A picture tells a thousand words, and a workflow Activity Diagram does just this when trying to describe business processes to BOTH IT and knowledge workers.  This is an amazingly easy way to communicate what the process is, who the participants are, and the logic behind when different activities come into being.

This was proven in spades while working with one of my client’s accounting department.  None of them had any IT/programming background.  In just a minute our two they were able to easily understand what the diagram meant, and then engage with me in meaningful discussion about what worked and didn’t work.  It was at this point that real corporate structure, decision points and business rules became apparent, even though discussions about the purchase order process had taken place during an in-depth management meeting.

What I found was that there were more levels of management, and different departments had different rules about what dollar value authorization each role had.  This resulted in further management discussion and agreement about corporate-wide purchasing levels and exceptions to the rule, all of which were quickly added to the workflow.  As a result the business was easier to understand and Accounting no longer needed to play the cop when requests came to them via paper.

The lesson to be learned is that true requirements aren’t found solely by discussion and interview.  The come about through an iterative process using discussion tools that are well understood by all parties. 

The good news is that not only can the workflow designer that we use be used as an activity diagramming tool, it IS the “programming tool” for the resulting workflow that reflects the business process.  They are one and the same.  What this means is that there is no translation between tools.

Another huge advantage is that modifications to existing processes (whether in development or production) are simple and straightforward.  This owes to the fact that the workflow simply needs to be downloaded from the development or production site, modified with the workflow designer, and then uploaded.  The turn around time can be a minute or two.  This gives the advantage of agility and quick response times to changing business rules and consensus building.