Good definition of "workflow"?

[bryan andrews]

We have been doing video for a few years now, but i am still intrigued as to where "workflow" came from. Coming from a programming background, i get what workflow means, but i've yet to understand the implications with our video work.

I've always assumed it was just a term that meant the process from field work to final product...

[PuzZLeR]

I would define it as the entire path, and/or plan, from acquisition to delivery of a video project, whether for professional use or, as for most in this forum, domestic/personal use.

However, this can be relative to the entity or individual and it can include a wide variety of tasks, but most in the early stages of a workflow are involving either capturing, recording, ripping, copying, etc, then editting/cutting/joining/remuxing constitutes the mid-work, while encoding/authoring/burning deliver the final product.

In other words, it's the complete series of steps, via either planned or in stride, taken from first getting/creating the video till it's the final finished version for playback.

That's how I see it.

[edDV]

Concepts of workflow go back to Adam Smith (economics) and F. W Taylor (father of operations research) and are core to the study of manufacturing and/or project organization. These ideas were extended to software project management.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workflow_system
http://www.e-workflow.org/

[bryan andrews]

Cool. I was just making sure I wasn't misinterpreting and there was some sort of official (specific) interfaces that tools / toolmakers reference now and again.