The Difference Between Workflow and BPR

In 1995, the “Business Process Reengineering” movement was at its height, and was about half the way through the cycle from new concept to disillusionment. At that point in time the movement was probably at the height of inflated expectations. Seemingly, everyone wanted BPR as a management discipline to improve organizations. Office productivity vendors naturally focused on technology that might help management to do this. A lot of workflow products (we would now call them Business Process Management Suites) climbed on the BPR bandwagon. This tutorial covers the topics of BPR and workflow; what aspects of workflow can help BPR, and finally concludes with a set of capabilities, called “Collaborative Planning”, that are missing, and will need to be developed before the real potential of a facilitated office can be realized.