Glossary

Glossary of Workflow terms.

• Workflow - language for describing, diagnosing, and constructing accountability relationships
• Q1/Q2/Q3/Q4 - the four stages of a Workflow (Listen, Negotiate, Execute, Assess)
• Customer - Holds the concern in a Workflow. Responsible for the Performer’s success!
• Performer - Makes a promise to a Customer within a Workflow. Responsible for delivering some results
• Concern - The objective held by the Customer. The thing they are trying to take care of
• Results - The outcome the Performer promises to deliver to address the Customer’s concern. Results are about the value you are creating in the world. Also known as Outcome or Conditions of Satisfaction.
• Outputs and Activities - these are not results. These are things a Performer will produce or do to achieve their desired outcome/results. It’s important to negotiate on Results, and leave Outputs and Activities up to the Performer, otherwise you end up micro-managing.
• Negotiation - this is the Q2 stage in the Workflow where Customer and Performer negotiate results
• Promise - at the end of a Q2 negotiation, the Performer makes a Promise to deliver certain results.
• Renegotiation - sometimes during Execution (Q3) a promise needs to be renegotiated, ie. the Workflow needs to return to Q2
• Assessment - this is the Q4 stage in the Workflow where Customer and Performer assess the outcome
• RAID - a decision making model with 4 authorities: Recommend, Align, Input, Decide. To be used generally during Q3 (Execution) of a Workflow, when decisions need to be made.