Ease Your Work with Efficient Workflows in Project Management

Our daily work routine is characterized by appointments, tasks, and deadlines. It's not always easy to keep track. This makes it all the more important for companies to organize projects and carry out efficient project management. Especially when larger teams are working together and the projects become more complex, logical structures and procedures are necessary. In this case, it can help to build certain workflows for recurring tasks and projects.

And that's exactly what this article is about. We'll take you with us and show you the relevance of workflows in project management. We also show you which use cases allow workflows to be created, what steps are necessary for this, and which project management tools can support you.

What does workflow mean in project management?

Workflow means work process or work flow in translation. This refers to a process in which predefined tasks are performed in a certain order to achieve a predefined goal. This is especially important for teamwork. Because workflows help give the project a structure - both in terms of time and content. The goal is to work as sensibly and efficiently as possible.

The three basic components of a workflow are always input, transformation and output. Based on this, projects can be defined and workflows created. To make this a bit more tangible, we'll tell you what the individual workflow components in Project management belong:

• Input: Relevant information, resource sources, personnel and responsibilities
• Transformation: Tasks, rules and automations
• Output: Result of implemented activities

The more experience you gain in project management, the better you can optimize the implementation of recurring tasks using workflows and run efficient project management.

Why should companies use workflows in project management?

Our everyday work routine is usually packed with tasks and appointments, so we often wish for more time. More time to complete the long to-do list. More time to take a look around and question things. More time to coax out your own creativity and forge new ideas. More time for so many things. And you can create this extra time by working smart and setting up frequently occurring tasks and activities in a project management tool like monday.com as workflow.

Project management tools offer you the great opportunity to record your countless tasks and deadlines, structure them and prioritize them so that you can't forget them anymore. But if you think one step further, it's more sensible and efficient to set up certain tasks as a process. This way you don't have to enter these to-dos into your project management software every time. And this is done with the help of (automated) workflows in project management.

You're still not quite clear about the benefits? No problem. We're happy to present you the 6 best advantages of workflows in project management:

• Transparency for the team:When all the necessary tasks and subtasks are set up in a workflow and always maintained with current information, each team member can view the current status of the project or individual tasks at any time.
• Better communication and understanding: If every team member can see at any time who has which tasks in their responsibility and which tasks have already been completed, all team members have the same level of knowledge, which makes communication with each other much easier. In addition, this transparency makes the understanding of the tasks and their contexts clearer and the responsible persons can be contacted directly for any remaining questions.
• Reduction of errors: Through clear communication exchange and the established and prioritized tasks, errors can be prevented, since all necessary activities are performed one after the other.
• Increase in productivity & more efficient work: Through the presence of all relevant information and materials as well as the structuring and prioritization of tasks, improved work processes take place. This way, each employee can work more efficiently and ultimately save valuable time that can be used elsewhere. The predefined goals can thus be achieved more quickly.
• Monitoring of the project status: Because the tasks and responsibilities have been clearly distributed and the processing of the tasks incl. current result is visible, the project status can be monitored at any time and improved if necessary.
• Automation possibilities: A big advantage of workflows in project management is the possibility that you can set certain rules, and thus automations, for the tasks. Depending on the project management software, fields within the workflow can also be automated with rules and conditions. You can do this, for example, with tools like monday.com or Asana.

When are project management workflows useful?

You see, workflows can save you work and time in your project management. Tedious searching for information or important materials is no longer necessary. After all, you have everything you need in one place, accessible to everyone involved. But when are such workflows really useful? After all, they need to be well thought out, set up, and adapted over time. This also takes time and personnel resources.

Basically, workflows in project management should be used as soon as you realize that you have recurring tasks or processes. Especially if they occur among different employees. The problem without such workflows is that each employee has to think anew each time about what tasks need to be done, where the corresponding information can be found, and in what order the to-dos need to be completed.

To keep the error rate as low as possible and get the employees to their goal faster, it is sensible and advisable to map the recurring tasks in a workflow in a project management tool like monday.com or ClickUp. All major tasks are set up in the correct order and then further broken down with subtasks. This way, every single step is recorded and nothing can be forgotten. The individual (sub-)tasks are then assigned information, materials, deadlines and responsible persons.

Additional, important information can be added through custom fields that are relevant across all tasks. In addition, dependencies can be indicated using rules or automations. This means, for example, that when the project status in task A changes, the project moves to the first subtask of task B and the responsible person incl. deadline changes. Through these rules, the project goes through all the steps in the workflow until it reaches the last step and achieves the desired result.

What workflows can be represented in project management?

Workflows can look very inconspicuous at first glance. But with the different possibilities and functions, they quickly become powerful and valuable. The most important functions include the following points:

• Creation of tasks and subtasks
• Clear assignment of tasks and subtasks
• Assignment of responsibilities
• Indication of deadlines
• File upload
• Linking of sources
• Creation of custom fields
• Creation of rules and dependencies
• Comment and feedback options

Through the rules, responsibilities and dependencies that are created when setting up the workflow, the project moves from task to task and in turn generates new subtasks. In addition, the deadlines and responsibilities adjust, so that each project participant knows at all times when he/she has to complete which tasks by when.

Such workflows can be set up quite simply for smaller projects. But even for more complex projects, most project management software offers enough functions to create useful workflows.

We have brought you three examples of workflows that regularly occur in companies.

3 examples for project management workflows

1. Setting up a marketing campaign
2. Job interview
3. Onboarding new employees

1. Setting up a marketing campaign:

1. Brainstorming new ideas for marketing campaigns
2. Defining the campaign period
3. Creating a briefing for all necessary ad visuals
4. Creating visuals
5. Thinking of ad text
6. Setting a budget
7. Setting up the marketing campaign
8. Monitoring campaign performance
9. Making campaign optimization (possibly with A/B tests)

Workflow project management using the example of a brand campaign (Source: Asana)

2. Job interview:

1. New application
2. Review by HR department
3. Review by specialist department
4. Conduct job interview
5. Declare approval
6. Declare rejection

3. Onboarding new employees

1. Approval of the applicant
2. Sending important documents
3. Planning & preparation 1st day of work
4. Carrying out 1st day of work
5. Carrying out 1st working week
6. Carrying out 1st working month
7. End of probation period
8. Takeover
9. No takeover

How can a workflow in project management be created?

As you can see from the three examples mentioned, each workflow is unique and can differ in complexity. Some projects need more tasks, subtasks, and rules than other projects. Yet, there are seven basic steps to consider when you want to build your workflow and achieve the best possible results with it.

1. Brainstorm ideas and gather information
2. Create a project plan
3. Prioritize tasks and assign resources
4. Implement tasks
5. Track and check project status
6. Perform result control and possibly approval
7. Adjust workflow as needed

Which tools support the creation and implementation of project management workflows?

After we have introduced you to the theory of project management workflows, you probably want to know with which project management tools you can set up your projects more intelligently. That's why we're giving you a small Overview of various project management software providers.

Create efficient workflows with monday.com

monday.com is a platform that is suitable for both simple projects and complex Project portfolios. With monday.com, you're able to work on a common project within a team without running into major communication barriers. Because with monday.com, each project participant always knows the current status of the project and who has to complete which to-dos by when.

Through the various software packages (Free, Basic, Standard, Pro, Enterprise), both small teams of 2 users and large teams with several hundred team members find exactly what they need. So not only individual people but also enterprise companies get their money's worth. And the great thing is that all packages include an unlimited number of boards and workflows.

In addition to a good overview of all tasks, relevant resources, and changes, you have the opportunity in monday.com to carry out your projects with your desired Project management method simply and conveniently. Whether Agile, with the Waterfall Method or via Sprints. The decision is entirely up to you.

To help you implement your projects even better, monday.com offers a wide range of integrations, allowing you to link the project management tool with various other tools. These include, for example, Google Calendar as well as Gmail,   Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Zapier, Salesforce CRM, Zendesk Sell, Copper, Shopify, WooCommerce, Pipedrive, Facebook Ads, HubSpot Marketing Hub, Typeform, and many more.

Of course, that's not all. monday.com offers its users countless features, six of the best of which we'd like to introduce briefly.

The top 6 features of monday.com for your project management:

• Gantt chart for visualizing and easily adjusting your project
• Create documents and work on them in real time with the entire team (thanks to the monday.com real-time engine)
• Expressive dashboards to derive meaningful next steps from real-time data
• Listing of all team members' workload to ensure efficient resource allocation
• All tool integrations to manage the work of all project participants in one place
• Custom automations so that all responsible people are notified of changes

In addition to the six mentioned functions, you get additional advantages with this project management software. The tool provides you with various templates from different areas - over 200 in total. This lays the foundation for your project management and then you adapt the template individually to your project and your project conditions or project requirements. So you can create custom project management workflows in no time and work efficiently with them.

Another advantage of monday.com clearly lies in its app. So you can use monday.com not only on desktop devices but are also mobile at all times up-to-date. This way, you can work more flexibly on your project and still have 100% control over your project management.

No wonder that already over 152,000 customers rely on monday.com as a reliable partner at their side.

Other project management software for your efficient processes

Besides, you can find other suitable tools for workflows in project management on OMR Reviews. In addition to a lot of tool information, you also find real and verified user experiences by OMR Reviews there.

This includes for example:

Asana

Trello

Jira

Notion

MeisterTask

awork

MOCO

Stackfield

Conclusion on project management workflows

If certain projects or processes come up time and again in your company or in your team, project management tools are really worth their weight in gold. Especially when you can create workflows that simplify your work in project implementation. So take some conscious time to think about which processes you could map using a project management workflow.

What information is needed? What resources should be available? What tasks arise for individual team colleagues? And what dependencies exist between the individual steps that you can define with rules in turn?

A project management tool with workflow functions gives you the space to keep all these requirements in one place and display them, so you don't have to think about it anew every time. Once set up, you can run your process at any time using the workflow. This saves time and reduces the risk of errors.