise (REE) taxonomy maps enterprise technology to performance. The REE is the cybernetic carrier-wave for both workflow and Workflow Learning. As such, the REE is the learning model for Workflow Learning and Continuous Workflow Performance Improvement. Continuous Workflow Performance Improvement is the methodology to create Workflow Learning.

Vendors That Sell Workflow Learning Products

The vendors highlighted in the Workflow Learning series, pioneers in the innovation of Workflow Learning, have brought a range of fundamentally new types of learning products and services to the market.

About Workflow Learning Institute

The Workflow Learning Institute serves decision-makers at the intersection of business results, enterprise systems, and human performance. We promote the understanding and use of real-time enterprise-level learning in industry and government worldwide. We identify new developments and interpret technology trends.

The Institute is co-located with its parent organization, Internet Time Group, in the hills of Berkeley, California. You may reach us at 510.528.3105 or jaycross@internettime.com.

About the Author

Sam Adkins is the Workflow Learning Institute's Director of Research and Chief Analyst. He coined the term "Workflow Learning" and is the pre-eminent analyst in the field. Sam specializes in learning technology research including elearning, simulation, business process management, wireless, workflow, collaboration and human performance management analysis in the context of Enterprise Application Integration.

Sam Adkins is a former product planner for Microsoft ’s Training and Certification group. He built the world’s first commercial online learning business (The Microsoft Online Institute). More recently, he wrote the groundbreaking articles, The Brave New World of Learning (June 2003 ) and Radical Learning Technology (November 2003) in T&D Magazine.

Sam has specialized in electronic training for his entire professional career and prior to Microsoft worked for Authorware, United Airlines and AT&T.

About the Publisher

The Workflow Learning Institute and the Internet Time Group help organizations improve the performance of their people by speeding up their learning. We develop action plans, training programs, sales presentations, white papers, marketing campaigns, and development teams -- whatever it takes. Visit us at http://www.internettime.com.

To order additional copies of Workflow Learning or to learn more about our services, please visit us at http://www.workflowlearning.com/

Copyright 2003, Internet Time Group LLC, Berkeley, Calfornia. Using any part of this document in advertising, press releases, or promotional materials requires prior written approval from Internet Time Group. A draft of the proposed document should accompany any such request. Internet Time Group reserves the right to deny approaval of usage for any reason.

Internet Time Group LLC, 1.510.528.3105, www.internettime.com