What is the current state of this client’s case? Why was the sales department sent this email instead of the support department? I need to remember to follow up with this customer in two days.
This may sound familiar to you. If yes, you’re prepared to change your business into a digital enterprise and improve your workflow management system.
You know the significant overhead and confusion manual process management generates over time. In addition, knowing where you stand with clients or business partners might be challenging. For this reason, combining human and automated workflows is the ideal option for maintaining control and conserving energy for mentally taxing tasks.
What is Workflow Management?
Let’s begin by providing a brief definition of workflow management. But, first, they are divided into two similar types:
The workflow management system is made up of the integration of internal and external processes. You can define business processes using this method for various apps, including those from multiple vendors.
Events or processes can be automated through workflow management. With this method, you can automate processes like hiring new employees, marketing campaigns, handling sales leads, and client interaction.
Before creating your new flow, you should think about the following:
- Primary objective. What precisely needs to be done in terms of the process?
- Timing and potential due dates. When must a specific function be completed? How long can tasks last?
- A Way to execute a strategy. How ought the procedure to be carried out?
- Accountable people, things, and systems. Who or what needs to carry out the procedure?
What are the three components of a Workflow Management System?
The technique of designing, organizing, monitoring, and optimizing several business processes essential to achieving a particular objective is known as workflow management. Conditions, act, and consequences are the three factors that enable it.
- Situations: Conditions make up the flow’s first element (or input). Data, materials, online and offline resources, or pre-established steps—are required to begin and complete each activity. Conditions also dictate when an action will be finished and what will happen next.
- Actions: Actions are another element of the flow (or transformations). If you want the process to be effectively completed, it must be carried out all at once. Therefore, specify the action’s requirements, including what has to be done, how, and by whom.
- Results: The outcome is the final part of the flow (or output). The result, or “product,” of finishing each step in the workflow can serve as the foundation for subsequent actions.
Top 5 tips for prioritizing your Workflow Management System:
Now that you are familiar with the fundamentals let’s move on to the part with the top five flow management suggestions that will ensure a workflow implementation’s success.
- Prioritize and set goals for your workflows
Consider your company’s primary and secondary aims first. Then, set up a meeting with the CEO, board members, C-level managers from various departments, product owners, and other individuals familiar with your organization’s goals and objectives. Of course, it will be a different person depending on the size of your business, but they must be those with the most significant potential to inspire or stymie fresh flows.
Plan the conversation to grasp the layers of your company’s structure and to gain an overall feel of its growth trajectory.
- Take into account the demands and requirements of the team
You must plan additional conversations since you should design flows with people (or, at the very least, your team) in mind. To identify the most critical needs, bottlenecks, costly mistakes, routine tasks that should be standardized as workflows, and pain points that your team is experiencing, conduct a brainstorming session or other design thinking exercise.
- Select the most appropriate workflow execution strategy
Any primary or complex operation, such as sending follow-up emails, taking care of orders, soliciting feedback, alerting coworkers, or managing IT support requests, can be the basis for a process. Flows can be modified to fit various job profiles and responsibility sets. Select the appropriate way to carry out your strategy now that you know the workflow’s objectives and the team’s needs.
- Design unique workflows and track development
The time has come to design your flow. The first step is sketching your workflow carefully. Then you can use simple pen and paper, online project management tools, and specialized workflow management solutions. To ensure a clear flow, it is essential to picture each activity and step in the process.
You can now quickly create a workflow chart for them in the automatic workflow software since you are both on the same page. Regardless of expertise or experience, everyone can easily comprehend crucial characteristics thanks to flows drawn in a graphic depiction.
Create appropriate documents that detail the tasks, procedures, devices, timetables, and individuals required to carry out the flow after you’ve sketched it out. Be thorough since customers might have further questions about the new approach and utilize the documentation for self-service.
- Regularly check your workflows and make improvements
Flows are always a “work in progress” in the end. The only way to achieve highly effective processes is to improve everyday business workflows continuously. You must perform a workflow audit manually or with a workflow management program every three months.