Workflow management systems: ensuring organizational flexibility by possibilities of adaptation and negotiation

Abstract

Characteristics of workflow management systems must be adaptable by the users themselves according to the dynamism of organizational structures and of the conditions of cooperative task performance. In the case of those systems, adaptations which are initiated by individuals also affect other users in most cases. Therefore, a process of negotiation is required. A design principle called negotiability should be introduced. It helps users affected by adaptations to comment on them or to reject, accept or modify them. Supposing that the configuration of workflow management systems leads to a fixing of organizational structures by technical means, adaptation based on negotiability can be used to make those structures more flexible.