A workflow consists of a sequence of concatenated (connected) steps. Emphasis is on the flow paradigm, where each step follows the precedent without delay or gap and ends just before the subsequent step may begin. This concept is related to non overlapping tasks of single resources.
It is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person, a group of persons, an organization of staff, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms. Workflow may be seen as any abstraction of real work. For control purposes, workflow may be a view on real work under a chosen aspect, thus serving as a virtual representation of actual work. The flow being described may refer to a document or product that is being transferred from one step to another.
Workflow concepts are closely related to other concepts used to describe organizational structure, such as silos, functions, teams, projects, policies and hierarchies. Workflows may be viewed as one primitive building block of organizations. The relationships among these concepts are described later in this entry.
The term workflow is used in computer programming to capture and develop human-to-machine interaction.
Read more about Workflow: Related Concept, Historical Development, Workflow Management System, Examples, Features and Phenomenology, Workflow Improvement Theories, Workflow Components, Workflow Applications