👉 Guide to Implement Business Workflow in your Organization
Difference between business processes and workflow and how to implement these in your organization.
🤔 What are processes and why are important?
Processes are the building blocks of a business. They're the things that get done, not the people who do them. A well-defined process can be performed by anyone in your organization (or even outside of it).
🧐 What is a workflow and how is different?
The business workflow is an optimized version of the business process. It is a sequence of activities that are performed in order to complete a task.
Workflow can be used to automate simple tasks and ensure that the right people are involved in the right tasks at the right time, thus reducing errors along with time-to-market for projects.
The creation of a workflow is based on some rules. The following points should be considered when creating workflows:
👍 What are the benefits of implementing process workflow?
A process-driven workflow will help businesses grow and improve in the following ways:
It helps to promote innovation, as employees are encouraged to come up with new ideas that help the company grow.
It makes it easier to achieve goals, because they are more easily tracked through a process workflow.
Process flow can be used to add value by improving consistency and reducing errors in your products or services. This leads customers to trust you more as an organization, which means they're more likely to do business with you again in the future.
Process flow makes everything faster and easier for all parties involved, from employee management (e.g., hiring) through customer service (e.g., billing). This means less time spent on administrative tasks such as paperwork or manual labor, so there's more room left over for innovation or other revenue-generating activities like selling products/services or performing research/development on new technologies that will help push your business forward into higher levels of success!
🔎 Four examples of traditional approaches to embedding process approaches don't work
Here are some examples of traditional approaches to embedding process that don't work:
Documentation: This is the most common way of documenting process, and it’s good for learning about processes and understanding how they work. But it doesn’t help you learn from past mistakes or improve performance in the future.
Training: While training can be useful when it comes to new employees or changing roles, it cannot be used as an ongoing solution for process improvement because employees need to be constantly retrained.
Spreadsheets: These are great at recording data but don’t offer any kind of analysis or insights into what causes a bottleneck in your business processes. They also aren't useful when dealing with multiple stakeholders or departments within an organization who may want different perspectives on what's happening in their own part of the business - this is where dashboards come into play! It should also be noted that spreadsheets aren't designed to run automatically so if anything changes (like adding another column) then manual inputting becomes necessary which can lead down rabbit holes ... which no one wants!
Checklist software: Checklists make sense for simple tasks like “check tire pressure before driving” but they don't help much when dealing with complex scenarios involving many steps (like doing taxes). For example, if there are several steps involved then someone might not remember everything needed before moving onto step 2!
👎 Why do the traditional approaches not work?
Traditional approaches to process management are outdated. They are too expensive, inefficient, and not flexible enough for today's needs.
Processes have been implemented in organizations since the beginning of time.
A process is a series of steps taken to complete a task or goal; this starts with a starting point (initiating event) and continues through completion (completion event). If you've ever ordered an item on Amazon or checked out at Target then you've experienced a business process first hand!
💡 What is the definitive approach to embedding process workflow that helps businesses grow?
The secret to successful business process workflow implementation is in keeping it simple. Processes are not there for the benefit of those who make them, but rather they exist to help the people who will use them. If they are too complicated or require a lot of maintenance work, they’re just not going to be used properly.
Processes should be owned by doers—that is, people who actually perform the task at hand. This gives them ownership over their own work and provides opportunities for self-expression as well as autonomy in decision making about how best to achieve their objectives (such as being able to choose appropriate tools for completing tasks). It also means that if something goes wrong with a process there's someone right there who can fix it instead of having someone come up with a solution on another floor or across town! In turn this means less overhead costs since fewer people need involved before getting something done - saving valuable time which could be better spent elsewhere; like growing your business further still!
If you’re finding this newsletter valuable, consider sharing it with friends, or subscribing if you haven’t already.
Sincerely,
Stathis 👋