Why you need a workflow? • Keeps everyone on the same page, preventing miscommunication, confusion, and frustration about what other team members are doing. • Make the best use of time by eliminating bottlenecks. o 68% of employees waste time waiting for information from team members, wasting an average of 3.5 hours a week. • Streamline reoccurring tasks. Try to find a way to automate it. • Workflow can help a team move forward. Provides a trail of everything that occurred. • Having a workflow in place, NO MATTER HOW SIMPLE, brings so much sanity to a team. • When there’s a defined system in place, everyone knows exactly what their responsibilities are and how it will contribute to the bigger picture. • Everyone knows what’s expected of them and when, they know who to ask if they have a question. How to get started • If you don’t already have a workflow you need to evaluate your need for one. • Even a one person show needs one. Your individual workflow is important; not having one likely means working less efficiently on certain things. • If you have teams that work together to complete common processes or tasks, then workflow is critical. More people can cause more inefficiencies. Never evaluated your workflow? Rule #1….keep it simple!!! • Don’t make it more trouble than it’s worth. • How to evaluate o Take a step back and think about how you or your team gets stuff done. Don’t overcomplicate things. o A quick brainstorming session on process and workflow on paper can get you the process map you need. Improve Your Workflow • Now that you have documented your current workflow it’s time to tweak it to make it more efficient. As you do this keep these basic points in mind. • Make sure everyone is aware and accountable • Does everyone on the team feel empowered to contribute? When a workflow is determined everyone should understand the large mission of the organization and their role in making it successful. • Clearly identify and document each task and the role individual team members will play in order to make your workflow successful. • How you want to communicate? • We live in a world of distractions creating a need for clear communication. • Create guidelines for communicating both internally among team members and externally with partners and customers. • Example of an internal communication process: o If it’s urgent, ping them in an interoffice communication tool (such as Skype for Business) o If it’s not urgent, send an email – be short and brief o If it’s complicated, talk on the phone, Skype, or in person. (NO EMAIL) With a clear process in place team members won’t have to continuously check email. Long email chains are inefficient and are often hard to follow. · Centralize your employee resources o Identify a place where all of your team’s information can live. o Make sure everyone knows where to find the information. It’s no good if no one can find it. o Prevents repetitive questions · Make key decisions about responsibility and expectations o Defining Roles § Who is responsible for what? Simple concept, yes, but many roles are vague and no one really knows who should be doing what. § Result of undefined roles? A lot of wasted time and overlap. § Make sure that each role fits as far as what they do and what they are accountable for. Be clear on deliverables. o Defining Deliverables § What is it and when is it due? Not just what is the task, but what is the thing that results from the task?
For example, a tasks might be: review title work. But the deliverable is: deliver title commitment.
§ A task always has a response. The deliverable. The tangible result from the work. The deliverable should have a due date as well, or else you’ll just spend all of your time reviewing title work and never getting any commitments done. o Setting Expectations § What does done mean? What does completed, delivered mean? · Make sure everyone is on the same page with completing tasks and deliverables so you don’t spend precious time going back and cleaning things up after the fact. § Take some time to figure out what kind of system works for you. § Keep tabs on if the system is working. Once a month or so check in with the team to make sure all is going smoothly. § Make adjustments. § Keep at it until you get the results you want |
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