and-done.io - Processes and how to automate them
- 1. PROCESSES AND HOW TO AUTOMATETHEM and-done.io
- 2. Part 1: What are processes and how to automate them? and-done.io
- 3. 1.What is a Process? ■ A series of steps and decisions in the way work is completed. A way of going from one or multiple inputs to a desired outcome. ■ Simple ones: – 1. How to heat up milk: Pour milk into pot, turn on cooking plate – 2. How to make a sandwich:Cut bread, place desired ingredients ■ Not so simple ones: – How to synthesize a human genome – How to build a nuclear bomb and-done.io
- 4. 1.What is a Process? „If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.“ -W. Edwards Deming and-done.io
- 5. 2. How to visualize a process and why? ■ Optimization requires understanding and understanding is greatly supported by visualization ■ Business Process Modeling as gold standard but high barrier to understanding with too marginal benefits in growing everchanging organizations ■ Good enough: Put Milk into Pot Turn on Stove Put Pot on Stove and-done.io
- 6. 2. How to visualize a process and why? and-done.io
- 7. 2. How to visualize a process and why? ■ Please visualize the process of sending an email and-done.io
- 8. 3. How to setup a Process 1. Wing it a. Quickly gather inputs from involved stakeholders on ways to proceed b. Process on informal plan resulting from inputs c. Start execution as soon as possible 2. Learn Proactively a. Constantly monitor process and gather feedback from all involved stakeholders b. Collect all inputs as structured as possible (collection should always be more important than structure at this point) 3. Review learnings a. Look for aligning learnings and pain points from stakeholders b. Look at issues that are arising or might arise in the future that might become systemic and maybe not seen by any individual stakeholder (e.g. Data quality is often one of these issues) 4. Structure learnings and solve conflicting feedbacks a. Sometimes the solution for one stakeholders issue creates an issue for another one. Here the process owner (you) needs to make the call what is most sensible for a properly running process and-done.io
- 9. 3. How to setup a Process 5. Map out all required steps and information inputs a. These need to be gone through with every stakeholder so nothing is lost 6. Assign responsibilities for every step a. Minimize changing stakeholders whenever possible 7. Draw process map with all variations a. Sometimes (especially with bigger projects) it makes sense to make one executive overview map and one map that is comprised of all the individual sub-process maps for every bigger step 8. Brief and align all stakeholders with process map 9. Iterate andOptimize a. No process is ever perfect and they need to evolve with the company. Keep that in mind! and-done.io
- 10. 4. How to iterate and optimize a process „Itis not necessary to change. Survivial is not mandatory“ - W. Edwards Deming and-done.io
- 11. 4. How to iterate and optimize a process (Examples) 1. Opportunities for improvements Fuck-Ups and almost Fuck-Ups Angry customers Losses of Revenue Additional costs Friction Points between stakeholders After Booking Finance takes too long to send out invoices Issues in analysis of process flow or requirements Scaling issues with additional stakeholders or multiplied transaction volume Sending a handcrafted email to every customer for 50 customers vs 5000 Newly available or newly economical tools Document generator for 1k EUR per month, uneconomical for 5 customers, great for 50000 customers and-done.io
- 12. 2. Constantly analyze improvement opportunities and collect feedback Also actively seek feedback, don‘t just wait for it Escape feedback inertia: „Nothing will be improved anyways“ Try to link issues to the actual process step 3.Weigh relevance for conflicting need Establish process for objective weighting (The loudest is likely not the most important) In doubt always favor longterm process stability 4. Adapt process 5. Announce changes to all active and passive stakeholders Example 4. How to iterate and optimize a process (Examples) and-done.io
- 13. Part 2: Process Automation: Optimization for Good and-done.io
- 14. 1.What is Process Automation? „Automation of complex business processes by means of advanced technology to achieve higher process efficiency and save costs“ and-done.io
- 15. 2.Why automate? 1. Less errors Wrong data entries, typos, wrongly filled documents 2. Scalability Growing requirements for larger amounts of customers etc. 3. Less costs No additional headcount for „monkeywork“ 4. Better tracking Automated processes can be precisely debugged as everything is clearly defined 5.Work ethic improvements Less repetitive work and more focus on meaningful problem solving and-done.io
- 16. 3. Should I really waste Coding resources? 1. No, because it‘s not necessary, there are other ways to automate 2. No, because it‘s not the best way, there are better ways to automate 3. Integrated platforms as a service (IPaaS) like Zapier require no coding experience and can be used to build highly scalable and flexible automations 4. Focus tech-talent on product improvements and real competetive advanages (good processes can be a real competitive advantage but even then most steps can be done without coding – sometimes coding might be needed) and-done.io
- 17. 4.What can be automated this way? Almost Everything Goal-Tracking Appointment Management Invoicing Finance Customer Notifications Reporting Stakeholder Communications Price-Calculation Lead-Acquisition Email Cycles Data Entry Record Syncing Alerts Logistics Management and-done.io
- 18. 4.What can be automated this way? „But we have a special business model and we have specific requirements“ Your business might be special, your business processes most likely are not Two categories of automations 1. QuickWins 2. BigWins and-done.io
- 19. Categories of Automations: QuickWins Simple automations that are mostly aimed at improving ones productivity Receive once every 3 hours a Slack message with the subjects and senders of all the received mails of the past 3 hours Extract the attachment of every incoming mail where the subject contains „invoice“ and store it in a dropbox folder Can be implemented in less than an hour and have almost no base requirements and-done.io
- 20. Categories of Automations: BigWins Flows that automate complex business processes with many possible variations and integrated complexities Automate all client sided financing operations from collecting invoice data to generating and sending out invoices, payment reminders and matching incoming payment streams Automate an appointment booking system to match customer records with available appointments and inform partner over bookings Automatically move a customer through CRM stages dependent on his actions and create tasks for stakeholders if necessary Those automations create significant longterm business value but require strong foundations and a structured approach and-done.io
- 21. How to automate BigWins 1. Do it step by step Break processes down into subprocesses that can be tackled individually Client side financing = Invoice generation + payment reminders + cashflow tracking 2. Foundations are established processes The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency.The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.“ - BillGates and-done.io
- 22. How to automate BigWins 3. Understand your processes and be able to map them out „If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.“ 4. Centralize or at least standardize your inputs Any relevant information can be found in trusted central system (CRM) Entry level: Pipedrive,Close.io etc. Pro level: Salesforce and-done.io
- 23. How to automate BigWins 5. Ensure data and data format reliability Enforce data inputs with gentle nudges or validation rules Validations should be set up in way to prevent wrongly executed flows not to require all data just for keeps sake, otherwise stakeholders will lose buy in 6. Minimize the amount of free text strings Use Dropdowns/Picklist to structure your data and make it analyzeable and machine readable Free text strings should only be used for human <--> human interaction and-done.io
- 24. How to automate BigWins 7. Build the automation Map out the different action and interactions between various information sources and action providers Structure of automation services can be really helpful and-done.io
- 25. How to automate BigWins 7. Build the automation Keep the number of sources as low as possible to avoid friciton and minimize downtime risk Make sure that every information only has exactly one Source (ofTruth) Build step by step 8. Update process map and brief all stakeholders on changes and their new roles, include also stakeholders that were made redundant for this process Focus on benefits and emphasize need for high quality data entry and process compliance 9. Monitor and optimize,iterate and-done.io
- 26. Is this really worth it? 1.Yes, it makes your processes more stable and scalable 2.Yes, it allows you to focus your tech talent on product development 3.Yes, it saves you money for additional operational FTE that cover „monkeywork“ 4.Yes, it‘s often easier than you think and-done.io
- 27. Is this really worth it? ■ Case: Company that needs to create invoices that are too complicated for a simple invoice builder (too many inputs), Company scales from 500 invoices per month to 50000 ■ One accountant creates 500 invoices per month, gets 2000 EUR/Month ■ Manual Scenario: Hire 9 additional accountants = 18000 EUR/month add. Costs ■ Automation: Zapier: 300 EUR/Month + Document generationTool: 300 EUR/Month = 600 EUR/Month +Setup HR Cost (ca 500 EUR once) ■ Savings: 17400 EUR/Month and-done.io
- 28. Thank you very much for your attention! „If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right“ - Henry Ford and-done.io