When you get into creating workflows for your SharePoint Server 2010 farm, you may run into some delays or errors. The one most commonly seen is...

<span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>Due to heavy load, the latest workflow operation has been queued. It will attempt to resume at a later time</strong></span>

This is because SharePoint has a default limit of 15 workflows that can run at the same time. If you didn't know, there are quite a few workflows that run in the background all the time.  There are 2 main settings that you should be concerned with. The first is the WorkflowPostponeThreshold which controls how many workflows can execute at a time. The default is 15 and you can run this command in the SharePoint 2010 Management console to see what your setting is...

<em>Get-SPFarmConfig | Select WorkflowPostponeThreshold</em>

To change this setting, modify the number in the following statement to fit your needs and run in the same console...

<em>Set-SPFarmConfig -WorkflowPostponeThreshold 75</em>

The other setting is the WorkflowBatchSize which controls how many workflows can be in the 'queue' at a time. The queue is basically a 'bucket' of workflows that are waiting for the timer service to execute them. To see what your setting is, run the following command in the SharePoint 2010 Management console...

<em>Get-SPFarmConfig | Select WorkflowBatchSize</em>

To change this setting, modify the number in the following statement to fit your needs and run in the same console...

<em>Set-SPFarmConfig -WorkflowBatchSize 200</em>

This works for 3rd party workflows, like Nintex too! Be sure to monitor your servers and their performance to make sure you aren't overwhelming your environment.