Methods and apparatuses enable triggering a work action from instantiation of a document. A system identifies instantiation of a document that has an associated business scenario. Based on the business scenario, a work action or activity as part of an stand-alone workflow is generated to accomplish the work of the business scenario. In one embodiment, a workflow is generated that includes multiple actions, including actions that may be performed by users other than a user that instantiated the document. In one embodiment, the workflow generated is a distributed workflow generated from reusable workflow building block components.