We Put the Flow in Workflow – Improve Efficiency with Spike

Your workflow should be the foundation of everything you do. It can help you automate the most boring tasks and free up time for more creative things. It can streamline your projects and boost productivity in countless ways. It can also give you and your team a way to communicate and collaborate effortlessly. Put simply, your workflow makes your job easier.

Now, you might be reading this completely puzzled, asking exactly what a workflow is and how can it help me? Well, before we get too carried away with how to improve your workflow in the office, here’s the what and why of workflows so we’re all on the same page!

What is a Workflow? 

Workflow Definition

When we talk about “workflow”, we’re talking about a series of actions or tasks that need to be completed to achieve the desired business outcome. In most situations, the process is defined by preset business rules

Example Workflow 

When looking at how to improve workflow efficiency, you must define the process. Let’s say that you’re developing a new process to onboard employees as they are hired. You’ll need to define all the steps that your People Operations team takes in order to get employees started with their jobs. By accurately looking at every step in the process, you can define ways to how to improve workflow with hiring.

• How do we send the offer?
• How do they accept the offer?
• Who is the point of contact during the paperwork process?
• Who takes over as the DRI (directly responsible individual) during the new hire week?
• Is Finance ready to pay this person?
• Who handles the IT needs?
• Who checks in with the new hire to see if they have everything they need?

Defining all of these steps would be would your new hire workflow. By analyzing every step in the process, you’d be improving workflow and productivity with your new hire process.

In simple terms, a workflow is any sequence of processes where work is passed from start, through various stages, to completion. It’s basically the method you use to get $h1t done. It can be literally anything, from organizing the school run with a few stop-offs along the way to setting up automated systems that deal with entire projects.

There are multiple methodologies out there that are designed to help you improve workflow processes. Agile and Scrum are two that you might have heard of. Agile is a type of project management mainly used for software development, where demands and their solutions progress through collaborative efforts of independent and cross-functional teams and their clients. Scrum is an implementation of agile in which portions of builds are delivered incrementally to the customer every two to three weeks. While these may be two of the most known, these days it seems that everyone is designing their own, and you can very quickly become overwhelmed by the sheer number of different methodologies. However, at its core, your workflow should lubricate the wheels of your brilliant mind, automating mundane tasks, streamlining collaboration, and keeping everyone on track from start to finish.

Now, if all this sounds like more hassle than it’s worth, think again.

Discover:

• The Top 5 Steps for Managing Team Workflows
• Building Agile Teams on a Budget in 2023

Improving Workflows: 5 Simple Ways

Improving Your Workflow With Spike

A good workflow should be a reflection of the way your mind works, the most efficient and effective way to reach your desired goal. It should be truly liberating, giving you and your team the tools needed to get the job done. BUT, here’s the thing with 21st-century workflows—so much of it depends on what your SOFTWARE will allow you to do.

Spike, however, takes the guesswork out of creating a smooth workflow. It connects the dots. It brings together all of your most important collaboration and communication tools in one place so you never break your information flow. So now you can answer and monitor emails, create easy-to-follow Tasks and collaborative Notes, share files, chat and MORE, all from one screen. Yes, you read that right–one app, one screen, no limitations. In fact, improving your workflow and focus with Spike has never been easier. Put simply, we put the FLOW in workflow.

How to Improve Workflow Processes with Spike – Example 1 

Imagine this: you’re working on a big cross-department project that requires input from all the department heads. You need to gather information, process data, and build a winning presentation that will blow your bosses’ minds! Sounds simple right? Well with Spike, you’ve got everything you need in a single app.

How to Improve Workflow Processes with Spike – Example 2

Collaborative work is the lifeblood of good business, however, sometimes you just need to get your head down, get on with your own work and keep your life organized. Well don’t worry, while Spike is made for collaboration, it’s also the perfect tool to help you focus and improve YOUR workflow. Our asynchronous approach to email means you can collaborate when you need to and focus when you don’t. All notifications and updates take place directly within your inbox, so you never get taken off course by having to open up other tabs or applications to complete tasks or find information. Here’s how:

Set Up a Personal To-Do List   Your personal to-do list can be used from day-to-day, week-to-week, or month-to-month. You can even set up separate to-do lists per project or client.

Set Reminders for your Tasks   Not only can you schedule tasks to remind yourself of what needs to be done and when, but you can also schedule specific times for them to pop-up in your inbox as a reminder. Need to complete a report by next week? Just set a reminder and it will appear at the top of your inbox when you need it to.

Stay Organized   Go task list zero! Archive old or completed Tasks, to-do lists or Notes and keep your Inbox clean.  If at any point you need to access them again, you’ll find them stored neatly away in your archive folder.

Stay Focused A clean inbox encourages focus and gives you space to organize your next project. Everything you need is in your inbox with Spike, so you can easily move onto the next big thing without breaking your workflow.

How to Improve Workflow Processes with Spike – Example 3

For startups and small businesses, one of the biggest challenges when attempting to improve your workflows is ensuring you can connect outside the box. That is, connecting and collaborating with a spread out team of clients, freelancers or remote workers dotted around the world in different time zones. But don’t worry, Spike IS the box—and everything you need to create, collaborate, and communicate is exactly where you need it!

Review and Edit Work   You can ask your team members to add work directly into the specific Note. Here, you can review, edit, and ask for revisions with the in line Conversation function. If you have particularly complex files, you can also link to your favorite cloud drive.

Goodbye Silos. Hello Spike

When it comes to better workflows, Spike’s integrated, all-in-one approach puts everything you need at your fingertips. That means you can give the app switching a rest and benefit from an uninterrupted flow. Our goal is to ditch the silos of information created by app-overload and ensure you have all the tools you need to collaborate and communicate efficiently. 

For more information on improving workflow processes with Spike, then head over to the blog where you’ll find everything from productivity tips & tricks to insights on job-related mindfulness and wellbeing. Let us know how you use Spike to improve your workflow @SpikeNowHQ. 

Updated 12/30/2021