Workflow Sample: Episode 573: Business Improvement in Website Operation (Part 3)

Operation: Web Article Production

I changed the Workflow of the article writing. (Reference: Episode 571: Business Improvement in Website Operation (Part 1), Episode 572: Business Improvement in Website Operation (Part 2))

It has become a flow leading to the skill improvement of "writers" as well as improving the quality of "articles" by this, I suppose.

In any case, a series of "article creation flow", starting with "Setting of provisional title" and leading to "output of web article", came to be smooth. It can be said that useless communication such as "going to check progress" or "going to ask for reviews" is completely eradicated.

Editor-in-chief: Launch the planning such as seasonal series
Editors: Determine provisional titles of individual articles
Writers: Write articles

It would be better to be expressed that the editor-in-chief, editors, writers have become able to concentrate in their own original role. (Though "rework" or "educational guidance" are not completely eliminated...)

Challenge: Problem of Out of idea

On the other hand, it has become to be discussed on the quality of "provisional title" which is an input to "article production flow".

That is, (though this might be an everlasting challenge for those owned media,) there would be a case where a mood which they are running out of idea for "provisional titles filled the atmosphere... such as "recently wrote a similar article", or "nobody would like to read"...

In this occasion, I would like to make it being able to suggest from the entire company about the ideas of articles (provisional titles) and plans of series.

If there are plenty of ideas, they will be a help for editors and the editor-in chief. And the quality of setting "provisional title" should increase.

[Article Idea Acceptance]

Solution: Suggestion Box

The Business Process for accepting ideas is not operated than you expect.

"Responsibility in charge of planning" in the organization is responsible for the "most upstream step". In other words, it is a job that must continue to output such as "five projects a week" or "10 planning a month" without any inputs.

And whenever you stand on the "outgoing side" every day, you forget to become a "receiving side". It may be the same trend (symptoms) like such as a school teacher loses the opportunity to listen to the students' voices, or a product vendor loses chances for listening to the user's voice.

A system to continue to produce "articles desired by readers" should be maintained by keeping everybody's eyes open as an organization, to ideas such as articles related with current news, or popular article of other company's media, and so on...

Discussion: Process to be Started even by Email

However, there may be some opinion that "it is only necessary to send by mailing list or chat as appropriate" about the "suggestion box-like business process" that accepts ideas. Certainly, if you heard that "flow ideas into a Workflow", you may get an impression little bit troublesome.

However, considering about points such as

Ideas in the past have been all recorded
The thoughts of the "planner" on each idea have been recorded
Staffs in other sections or newly joined are also able to refer to the past records

you should consider a method of defining a Business Process properly and flowing it to the Workflow system.

The Business Process definition exemplified here is excellent in that it is devised so that ideas can be sent not only in the "input screen (Web browser)" of the Workflow system but also by "email transmission".

[Article Idea Acceptance:"1. Submit" idea screen]