(Illustrated above) A financial trader wants to execute a trade that is so large that it requires signoff from his manager. The trading application displays a large notification on the manager’s screen, and the two coworkers shout back and forth across the trading floor about the merits of the potential deal. Eventually, the manager indicates his approval in his own view of the trading application, which then executes the pending transaction.

A scientist sets up a work request in her lab’s information management application so that a certain technician will rerun some clinical samples. When the technician receives this work request, he can quickly translate the experimental protocol into his own laboratory processes, run the samples, and then upload the new data for the scientist to review.

An architect defines a standardized workflow in her building modeling application that will usefully drive how her team collaboratively uploads, evaluates, and categorizes early ideas for a new building project.

Which tasks or larger activities that your team is striving to mediate are currently part of standardized workflow processes?

What other artifacts and technologies are involved in these processes?

What value do current workflows provide in targeted organizations?

What are the individual measures of success for different segments of existing workflows? For entire workflows?

What work processes do both knowledge workers and their organizations want to standardize further? Where might organizational goals for workflow crystallization show a clear mismatch with workers’ goals and preferred ways of practicing?

How could your application concepts maintain or expand upon the value of existing workflow processes? How might they provide valuable new workflow options?

When might it be more appropriate to support structured work with integrated communication channels and clear object ownership rules, rather than regimented and inflexible workflow tools?

How much visibility might workers want into their colleagues’ activities and workflow contributions? What value could this visibility provide?

How might separate workflow views for different contributors drive desirable simplicity and decreased learning effort?

How might your team’s sketched workflow functionalities support interpersonal interaction and communication at key junctures?

What role could flexibility and customization play in your workflow concepts? At what point might desirable variabilities challenge the usefulness and viability of standardized workflow functionality?

What impact could extensive workflow offerings have on the larger conceptual and interaction models of your sketched products?

How might your team’s approaches for standardized workflows relate to your functionality concepts supporting permissions, identity tailored views, cooperation, collaboration, and workspace awareness?

Do you have enough information to usefully answer these and other envisioning questions? What additional research, problem space models, and design concepting could valuably inform your team’s application envisioning efforts?