Getting Things Done: Discovering Efficiencies in Workflow

Cynthia Ng
@TheRealArty
December 1, 2016

Some Context

When I first started working in libraries, I did a lot of my work by myself. Certainly, I consulted other people that had an impact on my work or vice versa, where my work would have an impact on theirs, but I mostly controlled the workflow of the projects I did. I’m certain that this is common occurrence, if not for all of one person’s work, then at least part of it. Personally, I started to think more about workflow once I started getting more involved with user experience. What did our users have to go through to complete a task in the library? I then turned more internally once I started supervising staff and their work, thinking about their workflow as individuals and as a team. It was actually in thinking about other people’s workflow that I think started thinking about my own work and whether I was doing things efficiently.

In the course of all this, I started to look at ways we can easily understand and analyze workflow. I wanted to avoid anything overly complex or time consuming, and I think I’ve accomplished that. So, I’ve put together a short presentation to share some of the methodology in the hopes that this might be useful to you and that it might get you thinking about workflows and how they might be improved.

Task Analysis

Reidsma, M. (2013). Slide 38. Websites are for People. http://matthew.reidsrow.com/articles/29 CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Flowchart

Journey Sheet

The idea is that there is a sheet of paper that is passed along from one person to the next, and as they get it, they write down what they do. The paper itself has brief instructions and an example at the top, and the rest is space for people to fill in the information.

I recently did this with different material that is processed in the library. While I could have asked all the staff involved what they did, which I did do, I found this a great way to see the different variations in workflow for different types of items that even staff didn’t necessarily think of when just asked about it, since material is processed different depending on whether for example, it’s a book or dvd, fiction or non-fiction, a new title or an additional copy, and if the item has a hold.

One of the reasons I decided to do it this way, was because I wanted to see how items moved through other departments, which was harder to find out, because a lot of different staff would potential handle the items after they left technical services.

Questions to Ask

Does the order make sense?
Which steps are flexible in the order? Conditional upon other steps being completed?
Can specific steps be done more efficiently?
How many people are involved? Can it be reduced?
Is the most suitable person doing each step?
Is the process consistent? Consistent with other departments?

The Ideal

Take Away

Thanks!

Cynthia Ng
@TheRealArty
about.me/cynthiang