Workflow: what it is, purpose and how it works

Among the various ideas highlighted in the business scene, the concept of Workflow is standing out more and more. This system plays a crucial role in structuring the activities of the sector and, even, of the entire company, and can improve both the quality and quantity of deliveries carried out by a team.

This structuring helps avoid disorganization and redundancy, allowing for an efficient distribution of responsibilities and resources. In addition, the Workflow enables the monitoring and analysis of the performance of the stages, favoring the identification of possible bottlenecks and the implementation of continuous improvements.

Let's understand more about what it is Workflow and how does it work?

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What is workflow?

The term Workflow is an expression in English that can be translated as “workflow”. It is a system that helps organize the tasks of a project. This method understands production as a chain of activities that you or your team carry out regularly and must be ordered so that the demands are made without internal obstacles.

In this way, this organization technique works so that the order of tasks in each sector is planned in an optimized way, avoiding production bottlenecks.

This concept gained such popularity for two main reasons:

• it is highly effective in solving production problems;
• it can be applied to companies in any branch, from micro enterprises to large industries.

What is the difference between processes and workflow?

The difference between processes and Workflow is related to coverage and focus. While the processes are broader and more generic, encompassing a more general and abstract view of a series of interconnected activities to achieve a larger objective, the Workflow is a more detailed and specific representation of a part of this process, focusing on the precise sequence of tasks, the automation, and the monitoring of that sequence to optimize efficiency and effectiveness.

Thus, the Workflow is part of a larger process — a process that can encompass multiple areas, departments, and functions within an organization.

What are the objectives of the workflow?

The main function of the implementation of Workflow is to unlock the actions of each sector, in order to increase agility in the delivery of products or services and to make your business grow in a healthy way. In this way, the accumulation of functions in just one collaborator is eliminated and activities can be carried out with greater assertiveness.

Thus, in order to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and organization of processes within a company, Workflow its main objectives are:

Process automation

Automate manual and repetitive tasks, saving time and reducing errors, while promoting a consistent and standardized execution of activities.

Improving efficiency

Optimize the sequence of activities, reducing waiting times and bottlenecks, which Increase productivity and the teams' responsiveness. O Workflow it also helps to prioritize and distribute tasks according to urgency, understanding team capacity and other relevant criteria and ensuring an efficient allocation of resources.

Transparency and visibility

Provide a clear, real-time view of the progress of activities at each stage of the process, facilitating performance monitoring and management. In addition, the Workflow it also seeks to facilitate the tracking of activities, changes, and responsibilities throughout the process, supporting internal and external audits to ensure compliance with policies and regulations.

QC

Establish standards and criteria that guarantee the quality of deliveries, allowing the identification and rapid correction of problems or deviations and making adjustments to the processes according to needs, changes in business requirements, or feedback of users, maintaining operational agility.

Integration of systems and applications

Integrate diverse systems, applications, and tools to optimize communication and information sharing between team members, as well as between different departments.

Cost reduction

Contribute to the reduction of operating costs, eliminating waste, rework, and unnecessary delays in operations.

What are the types of workflows?

There are several types of Workflow, each with its own characteristics and purposes. Thus, although it is a unique concept, the choice of Workflow to be used depends on the process in question and the objectives to be achieved.

To better understand how this works, let's get to know some of these types.

Ad hoc

O Workflow ad hoc is flexible and does not follow a predefined sequence of activities. In this type of Workflow, participants are free to decide the steps and the order of activities according to the progress of the process. It is highly adaptable and is often used to handle unique or non-routine situations.

Administrative

O Workflow administrative follows a fixed and predefined sequence of activities. Each step of the process is clearly outlined, and tasks are distributed according to a specific set of rules and procedures. This type of Workflow it is commonly used in bureaucratic and administrative processes, where consistency and precision are fundamental.

Productive

O Workflow productive is focused on production efficiency. It optimizes the sequence of activities to ensure the efficient production of goods or services. The steps are organized in such a way as to minimize the time and resources needed, increasing the overall productivity of the process.

Collaborative

O Workflow Collaborative involves collaboration and interaction between various participants and departments. The activities are designed to promote effective communication and cooperation, allowing team members to work together in a coordinated manner to achieve a common goal.

Transactional

O Workflow transactional involves the processing of business transactions, such as purchase orders, billing, payments, and other financial transactions. The steps are structured to ensure that transactions are handled accurately, safely, and efficiently, while respecting specific rules and regulations.

How does a workflow work in practice?

Identifying and eliminating production bottlenecks seems like a very difficult task, right? However, the Workflow there is its own way to achieve this objective: a mapping of all the activities of that project, sector or company is created, and the connection between each demand is shown in a very simple way.

With this visual support of all stages, the workflow is reorganized so that the team achieves the objective of carrying out their tasks with fluidity and agility.

Methodologies that support the workflow

Since the creation of the concept of Workflow, different methodologies were devised to organize this survey of the activities of an enterprise. We separated two of them so that you have a clue about where to start carrying out this process!

Ishikawa diagram

This is the most used method when you want to apply the workflow to a specific process within the company or solve a project that is completely stuck. It is based on separating what you want to map and identifying the central problem from that demand. You can place this topic at the center of a sheet to begin creating the flowchart.

From this central idea, you must add points that branch laterally, point out at them what are the causes of that main error. Expand this map of ideas until the survey on the reasons that make that process stalled is exhausted.

After that initial identification, it's time to work with the information you raised from the simplest problems to the core of the issue. Thus, you will be able to solve a large number of bottlenecks in a more organized order of priority and you will not spend efforts on activities that are not important at the moment.

PDCA cycle

Another way to organize your tasks to apply a workflow is with PDCA cycle. This acronym stands for “Plan, Do, Check, Act” (Plan, Do, Check, Act) and is characterized by being a system that creates cyclical steps to map and manage the internal processes of your business. It also focuses on solving one critical point at a time and makes it easier to prioritize team demands.

Using this method, you will perform the following steps:

• Plan: definition of the problem to be solved and verification of what is causing this impasse;
• Do: collection of data on that bottleneck, such as the number of products made in a certain period of time, and strategic actions that can be taken to solve each of the points that were identified as causing the problem. At this stage, the first efforts are made to resolve the issue;
• Check: analysis of results, comparing the data collected on the problem before the new strategy and those that were observed after the implementation of the actions planned in the previous stage;
• Act: it is the documentation of all the data that was collected during the process and also the result achieved with the actions carried out with the new workflow.

This system is cyclical and, therefore, after completing the fourth phase, it starts again focusing on the next problem, always maintaining the progress of production.

Pareto analysis

Pareto Analysis is a methodology that aims to identify and prioritize the most significant factors or problems that impact a process. It is based on the principle that often a small number of causes are associated with most problems. This technique helps to focus efforts and resources on the areas that will bring the greatest benefits in terms of improving Workflow, providing a more efficient approach to achieving the desired objectives.

What about the digital workflow? Does it work the same way?

O Workflow digital works in the same way as the traditional version, but in this case digital tools are used to carry out the organization, such as websites or applications. With these tools, you can more easily create activity mapping panels and also separate the priority order for your team.

These instruments can even be used to assign different functions to employees, regardless of whether they work in person or remotely. Thus, the company's internal communication is more assertive, since everyone has access to task organization information.

With the digitally managed workflow, managers can also monitor, in a much simpler way, the progress of each task, taking advantage of tools to monitor team productivity and find ways to improve it.

What are the benefits of using the workflow?

As we said before, there are several advantages to using the Workflow to organize your company's tasks. Among the main ones, we can mention:

• reduces the number of errors during internal processes;
• decreases the amount of rework;
• decreases the volume of resource, time and human capital expenditures;
• makes it easier to manage tasks by collaborator and with the team as a whole;
• optimizes internal communication;
• streamlines the identification of priority demands;
• increases the results achieved;
• improves the monitoring of production data.

Knowing this, why not apply this system to unlock the demands of your business? see how to apply the workflow to your business!

How to build a workflow?

Check out the step by step to introduce the workflow as your company's activity organization system!

Map the key tasks and workflows of your business

In order for you and your team of collaborators to be able to create an optimized task chain that truly minimizes production bottlenecks, the first step is to make a survey of all the activities that must be carried out in the company's daily life. Requests with suppliers, bureaucratic issues, maintenance and everything else must be included in the list so that you have a real idea about the performance of each employee.

Don't forget to include information about which demands depend on previous steps to be finalized. For example, for the social media team to carry out social media campaigns with adequate time and assertiveness, its strategic action team must have planned the next actions to attract clients. Thus, the first phase to be prioritized must be the idealization of the project and then it will be necessary to think about how to create publications for this campaign.

Analyze the difficulties of each sector

A manager must be aware of the critical points of their business, but in institutions with many stages or with high production it is difficult to keep abreast of everything that is hindering the daily life of each department. To resolve these problems, interview the teams and identify the main obstacles to team productivity.

This information must be added to the workflow framework relating to the stages of carrying out each process.

If we return to the example of the social media team, the task listed is the creation of publications to give visibility to a campaign. The difficulty related to it, on the other hand, is the delay on the part of the strategic department in providing timely planning for the designers to create advertising that bears fruit. To be successful, this must be placed on the workflow board.

Draw the entire flow

Observe and analyze your company's entire process and problem framework, and start planning what measures will be taken. First, determine the severity of each bottleneck and what the most important demands are. List the priority for completing each task and also what must be done to ensure that it is done.

With all this survey, you can create a chain of tasks that will be carried out in a logical and orderly manner, increasing productivity and results in each sector in which this tactic is applied.

Find tools to perform the optimizations

Often, resolving a bottleneck means changes to the production line or to the team's working methods. To facilitate the fulfillment of all demands, the best choice is to bet on automated tools that streamline the life of the entire team.

Research automation tools for both the production sector and the organizational departments of your brand. One of the ways you can choose to streamline bureaucratic processes, for example, is the digital signature for closing contracts, which saves time for several members of their human capital and facilitates negotiations with suppliers.

Train your business employees

Any change within the way of working can generate doubts among the team and, to prevent this from diminishing the company's productivity, it is essential to provide training for your team. Offer them materials so that they can begin to act thinking about creating micro chains of activities and, consequently, to be able to manage their tasks in an optimal manner.

If you use the tools of Workflow digital and choose to include automation in your business, you also need to train your team to take full advantage of the benefits of each innovative system. That way, the entire workforce will be focused on improving production instead of wasting time trying to understand something software.

Follow the results of strategic actions

Some time after the implementation of the creation of Workflow in your company and at the beginning of strategic actions, keep an eye on the results to identify if the production bottlenecks have been resolved. Those that are working can be kept and those that still remain the same, must be identified so that you can find a new solution.

The secret to creating an organized workflow is to keep your management flexible and adaptable, to be able to meet the team's demands and also keep up with the changes required by the market. Therefore, the maintenance of the way of working will be constant and necessary to achieve the result you want.

Improve workflow with digital signature solutions

Now that you're familiar with the concept of Workflow and its applications in the business environment, it's time to implement this approach in your business, mapping the processes that constitute it.

How about starting by thinking about a solution capable of eliminating the bureaucracy of document processes, transforming the way you create and sign documents in your business? Learn about Clicksign's solutions below!

Clicksign Subscription

By integrating Clicksign's electronic signature into your Workflow, it is possible to send and sign documents from anywhere, completely online and with legal validity.

This solution provides a secure and efficient environment for digitally signing contracts, agreements, and other documents, replacing the need for time-consuming and error-prone manual procedures.

Clicksign Automation

Another valuable aspect is Clicksign Automation, which enhances your Workflow by incorporating automation into the document management process. This solution allows you to create contracts in minutes using an intelligent and customizable form, which will collect the data you need and automatically add it to the contract. Then it will be ready to be signed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-K4IqyVqwU

Clicksign Integration

Finally, the Clicksign Integration represents a crucial step forward in the optimization of document processes. This integration allows the solution to be aligned with other systems and applications that you already use in your company, ensuring a smooth transition and greater synergy between work tools.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7p4oAgowD0

Ready to take a significant step to modernize and streamline your document processes, reducing red tape and increasing your company's efficiency? Learn about our plans and prices or Try now for free, without the need for a credit card!