RPA

What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?

Many organisations are starting to explore robotic process automation (RPA) to streamline their business operations and reduce cost. With RPA, businesses can automate mundane tasks, enabling business users to devote more time to serving customers or other higher-value work.

RPA is a form of business process automation that allows organisations to define a set of instructions for a robot or ‘bot’ to perform. RPA bots are capable of mimicking most human-computer interactions to carry out error-free tasks, at high volume and speed.

RPA automates everyday processes that once required human action. The types of processes that are most commonly suitable for automation are generally back-office processes in functions like HR, Finance and IT. RPA is ideal for tasks involving a high level of human data processing.

How do I know if a process in my organisation is a good candidate for RPA?

There are a number of key factors that should be considered when assessing the viability of a process for RPA within your organisation.

• The process must be rule-based
• The process must be consistent
• The process must have defined inputs
• The task should have sufficient volume

A great example of a back-office process that is highly suitable for RPA is invoice processing. Organisations of all sizes and industries deal with sending and receiving invoices. Processing invoices can often create many challenges for an organisation as vendors submit invoices in various formats E.g. Paper, PDF, Word Document. In many organisations a finance team member will then transfer the data from the various sources and key it into the financial system for payment. This can often be a highly time consuming and error prone task.

Is it a rule based process?

Rule-based processes are ideal candidates for RPA. A rule-based process means that its control flows, data flows and resource allocation are expressed by means of business rules. Business rules define specific instructions or constraints on how certain day-to-day actions should be performed. Using our invoice processing example a business rule could be that only certain managers can sign off payment for invoices above a particular threshold E.g. $50,000. RPA is based on the idea that defining and automating your business rules can help you reach your goals more effectively.

Is the process consistent?

Process consistency is another key criteria to consider when evaluating a process for robotic process automation. How often does the process change? If a process changes often then it is unlikely to be a good candidate for RPA. Continually adapting RPA to those changes would end up being very expensive. RPA is well suited to stable processes that stay the same for a long period of time with very minor changes. Invoice processing is a great example of a consistent process that is not changed very often.

What are the process inputs?

During the execution of a business process there are several input points that the process depends on. Based on these input points the complexity of a process can be defined. Inputs can be classified into three types:

• Standard inputs – Standard inputs are those where the system knows where to get them from. An example would be a tax invoice that has been stored from a supplier.
• Structured inputs – Structure inputs are the data inputs that are in a specific format. An example could be an excel document that contains customer accounts details.
• Unstructured inputs – Unstructured inputs are data points where there are no standard procedure to capture it. An example would be a handwritten document.

If the process depends on a lot of unstructured data inputs then it wouldn’t be considered a great fit for RPA. Our invoice processing example depends on a large number of standard inputs which makes it a great candidate for RPA.

Is the process high volume?

Another key criteria for assessment as to whether a process is suitable for RPA is the volume of transactions. High volume transactional processes are great candidates for RPA. It is estimated that a typical small business in Australia will process around 450 invoices in a busy month. The Australian Taxation Office found that manually processing each invoice costs around $30. Significant benefit could be derived from RPA for invoice processing due to the high volume of manual tasks involved.

What are the benefits of RPA?

The benefits of RPA can be wide and varied depending on the process that is being automated. Not only can RPA improve the efficiency and accuracy of an organisations business processes it can also spare human workers from spending their time on dull and repetitive tasks. RPA can fee up time for these workers to focus on more challenging value-added tasks. Some of the key benefits organisations can derive from RPA include:

• Cost savings
• Reduced operational risk
• Improved productivity
• Improved customer experience

Conclusion

RPA is having a significant impact on how the world gets work done. Gartner predicts that 90% of large organisations globally will have adopted RPA in some form by 2022. It is also predicted that almost half of all new RPA clients will come from business buyers who are outside of the IT organisation. If your organisation hasn’t considered RPA then now would be the time to start assessing the viability of RPA across your business processes.

November 25, 2021 Business Analysis, Business Process Management, Technology No comments yet
Digital Transformation

3 Steps to Digital Success

Digital transformation is about fundamentally changing the way you operate to deliver value to your customers. Digital transformation involves rethinking how your organisation uses technology, people, and processes to develop new business models and revenue streams. The need for digital business models is driven by changes in customer expectations around products and services. Organisations that have achieved successful digital business models have outperformed industry average profitability by 25% (Forbes).

So, what are some of the key steps to successfully achieving a digital business model in your organisation?

1. Focus your process improvement efforts
2. Choose enabling technologies that are secure and easy to scale
3. Develop a consistent way to roll out change across your business

Focus your process improvement efforts

Many organisations make the mistake of trying to solve all their process issues at once. They go through long strategic planning processes to identify their strategic themes and initiatives. Typically, they will think about transforming the way the entire organisation works all at the same time through large scale business process re-engineering activities. This approach is rarely effective. You need to think about how you can develop a mindset of continuous improvement. In other words, lots of smaller changes that are implemented over time in a steady manner. It may be as small as improving one customer service process, or all processes in the customer service area. Prioritising where to focus your efforts with a decentralised model is the key to success.

Choose enabling technologies that are secure and easy to scale

If you’re thinking about developing your own in-house technology to stand out from your competitors and you are not a technology company then stop right there.

Developing bespoke in-house technology has three major pitfalls:

1. It is expensive to support and maintain.
2. It takes your focus away from your core competence.
3. It’s a tough sell. Convincing clients that your in-house technology will make a real difference to their client experience versus your competitors requires you to develop great skills in software sales and marketing.

The key to long-term digital success is to select technology that is fit for purpose and will scale as you grow. Partner with specialist technology providers across your industry that will continuously grow their ecosystems and bring you secure and reliable services. One key thing to remember though in this rapidly evolving digital world is ownership of data. When choosing cloud-based providers you need to be very clear about who owns the data and ensure this is reflected in your commercial arrangements. If you choose to move providers down the track you need to be able to easily take your data with you.

Develop a consistent way to roll out change across your business

Leading and managing change within any business can be challenging. Sending an email advising people of a change will not work. You need to have a clear understanding of your stakeholder groups and how they engage and communicate. Many organisations are unlikely to have change management specialists employed in-house, so think about how you are going to build the capabilities and skills of those who are delivering the changes on top of their day job. That doesn’t mean everyone has to be an expert in Kotter’s 8-Step Process for Leading Change but they do need to be equipped with some tools and techniques that will help them be successful
Again, consistency is key.

Consider the following:

• What are the impacts of the proposed changes?
• How will people learn about the change?
• How will you explain the benefits of the change?
• How will you get people to adopt the change?

Conclusion

As described in our blog on the major barriers to digital transformation, it is well documented that 70% or more of large transformations fail. The key thing to remember is that you don’t need to focus on big bang change to move forward with a new digital business model. Focus on transitioning and incrementally improving areas across your business that are being driven by changes in customer expectations

July 29, 2021 Business Analysis, Business Process Management, Change Management, Strategic Alignment, Technology No comments yet
Digital transformation

Barriers to Digital Transformation

70% or more of digital transformations fail. You’ve probably heard that statistic before. It’s one of the most quoted figures going around. But there’s one big problem with this statistic: it sets the wrong mindset about digital transformation.

Yes, change is hard. But just because it’s difficult and doesn’t always go exactly to plan, doesn’t mean it’s a failure.

Whether your initiative fails or succeeds, you still learn something. Maybe you learn where the biggest hurdles are, or which stakeholders to engage earlier. Whatever the lessons, you will go into your next change initiative with more experience and knowledge.

So, what are some of the major barriers to digital transformation?

1. You take a technology-first approach
2. You have a limited understanding of the processes
3. You ignore the client experience
4. You invest in technology without investing in new skills and capabilities

1. You take a technology first approach

Many organisations do not see their digital transition for what it is: an opportunity to remove redundant business processes wherever possible. Sure, any digital transformation will involve the delivery of new technologies but, rolling out new technology without spending the time to understand what you actually do means you simply end up running old processes slightly faster.

That’s not enough. For a digital transformation to be effective, it must start with a cultural leap. That means a thorough analysis and overhaul of current business processes. Business process improvement provides the strong foundation for digital transformation. Develop a plan for business process improvement and avoid investing in new technology that simply speeds up old processes.

2. You have a limited understanding of the processes

Standardising processes in any organisational environment is tough. Why? Because one of the major challenges is that everyone does not see the same set of problems.  Business processes are often not documented and can often rely on the heroics of a few team members to ensure everything goes to plan.

Understanding HOW to visualise your work and continuously improve your processes is a core skillset that every organisation needs to develop.  Once you have a clear understanding of your processes you can start to analyse where the problems exist and assess the impact of new technologies.

3. You ignore the client experience

Companies who successfully implement a customer experience strategy achieve higher customer satisfaction rates, reduced customer churn and increased revenues. Research suggests that customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than companies who aren’t.

As outlined by HBR ‘Customer experience encompasses every aspect of a company’s offering – the quality of customer care, advertising, packaging, product and service features, ease of use and reliability.’  Yet few of the people responsible for these areas across an organisation have given sustained thought to how their separate decisions shape customer experience.

You need to have a clear understanding of your end-to-end customer journey so you can see the world as your customers do.  This helps you to design a customer experience that mobilises your employees around customer needs.

4. Invest in new skills and capabilities

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the adoption of cloud based and mobile friendly platforms across all organisations has been rapid. We have seen more adoption of new technology in the past twelve months than we will see in the next five years.

However, all of this new technology creates a new challenge: How do you build new skills and capabilities required to proficiently manage your new processes and systems? The adoption of new technologies can often be viewed as an administrative burden by staff, meaning they learn just enough to get by. You need to invest in the right skills and capabilities to use the new technology to its full advantage.

Conclusion

Digital transformation is about fundamentally changing the way you operate to deliver value to your customers.  To be successful in a digital world, your mindset needs to shift to continuously think about HOW your products or services are being delivered to your customers.  The key element to understand in a digital world is that you must be easy to do business with.

May 30, 2021 Business Process Management, Change Management, Technology No comments yet

Clarit-e named in AGS’s Best Consulting Firms in Melbourne

Clarit-e is proud to have ranked in AGS’s list of the Best Consulting Firms in Melbourne.

Every year, Airiodion Global Services (AGS) evaluates, reviews and ranks consultancy companies throughout Australia to determine those that are delivering the highest quality of service to their clients.

This year, Clarit-e achieved a 5-star rating and made the list of the 14 best large and boutique consultancy firms in Melbourne, alongside the likes of Boston Consulting Group.

According to AGS:

“Clarit-e is a firm with the expertise to fully optimize any type of company change and ensure sustained benefits.

“With a strategic approach, extensive expertise in successful change management, and an experienced team, Clarit-e easily solidifies a 5-star rating. This is one of the top business consulting firms that Melbourne has to offer.”

AGS noted Clarit-e’s Change Management Consulting as a top service offering that sets the firm apart:

“As one of the leading change management consultants Melbourne is home to, Clarit-e combines its expertise in many areas of business strategy with its success in ensuring sustained strategic or digital transformations.”

Another top reason AGS noted that put Clarit-e firmly among the best consultancies in Melbourne was the virtual training in Office 365 tools, that may not be found at other small business consultants.

Here at Clarit-e, we’re proud of this recognition, which is a testament to how we are using our expertise to help companies make changes that add real value to their customers, their employees and their bottom line.

Find out more about our services and read our client testimonials here.

About AGS

Headquartered in Silicon Valley, California AGS provide independent worldwide reviews of top firms and practices across different industries and sectors.

April 29, 2021 Business Analysis, Business Process Management, Change Management, Project Management, Strategic Alignment, Technology No comments yet
Change leadership

Leading and Managing Change

Having trouble implementing change in your organisation? You’re not alone. It is widely quoted that 70% of all business change initiatives fail to achieve their stated objectives. So, what are the key things you need to think about when implementing change in your business?

1. Vision and roadmap
2. Learn from your failures
3. Planning and change management
4. Celebrate success

Bur before we start exploring these principles in more detail it’s important to understand the difference between change management and change leadership.  Both of these elements need to be present in any large-scale change program.

Change leadership is about building a sense of urgency.  Why do we need to change?  What’s in it for me? What happens if we don’t change?  It’s about building a coalition of people from across the organisation to unite behind a common vision.

Change Management is about the processes, tools and methodologies that you apply to ensure the smooth adoption of your changes across your organisation.

1. Vision and roadmap

You need to be easy to follow.  Be clear on where you are going and how you will get there.  Be clear with people on what’s in it for them to change with you.

You need to be the Chief Meaning Office.  Make people feel connected to what they are doing” Jack Welch

Get rid of the silos.  Get rid of the things that are in the way.  Trust and empower people to get things done.  Be clear in your communication.  Engage at all levels of the organisation.  Develop ongoing communication processes.  Set expectations with people early.

“You need to be the Chief Broomer.  Clear the things that are getting in the way.”  Jack Welch

2. Learn from your failures

You are going to find that in a lot of instances things don’t work out the way you have planned.  You need to keep going and try again. There can be a number of factors that can cause change efforts to fail such as resistance to change, change fatigue, ineffective change management processes or lack of institutional support.

  • People naturally resist change
  • People fear change
  • Sometime people get irrational about change

The truth is that people do not resist or fear change that they believe is in their best interests.  Ultimately change efforts fail because of poor leadership.

While change leadership is an integral element of moving any organisational change effort forward don’t underestimate the planning and change management effort required.

3. Planning and change management

Change management

  • Methodology – Ensure you have adopted a structured change management approach for the project E.g. Kotter’s 8 steps of change or PROSCI Adkar
  • Tools – Ensure you have identified a set of change management tools that will assist you to assess and plan for the changes E.g. Change impact assessment, change plan, communication plan
  • Structure – Ensure you have developed a project structure that will enable you to engage widely across your organisation which includes roles like change champions, project sponsors and a steering committee.
  • Processes – Ensure you have defined clear communication and engagement processes and channels (Town Hall, Team Meetings, Email, Slack, Yammer, Social Media).

Project planning

  • Scope – Ensure you have worked with key stakeholders to clearly define the scope
  • Objectives – Ensure you have worked with key stakeholders to develop specific objectives that define success
  • Resources – Ensure that a project manager is overseeing project resources and tasks
  • Risk and issue tracking – Ensure you have mechanisms in place to track progress and resolve issues and risks
  • Sponsorship – Ensure that the executive sponsor will have availability to work on issues that impact timeline, scope or budget

4. Celebrate success

Never let success get to your head and never let failure get to your heart.  A large number of change initiatives that you will get involved with throughout your career are not going to achieve their business objectives. Statistically you have a 30% chance of success in large scale business transformation programs.

So why is it important to celebrate success?

  • It reminds you of the goal you set and why it was important
  • It strengthens the team and helps you focus on the positives
  • It builds motivation in the team for the future
  • It builds trust and stronger relationships in the team

Conclusion

You know your business needs to constantly change and evolve. To move into the digital world. To create a better customer experience. To keep your talented employees engaged. To improve efficiency and profitability.  So, before you launch into that next change initiative step back and think about your approach.

April 28, 2021 Change Management, Strategic Alignment No comments yet
Process improvement

Visualising your work

The key to any business improvement initiative is to apply a consistent approach. As many organisations are unlikely to have business process improvement specialists employed in-house it is important to adopt an approach that will make sense to anyone performing continuous improvement activities on top of their day job.

What is Business Process Improvement?

Business process improvement is applying a structured approach to improve the way you do things.

It’s the effort that goes into identifying, understanding, analysing, re-designing, implementing, and continuously monitoring the processes you want to improve.

A simple and repeatable approach

The approach you follow should be simple and repeatable:
1.  Map your current process
2.  Analyse where the problems exist and identify the non-value adding steps
3.  Design your future process and determine what’s required to remove the non-value adding steps
4.  Determine what gaps exist with your current technology and role/skills gaps to reach the desired future state

1. Map your current processes

Visualising your work is essential to successful process improvement. In a previous blog we have explained why it’s so important to understand your current state processes before you start making changes.

A business process can be defined as a series of related, structured activities performed by a group of people to achieve an organisational goal.
To visualise a process, think about the series of activities being performed by people from different functional groups across the organisation. One of the easiest ways to visualise this is using a swim-lane process map.

Three key elements you need to understand are:
• What are the main activities being completed?
• Who is responsible for completing each activity?
• What technology, if any, is being used to complete the activity?

How do you capture an accurate picture of the current process? You need to engage the people who actually do the work.
To give an idea of what we mean by ‘visualising’ your work, take a look at this example process for accounts payable:

Visualise your work

2. Analyse where the problems exist

With a clear understanding of the current process, your next step is to spend some time analysing how things are working and capture a view of the current issues from each person’s perspective. This will assist you in knowing where to focus your change efforts.
After identifying the pain points from each person’s perspective the next step is to pinpoint the waste in the process. A simple way of doing this is to apply Lean thinking to each activity in the process.

How? Classify the activities as follows:
• Customer value add (CVA) – Everything a customer is willing to pay for.
• Business value add (BVA) – A step or change made to the product/service which is necessary for future or subsequent steps but is not noticed by the final customer.
• Non-value add (NVA) – Any activities that do not add value to your customers.

Learning to see waste in your process is one of the first and most fundamental skills that you need to develop. Use TIMWOODS to help classify the waste (non-value adding activities) in your processes. Are we talking about re-work, waiting for the customer, waiting for your colleague, over-processing?

Once you have a clear understanding of the waste, measure the cost involved in delivering these non-value adding activities to the customer. This helps you get laser focused on what needs to be changed.

3. Design your Future Process

Armed with a clear understanding of what needs to be changed or eliminated from your process, think about designing how things will work in the future.

Start by getting the relevant people in the room to consider how things could be done differently:
• What are the automation opportunities?
• Where can you reduce cost?
• How can you reduce the time it takes to deliver value to your customer?

A key part of designing your future state is to map out how things will work differently. Considering what you have learnt through your analysis, how is the process going to work in the future?
• What are the main activities that need to be completed?
• Who is responsible for completing each activity?
• What technology will be used to complete the activity?

The bonus of mapping a future state process is that it creates buy-in from staff. Because the process is typically more streamlined, it is easier for them to take a step back, breathe it in and digest. It also creates excitement about the future state, as staff can see that they won’t have to deal with all the current problems.

Remember – just because you’ve mapped your future state doesn’t mean it’s set in stone. You’ll undoubtedly have to make tweaks along the way. Some ideas you have may not be feasible. You may have to add or remove steps to cater for cost constraints or legislative requirements.

4. Evaluate the Gaps

Now you have developed your future state, how will you get there?
Evaluate the potential gaps:
• Will your current technology be sufficient to deliver on the proposed changes?
• What sort of training might be required for your people to run the new process?
• Will you need to hire new skills into the organisation to deliver the new process successfully?

Conclusion

All these elements will require a significant investment by your organisation. You are likely to have options that need to be evaluated and considered carefully, so understanding the return on investment of each option is going to be critical to gaining buy-in from the senior decision makers across your organisation.

March 30, 2021 Business Analysis, Business Process Management, Change Management, Strategic Alignment No comments yet
Hybrid working process improvement

Adapting your processes to an emerging hybrid workplace

Transitioning to more permanent hybrid working models in 2021 is going to be a challenge for many organisations. Flexible working is here to stay and many businesses will need to adapt their processes to effectively manage some staff working from the office and some working from home.  I’m sure many of you have experienced the hybrid meeting where six people are sitting in a meeting room in the office and two people have joined via a video call.  Unless your meeting rooms are set up with purpose-built video conferencing infrastructure like ‘Microsoft Teams Rooms’ the people who have joined the call remotely can quickly feel left out of the conversation.  Well, it’s likely that many of your organisations processes will be impacted by this emerging hybrid workplace.

So where should we start?

Understanding how your business will operate more effectively with a hybrid working model requires an understanding of your processes. Whether that is:

  • Onboarding a new client
  • Creating your business strategy
  • Managing your creditor payments
  • Running your fortnightly payroll

They are all comprised of activities completed by different people across the organisation that depending on how well they are executed can have a significant impact on your customer experience. Some of these activities will be impacted more significantly than others as a result of hybrid working.

In order to make changes to and improve the way you do things in your organisation, you need to apply a structured approach to your process improvement efforts.

As a famous process expert once said:

“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you are doing.” W Edwards Deming

Business Process Improvement is the effort that goes into identifying, understanding, analysing, re-designing, implementing, and continuously monitoring the processes you want to improve.

So, how do you know where to begin for your organisation?

Visualise your whole business at a high level

Compile a high-level list of processes within your organisation and how they fit together.  This is known as your organisation’s process architecture or process framework.  Use a method to highlight the processes that are most likely to be impacted by a hybrid working model.

Here is an example of a process framework for an IT managed services business:

Understand the scope of impacted processes

The first rule of process improvement? You don’t need to change everything. You can start your process improvement journey by focusing on just one process. Use a structured assessment method to narrow your efforts and identify the processes that are most likely to be heavily impacted by a hybrid working model.

Prioritise your process improvement

Now you have an understanding of your process framework and the areas that are impacted by hybrid working, apply some thinking to each process to determine where you should focus your time.

  • First, ask yourself some key questions regarding each of the high priority processes you have identified for review?
  • How frequently is the process executed? E.g. Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly
  • What volume of transactions are managed through the process? E.g. High, Medium, Low
  • What level of internal satisfaction is there with the process? E.g. Extremely dissatisfied to Extremely satisfied
  • What level of external satisfaction is there with the process? E.g. Extremely dissatisfied to Extremely satisfied
  • What is the process execution pain currently being experienced? E.g. High, Medium, Low
  • What is the impact of a hybrid working model on this process? E.g. High, Medium, Low

By developing a weighting for each of these questions you will start to form a view of the priorities that need to be addressed by your process improvement efforts.

Engage the right people in your change program

One of the major challenges when embarking on a process improvement initiative is that everyone does not see the same set of problems. Have you heard of the ‘Iceberg of Ignorance’? This term was coined by consultant Sidney Yoshida in a 1989 study of a Japanese car manufacturer, Calsonic.

It describes how frontline workers were aware of 100% of the problems faced by the organisation, while team leaders were aware of 74%, middle managers were aware of only 9%, and senior executives saw just 4% of problems.

Unfortunately, not much has changed in many large organisations over the years. To understand the issues that are being created across your processes by a hybrid working model you need to engage the right people to understand your current state processes. Once you have a clear understanding of the current state process and problems, you can start assessing how things need to be adapted and changed for a hybrid workforce.

Conclusion

Ongoing change is going to be a consistent theme again for all organisations in 2021. As hybrid working becomes the new normal you need to narrow the focus of your process improvement initiatives to those processes that are going to be most heavily impacted by this change.

So remember:
• Visualise the whole of your business
• Understand the scope of impacted processes
• Engage the right people across the organisation to understand the problems and how to solve them

February 23, 2021 Business Analysis, Business Process Management, Change Management No comments yet
Workflow management

What is workflow management?

Workflow management is currently a term that is used widely across many industries. Whether you are in accounting, legal services, real estate or mortgage broking everyone has been looking at how they can automate routine tasks, speed things up or improve the overall customer experience.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced businesses to think about how their processes work with a distributed workforce. The old process of dropping the invoice off on the managers desk for approval has no longer been an option. Many organisations have been turning to workflow management technology to see if this can solve their process problems.

What is workflow management?

So, what is the difference between a workflow and a process? 

Well why don’t we begin with the definition of a process as outlined by Nicole in her blog post on the 3’P’s – Policy, Process and Procedure.

Process Definition – A business process is a series of related, structured activities performed by a group of people to accomplish a specific organisational goal.   

Process Example – The example used in Nicole’s blog was an accounts payable process. The invoice is received by Accounts Payable from the supplier in the mail.  Any invoices that require approval are placed in the CEO’s in-tray for approval. Once approved the invoice is entered and matched in the finance system. The specific organisational goal is a paid supplier invoice. The key point to note in our process example is that the participants are held accountable for the completion of each step in the process.

Accounts payable process
Figure 1: Accounts Payable Process

Sounds easy so far right?  Well when it comes to workflow there are literally hundreds of confusing definitions out there.  Therefore, I landed on this one which I think makes the most sense.

Workflow Definition – A workflow is a series of sequential tasks that are carried out based on user-defined rules or conditions, to execute a business process.  Workflow management systems can be used to help automate common time-consuming tasks.

Workflow Example – So, in our accounts payable example we might implement a workflow management system to capture an invoice centrally from a supplier and then automatically extract details to match against the purchase order. Business rule validation would then automatically direct the invoice to the relevant approver before payment is scheduled from the relevant bank account. The key point to note in our workflow example is that the speed, quality and sequence of how tasks are completed are the important elements.

Figure 2: Accounts Payable Workflow

How do I improve my workflow management?

One of the keys to workflow management is to avoid taking a technology first approach.  Implementing a workflow management tool without understanding your processes will frustrate people in your team and will most likely create new process issues.  Many organisations think that by transitioning their current processes into a workflow management tool they will see immediate benefits.

To improve workflow management in your organisations you need to:

  1. Document and understand your current processes
  2. Identify what steps in the process can be automated or partially automated
  3. Evaluate the various workflow management technologies that will best enable your process
  4. Document your agreed future state process based on the workflow management technology selected
  5. Develop a plan to rollout the new workflows to your team

Workflow management tools

A workflow management system provides the infrastructure to setup, track and control a workflow. There are many different types of workflow applications on the market that have been designed to help automate common time-consuming tasks.  Selecting the right workflow management system will depend on the workflow you are seeking to improve.

Accounts Payable Workflow – Every business will have their own unique accounts payable process so there is no one size fits all for AP automation. There are many workflow management systems that help automate routine tasks in the accounts payable process.  Some of these include:

Other workflow management systems – There are many different workflow management systems that have been designed to help automate routine tasks across any part of your business processes. Example workflows that you might be looking to speed up or automate might include:

  • Client and employee onboarding workflow
  • Project delivery workflow

Some workflow management systems that have been designed to enable these types of workflows include:

But remember implementing workflow management systems without having a good understanding of your business processes is doomed to deliver you sub-optimal results.  If you want to learn more about how to improve your processes while working remotely then check out our blog on Virtual Process Improvement.

Understanding your processes is the key to workflow management improvement

Just like any other continuous improvement initiative understanding your processes is the key to improving your workflow management practices.  The effort you invest to improve workflow in your business is almost always going to be worth it.  However, the business value you derive will vary depending on where you decide to invest your time. You need to consider and prioritise where your time is going to add the most value.

You need to evaluate which workflows will provide you with the most reward for:

  • Improving the flow of information
  • Speeding things up
  • Improving the quality of the end result

Defining a clear view of your workflow priorities will help you form a path to success. 

August 13, 2020 Business Analysis, Business Process Management, Change Management, Technology No comments yet
Virtual process improvement

Virtual Process Improvement

Like many businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic we have been faced with the challenge of how to continue delivering our services without any face to face contact with our clients.  Our process improvement workshops have traditionally been delivered through co-design sessions using whiteboards, post-it notes and flip charts.  We had to rethink our delivery model quickly with active process improvemement engagements located across Australia. With travel restrictions and borders closed we had to adapt and continue all of these process design sessions remotely.

So, what are the 3 key things we have learned about virtual process improvement?

  • Evaluate your toolsets
  • Develop virtual workshop guidelines
  • Adapt your timings

Online communication toolsets

As a consulting organisation we have been using various online communication tools with clients for several years. These have included:

While these tools are designed to be easy to use it is important to confirm that all workshop participants are familiar with the key features of the platform prior to the session. People in the session will be more confident to contribute if they are familiar with the basic features such as:

  • Muting the microphone
  • Meeting chat
  • Changing the background
  • Turning video on and off
  • Sharing screens
  • Raising hands

Our QLD client had only recently started using Microsoft Teams and were in transition from Skype for Business.  We confirmed that we would use Microsoft Teams for all process design sessions as participants only had to understand the functionality of one product rather than two. There is also a significant amount of additional functionality available in Teams E.g. Whiteboard, meeting notes and raise a hand.

Virtual process mapping toolsets

Once you have decided on your communication platform how do you enable effective discussion and solve problems collaboratively in a virtual world? Process design in a virtual world is vastly different to a face to face workshop.  It’s more difficult to quickly break into smaller teams to discuss issues and create solutions. 

Our current solution is to use Lucid Chart for our virtual process design sessions which is a really useful cloud based digital collaboration tool.  You can publish the URL link to the online document allowing participants real time access. Participants can also collaborate on the document pointing to shapes or text on the screen making it easy for people to follow the conversation. It also enables online commenting which makes it really easy to track changes and updates to a process map. By publishing the live link to participants it also means you don’t need to share your screen which means you can keep everyone’s videos maximised.

There are also a number of digital facilitation tools that can be used for capturing process issues and opportunities. These are:

If you already have Office 365 you can save on additional subscription costs by using existing apps to collaborate:

Ensuring all participants are familiar with the toolsets prior to your session is important. A simple 2 min explainer video circulated to participants prior to the workshop can really help productivity in the workshop.

Develop virtual workshop guidelines

Everyone is familiar with the ongoing challenges of video conferencing.  Connection challenges, audio issues, people dropping out mid-sentence and everyone talking over the top of each other.  If you haven’t seen this video on the ‘Real life conference call’ then check it out. I’m sure some of it will sound familiar. 

One of the key things to think about when using video conferencing for workshops is to develop and agree on some ‘workshop rules’ for online interaction. It’s important that all participants buy into the rules of engagement for your virtual workshop. The following Office 365 applications can be used to display these guidelines so you can refer to them throughout the session:

Some example workshop rules could include:

  • Everyone should have their video turned on. This helps the facilitator to read participants non-verbal cues.
  • Be mindful of background noise and mute your microphone if you are not talking.
  • Use the chat function to communicate if you are experiencing any issues – audio, video or just struggling to get involved.
  • Use raise a hand to ask the facilitator a question

Adapt your timings

Half day process workshops are common in a face to face environment.  Our experience in a virtual world is that 2 hours is the maximum time that participants tend to remain focused and productive.  This means you can’t cover the same amount of content. A clear and planned agenda is the key to keep everything on track. Your agenda outline should include:

  • The agenda items
  • The agenda items owner/facilitator
  • Time allocated to each agenda item

A key element to your virtual workshop agenda is to ensure that you leave 10-15 mins at the start of the meeting to cover introductions, workshop roles and virtual guidelines.  It is also useful to allocate someone to the role of timekeeper to ensure things stay on track. The timekeeper can provide updates to the facilitator via meeting chat.  It is also important to leave 5-10 mins in your agenda at the end of the session to summarise the key outcomes and confirm the next steps.

Planning is the key to virtual process improvement

Just like face to face process workshops planning is the key to a successful virtual process workshop. The keys to success are:

  • Developing a clear understanding of what toolsets will be used to facilitate the session
  • Understanding how participants will interact and engage in the session
  • Understanding that it will take longer to think through your process challenges in a remote working environment.

Our recent client feedback surveys have indicated that 90% of participants have felt that our virtual process design sessions are about the same or better than face to face sessions.  What this is telling us is that virtual process improvement is here to stay!

July 22, 2020 Business Analysis, Business Process Management, Technology No comments yet
Categories