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Effective business always involves processes. And that's where workflow management comes into play. With workflow management, you can organize, assign, track, and optimize your repetitive tasks between departments. Businesses can avoid mistakes, improve productivity, and provide responsibility for accountability with a proper workflow management system.
This blog will show you what workflow management is, its components, how the workflow management process works, benefits of workflow management, workflow management systems as a tool, and real examples of workflow management. We will also direct you as to how to choose the best workflow management system and answer some common questions to help you get started.
According to research from Kissflow, companies with automated workflow systems saw a 40% increase in task productivity and a 30% reduction in human mistakes. No matter if you're a startup, small business, or enterprise, learning workflow management and working the system will give you a competitive advantage.
Workflow management is the process of designing, executing, and monitoring a sequence of tasks that make up a business process. It involves automating repetitive activities, assigning responsibilities, and ensuring tasks move from one stage to the next efficiently.
The purpose of workflow management is to bring structure and visibility to daily business operations. Clear definition of task sequences, roles, and decision points can help teams coordinate and hold each other accountable.
For instance, being able to manage approvals through an efficient, automated workflow management system means we’re not sending emails each time we have to wrangle approvals, and them having the ability to review, comment, and approve requests wherever they are.
Likewise, a good workflow system will show managers where there are bottlenecks, give metrics on performance, and allow managers to track compliance with policies or regulations to ensure they are on track. All of which provide for quicker decision-making, fewer delays, and more accurate outputs.
Overall, workflow management plays a key role in ensuring smooth operations, particularly when multiple tools and systems are involved.
All workflows have the same fundamental components:
All of these elements come together in a workflow management system to standardize and control the operations of a business process and track all of the details.
To implement workflow management, here are a few methodical steps you can take:
Start by choosing the process you want to automate. The process to select can be anything from onboarding an employee, invoice approvals, or leave management.
You’ll want to map the workflow from start to finish but first outline the basic steps in the process. Who does what? And when? You can use either a flow chart or visualize the process using other tools.
Once you have the process mapped out, assign roles and responsibilities to each task (or at least define the stakeholders). Who is responsible for each task? This may be a manager, team lead, or HR executive, depending on the process.
Use logic to understand how to move along the task, for example, “if approved by finance, send it to HR.”
Utilize a workflow management (WM) system/tool or workflow automation software to set up automation, alerts, points of data entry, and permissions for users.
Run some test scenarios for your workflow, so you can catch mistakes or possible bugs. Make changes as required before you pick the live date.
Finally, monitor the completion of your workflow, checking the time to complete, how long approvals take, and what errors occur.
A good workflow management process, when properly executed, provides real business benefit:
Workflow management covers a wide range of departments and industries. Common use cases include the following:
