what is workflow 
workflow describes the steps in a business work process through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion and how these steps can be executed and automated according to a set of procedural rules organizations use workflow to coordinate tasks improve organizational efficiency add responsiveness and drive profitability workflow may be sequential with each step contingent upon completion of the previous one or parallel with multiple steps occurring simultaneously understanding workflowthe concept of workflow was important to the study of the rational organization of work processes these processes optimize manufacturing or informational processes to avoid bottlenecks known as triage after ww2 the quality movement developed several workflow improvement theories which embraced more qualitative notions of business process re engineering these philosophies could be applied to car assembly lines a loan application by a bank or the production of a newspaper six sigma and total quality management tqm are two process improvement philosophies that have been embraced by organizations around the world tqm is a structured approach to overall organizational management where internal guidelines and process standards reduce errors the goal of six sigma is to reduce defects through quality control six sigma emphasizes cycle time improvement while at the same time reducing manufacturing defects to a level of no more than 3 4 occurrences per million units or events in other words the system is a method to work faster with fewer mistakes 1workflow technologies and big dataworkflow technologies and management systems are being used today in industries as wide ranging as finance healthcare marketing and higher education they have been fundamental to the development of artificial intelligence ai and machine learning systems that are having a significant impact on corporate workflows in every industry thanks to their ability to process and extract value from big data by gathering and sharing data across an organization and embedding analytics enterprise data management systems are used to eliminate information silos and optimize business processes and automate data processing this has helped to connect previously disconnected sectors and industries finance is being transformed by big data using it for both trading and compliance workflows investors are tapping into the flood of real time data produced by global digitalization and social media and experimenting with enhanced data analytics and ai to generate investment ideas free of cognitive bias and manage risk workflow in the digital erathe need to manage projects across different teams locations and time zones has seen a huge rise in the popularity of workflow apps and software this trend has only accelerated in 2021 as more companies connect with their employees remotely during the coronavirus pandemic some of the more popular workflow management software out there includes easynote trello monday com and accelo these platforms make it easy to create tasks and assign them to different people while managing the entire workflow through a dashboard that acts as a central hub best of all many of these platforms provide free access to key features keeping costs low for startups and small businesses 