DD #28 – Outline your Workflow

Welcome back to another Digital Directive! We’re bringing back the first directive we ever gave out: Outline your workflow!

We want to ensure everyone is tapped in and armed with the knowledge of how important and beneficial a structured workflow is.

Whether you’re building a new business or scaling an existing one, we all ask ourselves similar questions.

When is the project due?
What are my employees doing?
Where can I track performance?
How can I get more things done?
Who’s leading this initiative?

If you’ve asked yourself these questions, or some variation of them, listen up, we’ve got some practical tips and a guide for putting them into action.

This is why you need a workflow

Workflows are important because they help us understand how, what, and when something is going to be accomplished. In a proper workflow, you know when something starts, approximately how long it should take, and all the steps (in order) to get said thing from ideation to implementation.

There’s more to it though; we also want to know who is doing what parts of the process, what resources they need to complete the said process, and how the hand-off between steps in this process will go. What about when it’s done? We need to have SOPs (standard operating procedures) in place, that direct us on what to do next.

Having a workflow standardizes your process and keeps everyone in order, but it can also open new opportunities for expanding your business. Even more, they can add additional revenue on top of what’s already happening because it’s as simple as adding another step in the process.

Here’s what to consider in your workflow outline

The first workflow you consider should be the heart of your business the thing that drives everything else. Here are eight aspects of your process you should think about, be sure to leave no stones unturned:

1. Start point, end point (timeline)
2. Hand-off points, benchmarks, natural break points (steps)
3. Who’s involved? (people)
4. What parts of the process are they involved in? (roles)
5. What materials or resources are involved? (cost)
6. What commences the process? (trigger)
7. What information is needed? (pre-requisites)
8. What tools or software are required to do it?

Start outlining your first workflow today (for free!)

Now that you’ve started thinking about your workflows and outlining your current processes, it’s time to visualize it. Visually outlining your workflow is how you’ll discover unknown dependencies, roadblocks, and find better ways to mitigate errors and streamline the entire system.

Since we’re seeking to outline a digital process and looking to amend the system, we’re going to want to use a digital mind mapping tool of some kind. There are dozens of great options, but we’ve always loved Figma because of the diverse set of tools it possesses.

Figma offers a great free plan which is perfect for doing what we need. Get Started on Figma

­Watch the tutorial

Something extra 🦙

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If you’re interested, you can fill-out an order form here!