Episode 515: Approval on Contract through Workflow! (Improved version)

"Contract flow" and "Decision making Flow" are popular in 2016 as well

This is the last post of this year. We were able to deliver Business Templates every week in 2016 as well. This is also thanks to the "support message" and "Like" from the readers.

Yes. We will try harder next year (2017) as well.

Well, this blog has disclosed over 500 articles (and nearly 800 templates) over the past seven years so far, what kind of articles were read well in this year of 2016? I immediately examined the access log of this year.

<Top 5 Articles>

• 2010-11-12: Making an Extensive Agreement History List with an Agreement Workflow
• 2015-07-06: National Identification Number in Workflow (4)
• 2011-10-03: Fault! Report It Through Workflow!
• 2013-03-25: How to Design a Workflow Chart of decision making by the Boss and Their Boss: part 2
• 2011-05-02: Processing Ringi Approvals Simultaneously

Again, online approval (paperless) on "Contracts" and "Decision-making request" seems to be a popular agenda. (Note: This is the result of the Japanese version)

How do I write it at the present time? "Contract approval flow"

However, this article was written already six years ago.

As being in a position of a person who draws Business Processes every day, I cannot stop thinking that "I would recommend a different Process now". (Though it cannot be helped to be "often read", because it comes at the top when searching for "contract workflow" in Google search in Japanese, currently...)


So, in the last article of this year, I would like to rework the "Contract approval Process" in a simple way.

[Contract approval Process (2010-11-12)]

Episode 514: Politicians should Show Us "Productivity Improvement" Practically!

Work-life balance of politicians and bureaucrats

As in other developed countries, Japan is also facing the limits of existing "welfare state line".

In other words, every political parties agree on the basic policy of "streamlining the administration" (simple and efficient government). Cannot go against the flow of the times.

* Through the chain of bankruptcies that occurred in the 1930s (the Great Depression), human beings denied "laissez-faireism" and affirmed "social security" by a big government. After the economic stagnation (Oil crisis) that occurred in the 1970s, human beings to be aware of "inefficiency of welfare state" and accepted a recurrence to a "competitive society" in a smaller government. Securing of tax revenue became difficult for corporate activities since the 1990s cross country border. While maintenance of infrastructure and medical expenses increase, and as a result, the existing "welfare state line" would not go on.

However, "Discussions on administrative efficiency improvement in the National Assembly" does not mesh at all.

The direction of reforms to be discussed is diverse, for example, 1) to stop "Hanko administration", 2) to promote the "privatization of special purpose entities", and 3) to unify the collection of health insurance, pensions and income taxes". However in any direction it seems that it is not easy to form an agreement on "how to make it smaller" or "the procedure to shrink" the government that has grown big.

As a result, the Diet members repeat similar questions and the Cabinet repeats the same answers.

"Questions" are submitted at midnight, "Responses" are created in the middle of the night, "briefing to Minister " is held early in the morning. The National Assembly itself is promoting 'enlargement of administration'. "Productivity improvement" they say is already a nonsense.

How to make question by Diet members

In the first place, the work of Diet members is not "performing in the galleries" to be looking good on TV. To the private sector, the committee deliberations seem merely 'long-term meeting' which detains people who are paid high hourly wages like the Minister from 9 o'clock in the morning to late evening. What do the investors think if the "Board of Directors" was held from morning till evening, and ended up with some of the directors "appealing to leave away"?

If they feel that there are matters to correct about the Cabinet submission bill and national politics in general, they should use more "written question" than "verbal question". And, they should refer to past questions (FAQ) (not like a private FAQ site), when asking questions. If they dare to ask the same question, they can ask "Is there any change in the answer contents of FAQ-20161213-01?" Then the Cabinet will simply click "No".

There is no qualification for talking about "national interest" for a member who only claims "deliberation time is short". (Rather, the number of questions should be his or her KPI.)

[Cabinet answer creation]

Episode 513: Business Process to Ensure Quality of Posted Articles

"Cannot see the Business Process in the Field"？

In autumn 2016, "Plagiaristic act" by "curated media" is reported sensationally in Japan.

Originally, "content curation" is worthwhile, so as "curation tools / platforms" which enables anyone to post their curated contents. However, a site management company (listed company) mass-produces contents curation articles through cloud-sourcing, and the fact that plagiarism has been instructed during the outsourcing of article writing is brought to the light.

Process of Curated Article Production

There indeed was a Disclaimer note, i.e.

We are completely not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, benefits, conformity to specific purposes, or anything else regarding the information in this article and the user's judgment for using this information.

However, since the particular site was curation concerning "wellness", "Moral" was questioned rather than "copyright infringement". And, as a result, the CEO apologized as "there was a problem in the process of article creation".

DeNA press releass: Statement by CEO

some parts of our manual and directions to writers could be interpreted as suggesting plagiarizing other websites. I cannot view this as being morally correct ... I promise to fundamentally change our operations of these media and create a process which I can completely place my faith in.

I do not know whether it is truth or not, but probably "he did not really see the business process". (I want to believe so.) Then, what kind of business process should he have build if the operating company needs to write articles responsible for?

[Article Creation process]

Episode 512: The Shortest Business Process in the World?

"I want to try business flow designing..."

In the world of "programming" it is said that "the only way to learn it is to write a program". In fact, everyone writes a program that displays a string "Hello World" at start learning programming. Similarly to this, "try to draw a Business Process" is very important even in the world of "modeling".

The following Business Process is started by "receive mail", and it ends with "chat post".

In the commonplace, a Business Process begins with some sort of "trigger", and several "Steps" follow after it. Whereas, there is only one processing step of "Post to chat" in this example. And, that is a "processing by computer" (automatic processing), so there is no "handling by human" at all. (What a heck!)

[Chat Post flow]