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