Workflow

Workflow isn't everyone's idea of fun.

But, I have to admit, it is mine (disclaimer, I find other things fun too - most of which are more fun than workflow).

One of my clients had a problem. Their jobs were getting lost along the way. They knew what they were doing, they had excellent staff and they had high-paying clients. They just needed some help delivering.

The solution was actually quite simple.

We defined the stages that each job go through. As it moved from one stage to another, notifications were triggered. When A happens, then make sure that B knows about it. When C happens, ask D to respond. When D responds, move to the next stage.

Add in deadlines onto each job card and a board that shows columns with all jobs in a particular state grouped together and we had a system that made it easy to keep track of jobs, make sure the right people knew what they were supposed to be doing and ensure that every job is delivered on schedule.

As an added bonus, once we had that tracking in place, it was easy to produce a weekly, monthly and quarterly report - so the management team could see where the bottlenecks were and whether the company was improving.

If you want to know more about how to set up a job-board system like this, sign up for our "Quotes Jobs and Invoices" email course, which shows use a piece of free software to keep track of your work.