Workflow Blog

It has been a few weeks since my last blog and reason why is that we have just finished implementing the first of a few applications for one of the four major banks here in Australia.  The interesting thing about this project was not the hours spent creating working workflow applications, but the weeks making things look pretty.  Or in some cases not that pretty but to customer specifications.  As a techie I am still struck by how most users would much rather have something semi-functional that looks pretty as opposed to something that actually works.  I think in the end adopting a workflow system is not a rational decision based on return on investment but rather still an emotional decision. 

While the workflow industry is still in growth there is relatively little head to head competition.  However as more and more companies start competing head to head it will not be the feature set that customers will look at in making decisions.  It will not be support.  It will just be, is it pretty to look at and easy to use.  I am not sure any analysis by Garter et al really comes close to capturing this information.