Five Best Practices for Approaching Workflow Solutions
of 48/48
SHAREPOINT AND PROJECT CONFERENCE ADRIATICS 2013 ZAGREB, NOVEMBER 27-28 2013 Five Best Practices for Approaching Workflow Solutions MIKE FITZMAURICE, NINTEX
Five Best Practices for Approaching Workflow Solutions
Workflow projects present special challenges. They involve many parts of solution architecture (user interfaces, process designs, data) and even more parts of organizations (users, managers, auditors, IT). This session covers five commonly-observed problems the speaker sees with great frequency, and offers advice as to how to address them; the focus is more about designing overall solutions and managing success than it is about coding and tool usage. Mike Fitzmaurice
Text of Five Best Practices for Approaching Workflow Solutions
1. Five Best Practices for Approaching Workflow Solutions MIKE
FITZMAURICE, NINTEX SHAREPOINT AND PROJECT CONFERENCE ADRIATICS
2013 ZAGREB, NOVEMBER 27-28 2013
2. sponsors
3. About me Mike Fitzmaurice Vice President of Product
Technology, Nintex 11 years at Microsoft SharePoints original
technical evangelist
4. Introduction There are more than five These are extra
top-of-mind Based on real-world projects Advice applies to any
workflow product No demos
5. Dont Always Use SharePoint Workflow
6. Good Uses of SharePoint Workflow Managing how people work
Document approval & feedback Collaborative reviews &
discussions Gathering signatures
7. Good Uses of SharePoint Workflow Automating some of
SharePoints behavior Approve site creation requests Parse incoming
email in a list and act on it Publishing items to target Moving
project proposals through lifecycles
8. Possible Uses of SharePoint Workflow Manipulating other
applications, data sources Employee onboarding Resource scheduling
SharePoint lists become work queues
9. Bad Uses of SharePoint Workflow Transaction-oriented
processes Blocking or modifying activity Application-to-application
service activity Aggressive data transformations Work that doesnt
involve SharePoint at all
10. Plan to Fail
11. Consensus May Not Exist Get 3 employees and 1 manager
together Talk about a process Little agreement Documentation
disagreement, too
12. The Process Will Change
13. Exceptions are Initially Ignored Rarely is this considered
in advance Rarely does everyone agree Ignored exceptions lead to
bypass
14. Initial Failure as a Winning Strategy People do not want to
hear these hard truths. You may have to create an initial workflow
just to show how awful a process is. Only then can you change
it.
15. Start Simple Step Automate this first Automate these later
Process Step Step
16. Focus on Everyday Process
17. Policy is the abdication of thought. -Nathan Myrvold
18. Everyday Processes Steal time Get in the way Annoy
users
19. Everyday Processes Have few stakeholders (even if many
participants) Are easier to automate Free up time to focus on more
critical stuff
20. Process is the preservation and reuse of thought. -Mike
Fitzmaurice
21. Everyday Processes Automating them trains users how to
think
22. Put Forms in Their Proper Place
23. The Form is the User Interface Not the workflow Not the
data
24. If (x and y) then do this do that End if If (user is Bob)
then do this and that and the other thing undo that End if If (x
and y) then do this do that End if If (x and y) then do this do
that End if If (user is Bob) then do this and that and the other
thing undo that End if If (x and y) then do this do that End
if
26. Think About the Whole App User Interface Process Logic Data
Access
27. Make the Workflow Do the Work Documented Auditable Easier
to change Easier to manage
28. One Form Per Step Submit Start Task
29. Task Forms Workflow can route new data New data can be
written to original form All info can be sent to other places
30. Its Not All About Spreadsheets, Either Same problem,
different file type Example: HUGE Excel file with macros Workflow:
route, track, remind
31. Self-Reporting Workflows
32. Least-Loved Techniques Browsing individual history entries
Building custom reports
33. Youre Already Using SharePoint The list itself can be the
report Users can sort, group, filter on metadata Write progress
information to item properties Stage Workflows already do this
34. Summary Dont always use SharePoint Workflow Plan to fail
Focus on everyday processes Its not about forms Self-reporting
workflows
35. questions? MIKEFITZMAURICE.WORDPRESS.CO M @MIKEFITZ
36. thank you. SHAREPOINT AND PROJECT CONFERENCE ADRIATICS 2013
ZAGREB, NOVEMBER 27-28 2013
37. Make Metadata do the Work
38. Avoid Hard-Coding Task assignees Site URLs Document
names
39. Reference What You Need List queries Database queries Web
service calls Workflow context
