Workflows versus custom tools

When choosing to use a existing solution you need to evaluate if a workflow is necessary before the workflow is built. On occasion, simple custom tools can satisfy the requirements. To determine if a workflow is actually required, map the new product introduction business process to the steps that are described by the business process and use cases. If there are substantially fewer steps and such steps can be easily represented using simple custom tools, then custom tools are the preferred approach. The same holds true for complex workflows. If the workflow is substantially more complex, and the amount of work to create a custom tool is less than a workflow, and will be more easy to use, than a custom tool is the preferred approach.