-  Workflows decompose goals into actionable tasks with clear outputs and constraints, enabling a consistent work structure that leaves less margin for error.
- In contrast, role-based teams would make inconsistent work plans, leading to workers working in non-optimal order and missing essential steps that would otherwise be built into the workflow.


New York University

Workflows support coordination in three main ways:
- Encoding the best practices
- Influencing interdependence styles
- Minimizing coordination challenges


Workflows as a Coordination Artifact

Retelny, D., Bernstein, M. S., & Valentine, M. A. (2017). No workflow can ever be enough: How crowdsourcing workflows constrain complex work. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 1(CSCW), 1-23.

No Workflow Can Ever Be Enough: How Crowdsourcing Workflows Constrain Complex Work

Workflows Encode the Best Practices

- Workflows support a more sequential interdependence style, where work can be passed on step-by-step without the need for synchronous coordination. 
- Because this lessens the need for concurrent work and mutual adjustment between coworkers, workflow-based groups logged in less active work hours as a whole, making them more efficient and affordable. 


Workflows Influence Interdependence Styles

- Workflows reduce the need for communication and coordination between individual workers by establishing a structure for all of them to work in. As such, many coordination challenges could be avoided by setting up this pre-specified structure.
- Without workflows, role-based teams can still navigate coordination challenges by setting up a specific work plan early on in the project so that all workers have a clear idea of their role within the team and can orient their actions accordingly.
- However, without an initial plan and prior communication, role-based teams can fall apart due to confusion and frustration over individual decisions, with workers downstream suffering the consequences of the poorly thought-out decisions of those upstream.


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