Cella consultants work with many marketing and creative teams that recognize they have room for improvement. This often means improving existing processes or implementing technology to help manage work - or both. We have found that doing the process work prior to the technology work yields greater success and adoption.
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Too often we see clients struggle because of inconsistent, unclear, or outdated workflows that no longer reflect the way we work today. There is hope that a new project management tool will resolve ALL your problems. Software won’t fix a broken process. Consider optimizing and streamlining your workflows before you configure a new tool modeled after outdated or broken processes. Doing this work up front will help you realize the tool's key benefits – work and resource management - by setting the tool up properly from day one.
Process + Technology = Success & Improved Adoption
Making process improvement work a priority is difficult - it's one of those things we all talk about ‘needing to do’ but rarely take the time to approach this in a formalized fashion. When it comes to implementing new tools to help us do our jobs - we are prepared to invest and make this a priority. We all know that implementing enterprise software is hard - and comes with a price tag. But implementing software successfully, in a way that is more likely to be adopted by your users, is a whole other story.
{See part 1 of this blog, Cella’s Approach to Process Improvement}
Cella has found that: Process + Technology = Success & Improved Adoption
When working with our clients, we’ve also found that those that take the time and effort to map out an improved future state prior to implementing new tech - have done much of the heavy lifting required to have a successful technology implementation.
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You’ve started the discovery work and have begun identifying requirements for the technology.
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You’ve got key stakeholders identified and thinking about improvements and what is needed to take your organization to the next level.
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You’ve begun building awareness and generating excitement for the upcoming change as soon as you initiate the process work - this goes a long way with the needed change management.
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You’ll have defined standard project phases to align work and report consistently across projects, along with key activities and roles responsible. This is an amazing input that can be leveraged to create project templates and SOPs!
Process Map Excerpt:
Project Template Creation:
Conclusion
Conducting these workshops and doing the process work seems like a lot of work and, it is. But its benefits, especially prior to a technology implementation, make it well worthwhile.
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Doing the process work will help with the tool selection and implementation process as you will uncover requirements during this time.
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Once your processes are defined, streamlined, and documented you can better configure the tool to support the improved process. The process work will be repurposed to help define your project templates, job roles and teams’ needs in the project management system.
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Detailed maps which capture all the critical activities by role can be very valuable and can form the basis for operational definition. These can be used to help develop project templates, training and onboarding, building SOPs, creating validation test scripts, identifying workflow automation opportunities in the new tool, and much more.
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Getting your teams to think about improving processes can also help generate excitement and buy-in for the new tool as they are involved in defining the new way of working. This goes a long way from a change management and solution adoption perspective.
Need help documenting your process? Selecting or implementing a Project Management tool? Managing the change required for successful solution adoption? Please email us at info@cellainc.com. To learn more about our services, visit www.cellainc.com/services/consulting.
