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Best practices for WeSalute Workflows

Workflows​

What is a workflow? Simply put, a workflow is a clearly defined, sequential process of the optimal way to get things done. Workflows can help streamline and automate repeatable business tasks, minimizing room for errors and increasing overall efficiency. This, in turn, dramatically improves flow structure. Managers can make quicker, smarter decisions and Team Members can be empowered to collaborate in a more productive and agile way.

Workflows can get tangled and messy if transparency is not communicated accurately throughout the workflow process. Below is an example of an introductory guide on the importance of collecting user feedback: the tools to use, the questions to ask, and how to use feedback to build your outcome.

However, while some workflows might be pretty straightforward (like paying an invoice), they can quickly get confusing. Whole business workflows like planning and executing sprints involve multiple meetings, managing full teams, project management, looking after stakeholders, and knowing how to react to unexpected situations.

In this case, creating and documenting the optimal workflow means knowing a few key pieces of information:

  1. What exact job is being done? Are there any dependencies you need to consider?

  2. Who is responsible for each step?

  3. How long will each task take?

Keep it simple. That's it. Answer the above questions and structure them into a chart or process and you have a workflow.

How to Make Workflows Successful

  • Keep it simple, or complex as necessary
  • Create transparency
  • Reduce friction to increase velocity
  • Make it transferable to others
  • Not taking the time to critically think about workflows impacts other Team Members and the Customer
  • When you work outside of an established workflow it creates friction for the entire organization and we lose velocity
  • Feedback to make enhancements to workflow is encouraged and welcomed, it must be documented to be implemented correctly
  • Scalability

Benefits of Using Workflows

  • Workflows reduce project risk
  • Effect organizational change
  • Implementing workflows can lead process change
  • Workflows give increased access to information
  • Workflows delineate work responsibility to different people
  • Improve project timeline estimates
  • Provide visibility
  • Workflows provide an audit trail
  • Managers can focus on strategy
  • Businesses can input rules

Planned Workflow​

Imagine planned work cadences as the heartbeat of your delivery process. Irregularities and skipped beats signify trouble ahead and inconsistent output. Regular, steady heartbeats signal a healthy body in working order -- consistent functions that can be used to accurately forecast future delivery.

Planned cadences can be divided into three overlapping groups for successful planning

  • Getting things done (Daily strategizing Kanban tasks that are top priority)
  • Doing the right things (Understanding the cadences on projects is crucial)
  • Doing things better (Learn from your mistakes how to best strategize, how to accomplish planned work)

What to Consider for Successful Planned Work

  • Ideation and Business Analysis
  • Answering the Why, What and Who
  • Creating Scope, connecting to resources to make your work successful
  • Ship value in manageable amounts
  • Document shipped value and planned work
  • Quality Assurance and User Acceptance Testing

Practice Continual Improvement for Planned Work Instead of Looking for Convenient Solutions

Some common challenges teams face when dealing with unplanned work is how to communicate the impact it has on the execution of the planned work. Especially, when it causes constant fluctuations in the throughput and cycle times so that teams can't properly plan their work nor manage teams' expectations. While workflows play a major role in how you structure incoming work, communication is also very important. No matter how painful or difficult it may be, it's important to step up and address the problem.

Holding regular meetings and openly discussing the overall progress, changes, issues, and new findings can help teams understand the flow better; And uncover why they keep getting unplanned tasks and what they can do to reduce their arrival. Also, they should review the capacity allocation regularly to fine-tune to the current situation. If everyone can't be asynchronous, it's OK because they can refer to their board to reflect the latest decisions and changes.

Planned vs. Unplanned Work​

Have you ever felt like you are working on more unplanned tasks than what you've actually planned? Unsurprisingly, these unplanned tasks are not only disturbing the daily or weekly schedules, but they are disrupting the team's workflow and negatively influencing throughput and cycle times. Moreover, unplanned tasks can stall and block priorities and mask dependencies. And as more tasks are assigned and started late, the problem reflects across the whole system.

How to Understand the Impact of Unplanned Work​

In order to handle the unplanned, reactive work, there is no correct answer here.

  • Squeeze them into the current workflow, in spite of set priorities

  • Just throw the tasks into the backlog

  • Add it in a pre-planned buffer

  • Form a dedicated team that handles unplanned work

  • Balance work scope to stay within limits -- for one unplanned item in, you remove one 'regular' task.

Ask yourself the following questions​

  • Have you setup planned work for success?
  • Have you prevented unplanned work?
  • Have you addressed critical unplanned work (alerts / response)?
  • Have you thought to ask your Team Members? "Seat of the pants"
  • Have you tried to introduce a constraint into our operations?
  • Have you removed the constraint?
  • Have you factored unplanned work into your planned work?
  • Have you avoided fire-fighting to perform the root cause analysis?
  • Have you set up your Team Members for success?
  • Have you considered awareness is key and execution is different?
  • Have you checked that you are not blocked?

Handling Unplanned Work in the Kanban​

One of the main goals in Kanban is to devise a system for dealing with unplanned work, not to help you do it indefinitely. Another thing to keep in mind when deciding whether to grab a card from the Kanban or not is to listen to common sense. And of course, calculate the economic cost of (not) doing a certain task. After all, the cost of expedites is actually very heavy.

Incidents are by definition unplanned and they need to be escalated. Our Incident Response Plan & Policies provides structure of how to deal with unplanned work of different severity levels.

Workflow Modifications​

Establish A Baseline​

  • Identify existing, logic, or process
  • Identify if it does not exist (it must be created in Operations Teams' Taxonomy before it is updated)
  • Identify analytics or metrics associated with the feature or component

Create a Project Plan​

  • Create a version that has minimum viable deliverable
  • Create boring solutions
  • Create a scope
  • Create project management through Jira to track the state and completed work
  • Create it to be transferable (can this work be resumed? rescheduled? reassigned?)
  • Create audits to identify risks
  • Create the plan, deliver the enhancement, and work with Project Management to scope the results

Delivery & Retrospectives​

  • Update the changes back to the existing enhancement
  • Update and communicate the release notes
  • Update the changes through KPIs, analytics, and embed it in the appropriate Taxonomy