Leaders Should Be Able to Confirm AND Request Quotes

When leaders are constantly asked to confirm quotes, it usually means team members are working hard. Of course, it is ideal to see members actively pursue new accounts, but leaders may sometimes notice forgotten accounts.
The leader could take up the task and create the quote him/herself, but in this workflow he/she would have to also approve it, and that isn't ideal.

Assigning Duties in Turn... But Doing It Yourself When You Must

When all employees take turns on a common task, your turn can creep up on you and cause unnecessary distress.
Many companies have "take-turns" duties, from mildly bothersome (e.g., morning announcements, cleaning) to always stressful (e.g., organizing the next study group). Let's say the company president one day came out with the arbitrary decision to have all employees take turns posting in the company blog.

How to Inconvenience the Guy Who Always Forgets His Password

We all forget many insignificant details each day - including, unfortunately, passwords. I'm sure there are about fifty thousand administrative staff out their who are constantly lamenting, "Please, NOT another forgotten password."

When you don't have the option of publicly embarrassing the offender by sticking a post-it on his/her forehead, give this workflow a try.

The Ever-Changing Inquiry Management Process

Companies that can swiftly and accurately respond to customer inquiries have an advantage.

Most businesses handle inquiry management by maintaining an FAQ and establishing a special customer service team. But once a complicated question comes in, email inboxes become overrun by internal questions and referrals, making it difficult to get a grasp of the situation and, sometimes, remember who was actually in charge of the inquiry in question.

If we apply BPM, what kind of workflow would work best?

Reconsidering the Email Newsletter Review Process

Email newsletters are an automated process, but they do have to be written by people. And let's face it, people make mistakes. We could simply insist that writers "Just be more careful," or "Put their minds to it," etc., but let's be humane and consider the problem from a BPM point of view.

Double-checking is a very basic and useful method. But if senior employees are in charge of checking all drafts that come their way, it may be too much of a burden. This kind of system may result in a supervisor's tendency to "approve without actually reading."

How to Guarantee Daily Reports

You may have a "daily report" process at your office, but if it depends on each member to hand them in, they may not always be delivered due to exceptions (member went home without coming back to the office) or negligence (member just didn't do it).

And if a leader is in charge of many members, he/she may not even notice that some are not reporting. So how can we guarantee that all daily reports are submitted?

Ringi Process Started by Department Heads

The Ringi process is unique to Japanese businesses. Supposedly invented as a way to avoid meetings, it is a way to approve decisions and take responsibility as a group, which originates from the country’s agricultural history. It’s true that it takes time to come to a decision, but it does prevent unfairness. Who makes the final OK usually depends on the amount of money involved, and everyone in between are equally in charge of approving the proposal.