Dynamic workflow

Change is an accepted part of every modern workplace. To remain effective and competitive, organizations must continually adapt their business processes to manage the rapid changes demanded by the dynamic nature of the marketplace or service environment. However, workflow management systems are generally designed to support the modeling of rigidly structured business processes, which in turn derive well-defined workflow instances. The proprietary process definition frameworks often imposed make it difficult to support (1) dynamic evolution and adaptation (i.e., modifying process definitions during execution) following unexpected or developmental change in the business processes being modeled; and (2) deviations from the prescribed process model at runtime. The term flexibility is used to denote the degree to which a workflow system is able to support or handle expected or unexpected deviations in the execution of process instances, both from within the context of the instance or from the external environment, without negatively impacting on the essence of the process or its expected completion. Historically, there is generally little or no flexibility provided by systems to accommodate the natural evolution of the work process or organizational goals. Manual interventions into workflow processes become increasingly frequent as staff attempt to manipulate workflow inputs and outputs to conform with changes in workplace practices. These manual intrusions necessitate reduced productivity and increased processing time. Since it is undertaken in an ad-hoc manner, manual handling incurs an added penalty: the corrective actions undertaken are not added to organizational memory, and so natural process evolution is not incorporated into future iterations of the process. In fact, after initial deployment, the inevitable system changes are often handled so haphazardly that they can lead to major work disruptions and increasing dissatisfaction to the point where the entire system implementation is considered a failure.