Pre-locking scheme for allowing consistent and concurrent workflow process execution in a workflow management system

A workflow management system, comprising:

• workflow process that includes at least one sequence of workflow actions including a first action and a second action;
• workflow database for holding a data item associated with the workflow process;
• workflow engine that controls accesses to the work flow database by scheduling the first action and the second action for concurrent execution if the first action and second action both write the data item and by scheduling the first and the second action for non-concurrent execution if one of the first or second action read the data item and another of the first or second action write the data item, wherein the workflow engine schedules the first action and the second action for concurrent execution by performing the following steps:
• locking the data item;
• scheduling the first action for execution and then scheduling the second action for execution such that the first and second action each return a corresponding set of data for writing to the data item;
• if the first action returns the data before the second action returns the data, then writing the data item with the data returned by the first action and then writing the data item with the data returned by the second action;
• if the second action returns the data before the first action returns the data, then writing the data item with the data returned by the second action and then ignoring the data returned by the first action;
• unlocking the data item.