AbstractWorkflows emphasize the partial order of activities, and the flow of data between activities. In contrast, cooperative processes emphasize the sharing of artefact, and its gradual evolution toward the final product, under the cooperative and concurrent activities of all the involved actors.This article contrasts workflow and cooperative processes and shows that they are more complementary than conflicting and that, provided some extensions, both approaches can fit into a single tool and formalism.This article presents Celine, a concurrent engineering tool that can also define and support classic workflows and software processes. We claim that the availability of both classes of features allows for the modeling and support of very flexible processes, closer to software engineering reality. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.