Process, Projects, Workflow in a Digital Environment
How you make a digital process efficient and how you make an analog process efficient are different. When a process is digital, different tools can be employed. Not having digital proficiency can be a liability.
A process is a set of steps or actions that when consistently followed leads from some starting point to the completion of some objective. A process can involve multiple workflows. A process tends to repeat.
A project is a type of process that does not repeat. All projects are processes; but not all processes are projects. The difference between a project and a process is how often you perform some set of steps or actions. The more often a set of steps or actions is performed; the more benefit there is to spending time to gain control over a process.
Workflow is a sequenced set of processes; it describes the flow of inputs to outputs as a result of a process.
Making a process efficient is different than making a project efficient. Project managers are experts in handing processes that do not repeat.
Finding creative solutions to a problem adds value. Making processes more efficient and less costly helps improve the quality of service.
Efficiency and productivity benefits everyone. Increasing efficiency or productivity without maintaining or increasing process quality is useless.
Professionals such as accountants often tremble when someone discusses standardizing accounting or auditing processes. Perhaps they have nightmares about accounting/audit services "production lines" where they perform a routine step akin to a worker on an automobile assembly line. Perhaps these professionals see standardization as robbing them of "creativity" or from the exercise of "professional judgement". Perhaps they see their services more like artwork which sets them apart and which defines their approach to solving client problems.
But standardization does not actually inhibit creativity; standardization actually enhances creativity. Clients want accounting and audit professionals to deliver creative solutions to their problems; they know that creativity adds value, and clients are willing to pay for that value. But clients also want accountants and auditors who are efficient when it comes to executing the creation of those solutions. Inefficient execution of the steps and actions of a process or project does not add value. Clients do not want to, and should not have to, pay for that kind of inefficiency.
In the end, inefficiency robs the accounting or audit professional providing consulting services of the time the could have used to provide real value; of time they could have been putting their minds to work assembling a creative solution.
Standardization of processes takes inefficiency and cost out of professional services and frees up time for those professionals to perform more creative and value adding forms of work. Standardization of processes also reduces the cost of training new professionals.
When a process is not repeatable and therefore a project; then accountants and auditors need to act as project managers. But the typical accountant or auditor does not have training in project management which is a complex discipline. As a result, most professional services projects are not well managed and/or accountants or auditors waste client resources muddling through the management of a project.
Machines can help accounting and audit professionals improves processes. Take the example of how a machine like a calculator improves the process of verifying that a set of numbers foots and cross casts correctly. Computers can help us improve processes. Computers can augment the skills and experience of an accountant or auditor.
Process control techniques such as Six Sigma and Lean Thinking, or combined as Lean Six Sigma, are techniques, principles, frameworks, strategies for improving efficiency, enhancing productivity, and managing quality. Digital environments scream for these techniques. New types of tools can be employed.
Contemplate something. How did the process of creating a tax return change and what impact occurred when TurboTax was introduced to assist in the process of creating a tax return? TurboTax made the creation of a tax return approachable to an individual.
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