Best practices for putting together effective processes (even if you’re not a specialist)

For many professionals, managing processes is a part of the job, but not necessarily their main focus. Whether you’re overseeing a team, coordinating projects across departments, or managing customer interactions, you’re often responsible for making sure workflows are smooth and effective—even if you aren’t a dedicated process expert.

The good news? You don’t need to be a specialist to create and manage effective processes. Based on our experience and insights gathered from businesses facing similar challenges, we’ve outlined a few best practices that will help you set up and maintain workflows that keep your projects running smoothly.

Assign clear ownership to every process

One of the most common reasons processes fail is the lack of clear ownership. When no one is responsible for a process or its various steps, tasks get lost, deadlines slip, and teams become frustrated. Assigning ownership ensures accountability and provides someone to guide the process from start to finish.

From the very beginning of any project or process, assign ownership to someone who will be accountable for keeping everything on track. This person should be responsible for ensuring tasks are completed on time and that updates are communicated clearly to all stakeholders.

Centralize your processes for easy access

Processes are only as efficient as the accessibility of the information involved. When information is scattered across various tools and platforms, teams waste precious time searching for what they need. By centralizing processes, teams can work more effectively without wasting time on manual searches.

Centralize all your processes in one easily accessible platform. By creating a single source of truth for all documentation, your team can save time and ensure that everyone has access to the latest, most up-to-date information. It’s an easy win that boosts overall efficiency.

Engage all stakeholders from the start

For a process to work smoothly, everyone involved needs to have a say in how it’s created. When teams or departments are left out of the process design, it often leads to bottlenecks and inefficiencies later on. Collaboration across all stakeholders ensures that no key perspective is overlooked.

Involve all relevant teams and departments from the start. Make sure every stakeholder has input on the process and feels invested in its success. By gathering insights and feedback early, you can avoid the pitfalls that come from missing critical perspectives.

Keep your processes updated

Processes aren’t static. They should evolve as your business grows or when new tools, technologies, or team structures are introduced. Failing to update processes regularly can lead to inefficiencies and misalignment within your team, causing confusion about how things should be done.

Review your processes periodically and update them as needed. Regularly schedule reviews to ensure that processes still align with the way your teams work and take into account any new tools or strategies that have been implemented. This prevents bottlenecks and ensures that workflows stay relevant.

Measure the impact of your processes

The purpose of any process is to make work more efficient, but that’s only possible if the process provides measurable benefits. Whether it’s saving time, improving quality, or boosting team efficiency, you need to understand the impact your processes are having. If you can’t measure the benefits, the process may need rethinking.

Ensure that every process you implement has clear, measurable goals. Track the impact your processes have on productivity, quality, or other key metrics. This will help you identify areas for improvement and ensure that your workflows are delivering real value to the organization.

Involve the right authority and primary stakeholders

Every process needs an authority figure or primary stakeholder behind it to ensure that it has the right level of oversight and prioritization. This person should act as a sponsor, ensuring that the process is executed properly and is aligned with the organization’s broader objectives.

Assign a primary stakeholder who is responsible for overseeing the process. This should be someone with enough authority to ensure that the process is taken seriously and remains relevant. They should regularly check in on the process’s execution and make any necessary adjustments based on feedback.

Ensure proper documentation and transparency

A process only works if it’s clearly documented and easy for everyone in the organization to access. Good documentation outlines the steps, roles, and expectations for each part of the process. Transparency ensures that there’s no confusion about what needs to be done or who is responsible.

Ensure that your processes are thoroughly documented and stored in a central, accessible location. This makes it easy for anyone to jump in and understand what’s required, ensuring that the process can continue seamlessly even when team members change.

Putting these best practices to work

You don’t need to be a process expert to follow these guidelines and improve how your team operates. By assigning clear ownership, centralizing your workflows, involving all stakeholders, ensuring proper authority and documentation, regularly updating processes, and measuring their impact, you can ensure that your processes are efficient and keep your projects on track.

Ready to streamline your processes?

We’ve built ProcessPlot around these best practices to help you easily create and manage workflows—even if you’re not a process specialist. We’re currently in the alpha phase, and we’re inviting teams to try out the platform and provide feedback.

Sign up for early access today and be one of the first to use ProcessPlot to simplify your process management.