How U.S. Firms Are Enhancing Workflow Efficiency

Would you say that the experience of your customers is the most important measure of your company's strategy performance? There are more than 45% of those that do. In fact, having a good bond with your customers is one of the most important things for a business to be successful, grow, and last. To make sure your customers are happy with the service or product you give, you need to understand, track, and improve the efficiency of your workflow.But what does a good process look like? How do you keep track of and measure how well a process works?

Let's talk about these issues and look at what groups and teams in different fields do to make theirs better

First, what does "workflow efficiency" mean?Checking your workflow productivity will tell you how much time you spend working on your process and how long it takes to finish a job. The word comes from the Lean theory, which says that the best way to improve flow efficiency is to find and get rid of waste.Formula for lean flow efficiency think about it this way: your team members need 10 days to write a new policy, but they only spend 3 days actually working on it. In that case, 30% of the work would be done more efficiently.But why do work processes get less effective over time? Let's find out.What about your work flow isn't working well?Waste is one of the most common problems that slows down processes, no matter the industry, team size, or level of the company. The Lean philosophy talks about seven main types of waste. All of these wastes are what cause processes to be inefficient. Here are some examples from our practice:tasks that don't add value. Try to figure out which parts of your process add value and which ones don't so you can better see where the bottlenecks are and figure out how to fix them.Not enough talking. Centralizing communication and sharing knowledge across your company can help you avoid delays and misunderstandings that aren't necessary.

Switching between tasks and contexts

Setting a limit on the amount of work that can be done at once can help people focus on the most important tasks. Long-term, not doing more than one thing at a time can affect your delivery times and make your work move more smoothly.repetitive and physical tasks. Strong task automation makes it possible for people to do useful work while lowering the chance of mistakes they make. This can greatly enhance the flow of work.Not tracking how well work gets done. This isn't really waste, but it's an important point because it has to do with improving all the time. To make things better, you should know how your work is done, what slows it down, and where people get stuck. But measuring the effects of these changes will help you find even more ways to make things better.Now, let's talk about some steps you can take to make your process more efficient.Four of the best ways to make work run more smoothlyThe newest study on Kanban says that visualizing the work process, dealing with problems that stop work, and measuring lead time are the three most common ways to use Kanban. From what we've seen with Businessmap customers, we totally agree!the most common Kanban tasksThe most common Kanban methods, image source: Kanban UniversitySo, we'll use real-life examples of process and how teams were able to work more efficiently by using the Kanban methods we just talked about.

Picture the whole work process to fix communication problems and a lack of openness.

Visualization is the first thing you should do. Even though it seems simple, the idea behind it is very strong. Make sure that your work process is clear and logical by describing each step and the tasks that are carried out at each one.By drawing a map of the waiting (queuing) steps in your process, you can see how they affect the speed and efficiency of your work, as well as the time that is added value and time that is not. In this way, everyone can fully understand how things work, which naturally makes conversation easier.Kanban board with more than one columnUsing Kanban boards to show a job process from start to finishFor example, the American construction company BMWC set up a clear work breakdown structure, better communication, and reliable metrics to measure how well its workflow is working by mapping out the whole operational process as exactly as possible.To do this, Kanban boards have been used to see how design, construction, BIM/CADD, fabrication, installation, and quality control jobs are moving along. For example, this let people see how a request was being handled in real time, from the time it was sent to the time it was delivered. (Case Study from BMWC)One great thing about a digital Kanban board is that it lets you collect data that you can use to learn. If you put together a Kanban board and a flow efficiency chart, you can keep track of the tasks that have been completed over a certain amount of time and see how quickly they were completed. You can use that data to find process bottlenecks and unnecessary steps and to learn more about how to improve the delivery of your service.