Why Workflows are the future of Project Management
When we designed our new Workflows feature we wanted to put simplicity at its heart.
When the work you do in your organisation moves around between people, then workflows are a great way to provide a wrapper around that work. They ensure that everything goes smoothly, and everyone knows what they need to do and when.
So, when it comes to Flowzone, our workflows allow you to add a new dynamic to projects, taking the guesswork out of the day-to-day.
You can set up the workflows that make sense to your organisation. They can support how you do a variety of process, including the following (and much more):
- managing your creative work
- signing off your briefs
- managing your quick turnaround projects
- managing your marketing concepts
- progressing your leads from start to invoiced
- managing holiday requests
- submitting business cases
- receiving financial sign-off
For each workflow, you decide who is in control of each step in the workflow process - and this can be dynamic depending on the makeup of each project team.
Define your process
What's the central process in your company? Is it repeated regularly, involving a number of different (defined) users? That's where you need to set up a workflow. The process might be as simple as reviewing artwork, or as complicated as agreeing a client bid. As long as it's something you carry out regularly, you will find the workflow feature makes it far more straightforward.
Process design
Take the opportunity for a little process improvement, here. Look at the interactions between users, systems and clients. Are there bottlenecks? Where could you simplify? A workflow will work best if it represents the best version of your process.
Define workflow steps
Break your process down into a series of steps. You might be surprised at how many of the things you do can be defined as a series of steps that can be repeated - and automated. A step in a process is basically anywhere that you meet a hand-off. As each step is met in the workflow, there will be a corresponding status.
Who is responsible for taking this action or decision? Add that step to your workflow, then assign users to it. Within a workflow, you can move forwards, backwards and loop as required.
Your process design will tell you which step you need to create next. Once set up in the system, the user will be guided to the choices they have - taking them to the next step in the workflow.
Review workflow progress
You can monitor progress against workflows that impact you through one or more dashboard panels and in your project list views.
These can show exactly which step each project is on and who is currently assigned, giving you an immediate overview of how things are progressing. And with our new dashboard charting you can add a graphical summary of your workflows.
Design with the user in mind
Users can get extra help when using a workflow via a dynamic instructions tab. This guides the user to exactly where they need to go and what they need to do. Less training up front, less queries ongoing - a straightforward process, making life easier!
Set up your project workflows and start to enjoy the benefits of key processes running themselves!
