Drawing up a workflow to map out and organise your business processesmay seem straightforward, but underestimating the level of accuracy anddetail required could cause major problems after implementation.
Carefully consider the following factors if you want to see positiveproductivity results and avoid headaches further down the line. It’simportant to remember that rather than just mapping out businessprocesses, you have the potential to improve them for better businessresults.
To automate or not?
Divide the steps that make up your workflow into two categories;tasks carried out by employees, and those which are automated using thesoftware itself. It’s important to note that these are not alwaysmutually exclusive. For example; you might want to allow a staff memberto override an automated work process if there is a specific personsuited for a job.
Making a clear distinction on what can and can’t be automated isimportant, your decision needs to be based on a realistic understandingof what your system is capable of, and also what tasks are better suitedto human judgement.
The order of events
Carrying out a task in a specific order every single time isn’talways optimal. A sequence of events may have to change based on certainconditions. If one person or resource is not available at a designatedstage, do you put the entire task on hold, or move forward until thatissue can be resolved later?
Some steps in a workflow may not even be mandatory and can be skippedover depending on work circumstances. But be aware that this has thepotential to create greater complexity further down the line if a laterstage compensates for what was missed.
The entire process
One trap workflow designers fall into is omitting a stage in aprocess because it either happens before the task has begun or after ithas finished. You might think work needs to start at a certain point,but is there anything before your “first” stage that has an impact? Forinstance, you a workflow might begin when an employee arrives at anaddress for an appointment, but how was that appointment arranged in thefirst place?
This problem often arises because the administrative and tradecomponents of an organisation are treated as doing separate jobs, but infact, are all working towards the same goal in different capacities.
SwiftCase is a powerful, cloud-based business process managementplatform,get in touchwith us today, for a free, no-obligation demonstration.
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