Your team is buzzing with activity. Projects are in full swing, teams are collaborating across departments, and deadlines are approaching fast.
Without a clear plan in place, managing these tasks would seem impossible. This is where workflows come into play, providing a structured roadmap to guide every task toward completion.
So, how does it work, and how do you actually build a digital workflow to increase productivity? Let’s find out!
How to Create a Workflow: A Step-by-Step Guide with Templates
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Is a Workflow?
You might think that a workflow is just a glorified checklist or instruction manual, but the reality is far from that.
Workflows are structured collections of fixed tasks that must be executed to accomplish a specific business process. A set of predefined rules usually governs them.
Let’s break it down using an example.
Consider the process of paying an electricity bill for your company. This business workflow might include steps like:
- Receiving the bill
- Reviewing the charges
- Approving the payment
- And finally, disbursing the funds
For businesses, creating workflows like the one described above (though typically with greater detail) can greatly improve efficiency (read: avoid late fees for not paying your electricity bill on time) and gain actionable business insights (read: identify where energy could be saved).
🌈 Did you know: The term “workflow” can be traced back to 1921, when it was first mentioned in a railway engineering journal.
The role of workflows in project management
While the previous example focused on a general business process, the concept of workflows is heavily used in project management.
After all, the average company wastes 11.4% of its total resources due to poor project management, and this inefficiency contributes to why more than half of businesses regularly exceed their project budgets.
Having a well-defined order of tasks within a project management workflow can be a business’ superpower. By clearly outlining each workflow step, you can:
- Save time
- Improve results
- Enhance collaboration among team members
This is why 71% of those who use project management software recommend it. Their rationale? Project management tools help teams track the exact status of projects within their workflows and achieve better results.
Let’s go through a step-by-step guide to designing an efficient project management workflow for your organization.
Summarize this article for me pleaseHow To Create a Workflow in 9 Easy Steps
Creating an efficient and effective workflow that can cover most of your business processes is super easy! Here’s how you go about it.
1. Identify your goals and tasks
A good workflow is incomplete without a 360-degree picture of all the tasks that need to be accomplished.
Before you create workflows, you need to have a focused goal with clearly defined tasks from the beginning to the end. During this step, be mindful of tasks that must be completed in sequence or parallel, with certain tasks being conditional before moving to the next step.
Here’s a simple use case.
In a travel reimbursement approval workflow, expense data is first gathered from the employee or vendor who submitted the invoice. Then, the manager reviews it, and if approved, the finance team ultimately processes it.
Without understanding these task structures, your workflow will create more problems than it solves.
2. Define workflow objectives
Even though we have identified the tasks, one step follows—defining your project’s goals and objectives.
Having a clear goal motivates you to select the right tasks and ensures you stay on track throughout the process. The best approach is to set goals and then break them down into smaller, actionable objectives that can be assigned to team members.
For instance, if your sales team’s goal is to increase the average deal size, you could set measurable targets such as:
- Closing deals above a specific amount (e.g., above $50,000 per customer per year)
- Bundling more products or services into annual contracts
In this state, using tools like ClickUp Goals will help you break down large goals into smaller targets. As team members make progress, they can update their targets in ClickUp. This keeps the rest of the team informed and aligned with the project objectives.
The best part? ClickUp’s Project Management and Workflow Software can automatically calculate your project’s progress in real time. This gives your team a clear understanding of your progress and helps manage timelines.
3. Visualize the process
With the groundwork in place, it’s now time to create a workflow diagram to visualize the entire process.
Here’s why diagrams help: They offer a clear representation of the workflow, making it easier to identify bottlenecks in even the most complex workflows.
During this step, you should always opt for a workflow management tool that allows for easy drag-and-drop creation of workflow diagrams. ClickUp shines in this area, with its highly customizable tools and templates.
Project managers worldwide use ClickUp Whiteboards to maximize their brainstorming sessions. Whiteboards provide presentation-worthy diagrams and help project managers oversee progress from start to finish, speed up project delivery, and satisfy stakeholders.
But there’s more to why project managers value ClickUp’s Whiteboards.
The ability to draw connections, link objects, and create roadmaps or workflows directly on Whiteboards ensures that everyone on your team is on the same page (quite literally).
Additionally, this feature offers real-time collaboration, allowing you to see who’s viewing and contributing to your board, minimizing overlap and confusion.
When it’s time for approvals from clients or external stakeholders, simply send a public link to grant viewing access. Simple and effective, isn’t it?
4. Identify bottlenecks
Before moving on to assigning responsibilities within your workflows, step back and identify potential process bottlenecks. Here are some key indicators that signal process inefficiency.
- Increased wait times: If you notice that wait times in your workflow start exceeding the expected range, it’s often a clear indicator of a bottleneck. Long wait times affect customer satisfaction and cause delays in project completion
- Imbalanced throughput: Assess the throughput at each stage of your workflow—how much work each stage can process compared to the volume it’s actually receiving. When a stage consistently receives more work than it can handle, it’s a sign of a bottleneck that could be slowing down your entire process
- Growing backlogs: A growing backlog is a telltale sign of inefficiency. When work piles up at a particular stage, it means that the stage is receiving more tasks than it can process, which stagnates productivity
Tracking these metrics can help you nip bottlenecks in the bud early and build a more effective workflow.
5. Assign tasks to the right people
Next, it’s time to determine who is responsible for each step in a workflow and assign process owners.
As discussed in our previous workflow examples, some tasks may progress automatically, while others may require approval or review.
For example, in a leave management workflow, the employee initiates a leave request, the manager approves or rejects it, and HR or finance teams might only need to view the status.
This is where automated templates can help you simplify your journey.
ClickUp Team Management Plan Template
The ClickUp Team Management Plan Template is perfect for beginners and is fully customizable, allowing you to get started in seconds. It helps teams organize and manage projects effectively by providing custom statuses, fields, and views.
What you can achieve with this template:
- Plan and manage tasks
- Communicate roles clearly
- Ensure everyone stays aligned with the project’s goals
ClickUp RACI Planning Template
The ClickUp RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) Planning Template is ideal for teams needing to clarify roles and responsibilities. It’s a beginner-friendly, customizable document that helps avoid miscommunication by clearly assigning tasks.
The RACI Planning template ensures everyone understands their role in the project. This enhances collaboration and accountability and makes it easier to manage complex projects.
6. Establish phases and milestones
Have you ever struggled to keep your project team aligned and motivated? Milestones can be the solution.
Project milestones help keep projects on track and aligned with team members and stakeholders. Thousands of project management teams celebrate their small victories with ClickUp’s Gantt Charts. Let’s take a look at how they are putting it to use:
ClickUp’s Gantt Chart View allows project managers to visually plan and monitor tasks, such as launching marketing campaigns or software development updates.
This visual representation helps ensure that all tasks are completed on time. The Gantt Chart View also provides a clear path to the go-live date and allows for adjustments as needed to keep the project on track.
Similarly, for software development projects, ClickUp’s Gantt Chart View helps track progress toward significant milestones, like the beta release.
This also facilitates the scheduling and monitoring of tasks required for implementing feedback during the beta phase.
7. Implement and test the workflow
No matter how well-designed a workflow appears, its effectiveness can only be detected through rigorous testing(what doesn’t break you makes you stronger!).
So, before deploying the new workflow, involve the people who will use it in this testing phase. Remember, you are looking for feedback to detect issues within your workflow.
Their feedback is the key to identifying any flaws and refining the workflow to ensure it functions smoothly.
Once you’ve perfected your workflow, use ClickUp Automations to run these workflows on autopilot. You can create custom rules or choose from a library of workflow templates to automate repetitive tasks.
Similarly, you can set up automation to update task priorities based on pre-defined criteria or send notifications upon task completion. These trigger-based automations keep you up-to-date on all activities.
8. Train your team
Even the most efficient workflow won’t be successful if your team isn’t on board.
This is why training is essential. It will ensure that everyone understands and is comfortable using the new workflow. A great way to do this is by utilizing ClickUp Docs.
ClickUp Docs is designed to suit any type of documentation, including roadmaps, wikis, and knowledge bases. You can create nested pages, work with a wide range of helpful templates, and customize your documents exactly how you need them.
For example, when rolling out a new business process, you can create a training document that includes workflow diagramming, steps for workflow creation, and a clear outline of the tasks involved.
Within ClickUp Docs, you can collaborate on ideas with your team in real time. Tag team members with comments, assign action items, and even convert text into trackable tasks, ensuring everyone stays on top of the process.
💡 Pro Tip: Provide training sessions that explain the workflow creation process and share the workflow diagrams with your team. Your team can then revisit the diagrams for any future queries.
9. Monitor, review, and optimize
After successful testing and training, it’s time to deploy your workflow.
Start by releasing it to a small team to monitor its real-time performance. Based on the results, you can either roll it out across the organization or make the necessary adjustments.
Remember: workflows are dynamic, and you can always create or update existing workflows as your requirements evolve.
To make these updates, you need more actionable business insights in real time. This is where ClickUp Dashboards can help.
This feature helps you monitor your workflow’s performance in real time. You can quickly access data, understand key metrics, and spot bottlenecks in your workflow.
Moreover, as your business processes evolve, update and automate your dashboards to match shifting KPIs and team needs.
Summarize this article for me pleaseBest Practices for Creating Workflows
Ever scrolled through Netflix and wondered how the app seems to know exactly what to recommend? Surprise, surprise—the secret lies in their workflows.
For instance, Netflix makes use of a workflow orchestrator to organize and run a vast number of data and machine learning pipelines. This ensures personalized recommendations for every user.
No matter how big or small your company is, creating workflows is a must if you value efficiency. To set them up perfectly, follow these best practices:
1. Prioritize clear communication
A Harvard Business School study found that organizations with effective communication strategies experience higher employee engagement and increased productivity.
To master the components of successful communication, consider the following key elements.
| Component | Description |
| Active listening | Paying attention and participating in conversations |
| Clarity | Expressing ideas clearly and providing concise information |
| Non-verbal cues | Using body language and facial expressions to communicate |
| Feedback | Offering constructive criticism and asking for clarification |
| Emotional intelligence | Recognizing and managing emotions for better communication |
2. Maintain transparency and accountability
A big part of project management is managing expectations. This will be effortless if everyone is on the same page regarding priorities.
So, be transparent when sharing information about goals, progress, challenges, and requirements. This is the most significant catalyst for trust among team members.
3. Schedule regular check-ins and updates
Connect with your project teammates regularly to ensure an effective workflow management process. Regular check-ins help identify where team members might be stuck or facing challenges.
This will result in the instant resolution of any issues and the overall success of your entire workflow.
4. Use the right tools for visualizing and managing workflows
Remember how ClickUp Docs can support real-time collaboration? You can also use ClickUp Whiteboards or ClickUp Mind Maps to collaborate better with your team!
If you’re looking for an easy way to create a workflow diagram, these two provide all the tools to create and collaborate on workflows in real time.
Once you sign up, navigate to + View and select Whiteboard to start designing your diagram from scratch.
You can then invite team members to collaborate, allowing everyone to contribute as you create shapes, connect tasks, and label each step.
While you’re busy making flowchart diagrams, your team members or superiors will be updated with the project’s progress, thus effectively improving communication and performance.
Summarize this article for me pleaseWorkflow Examples and Templates
To ensure that you don’t have to start from scratch, ClickUp offers a massive repository of project management workflow templates that can be customized to design your workflows.
Here are a few workflow examples that can help you out.
Workflow 1: Completing a software development project
- Project initiation: Define project goals, scope, and timeline
- Planning: Create a detailed project plan, including tasks, resources, and dependencies
- Execution: Assign tasks to team members, track progress, and address any issues
- Monitoring and control: Regularly monitor project performance against the plan and make adjustments as needed
- Closure: Complete the project, evaluate outcomes, and document lessons learned
Workflow 2: Resolving a customer complaint
- Complaint intake: Receive and log the customer complaint
- Investigation: Gather information about the issue and assess its validity
- Resolution: Determine the appropriate course of action to address the complaint, such as providing a refund, replacement, or apology
- Communication: Inform the customer of the resolution and provide any necessary follow-up
- Documentation: Record the complaint and resolution for future reference
No matter what your workflows are like, ClickUp has a template to help you out.
Simple Mind Map Workflow Template
ClickUp’s Simple Mind Map Workflow Template is perfect for beginners looking to explore ideas and tasks related to a central goal through visual mind maps.
This template comes with two modes—Task Mode for task management and Blank Mode for creative exploration, which helps you with better:
- Task management: Convert mind map nodes into actionable tasks, assigning them to team members and setting deadlines
- Collaboration: Work with others to develop and refine your mind maps
- Customization: Customize the appearance of your mind maps with different colors, shapes, and styles
Graphic Design Workflow Template
ClickUp’s Graphic Design Workflow Template is ideal for managing multi-step graphic design projects.
This template is equipped with 25 Custom Statuses, five Custom Fields, and workflow views to meet deadlines efficiently.
- List view: Create a customizable list of tasks to organize and prioritize your design workflow
- Embed view: Seamlessly integrate your design work from various online tools and platforms into ClickUp
- Gantt view: Visualize your project timeline with a dynamic Gantt chart, making it easy to track progress and manage deadlines
⚡️Template Archive: You can also find more of these, like the Content Management Template by ClickUp and ClickUp Sales Order Workflow Template at ClickUp’s templates library.
Summarize this article for me pleaseBenefits of Creating Workflows
Before we wrap things up, here’s a quick recap of how workflows can make your team perform better:
- Greater insights into operations: Mapping workflows provide a clear overview of business processes—this enables better decision-making
- Identifying errors: Workflow insights help identify and eliminate redundant tasks—this allows employees to focus their time on more important activities
- Reduce micromanagement: Clear workflows outline tasks, deadlines, and responsibilities. This encourages a more autonomous work environment, increasing job satisfaction and improving management-employee relationships
- Better communication: Transparent workflows enhance communication, reduce misunderstandings, minimize conflicts, and smooth day-to-day operations. This is a win-win for everyone on the team
Summarize this article for me pleaseAdd the Right Flow to Your Work With ClickUp
Workflows offer significant benefits for organizations of all sizes. By automating repetitive tasks, streamlining processes, and improving collaboration, workflows can increase efficiency, reduce errors, and enhance overall productivity.
Luckily, you can do all of that and more with ClickUp. Apart from its project management chops, the platform also offers excellent monitoring features to study insights and data on centralized dashboards. It gives you a head start on workflows with pre-built templates for various industries.
Not convinced yet? Create a free account on ClickUp today and experience the magic for yourself.
Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
