Project management, or process management? Although the terms seem similar, they are actually quite different. In some areas, project and process management overlap, but at the end of the day, both techniques seek to accomplish a different goal.

Historically, managers have opted for project management again and again, without realizing the repeatable processes that lay underneath. True productivity in all projects comes from identifying the difference between these two terms and understanding how to reap the benefits of both.

Project management is the management of a one-off event that has a clear start and end. The role of the manager here is to manage all the tasks and responsible staff associated with this one-off event. 

Project management is what most managers are familiar with since it's the simplest to organize in the spur of the moment. If you have an end goal you want to achieve, like launching a marketing campaign or migrating data, then it's easy to identify what tasks have to be completed and who should be involved.

The problem arises when you manage projects in a similar way again and again. Managers spend extra time writing the same briefs, sending emails to the same people, and taking similar steps in their project management. When the only factor that changes is the subject of the project, it's a real blind spot for companies that may be costing extra resources.

Process management, on the other hand, involves seeing beneath the surface and finding the repeatable pattern. When you have a set of tasks that are performed in the same sequence each time, that's a business process. In this case, tasks and processes go hand in hand.

While process management may seem new, it's also a technique that has been around for as long as companies have existed. The main difference is that managing processes usually takes more time and foresight. Instead of managing each process ad hoc as it comes up, process management involves defining the process beforehand.

Say, for instance, you want to migrate data from one system to the other. Chances are that the same people are performing this task, with the same sequence of steps. This is an example of 

a business process that could be standardized 

and repeated which makes the project itself easier to manage.

The main difference between process and project management is that project management handles one-off events, and process management handles the repeatable sequence of events.

The goal of project management is to give a clear view of the current project status quo. The project manager needs to know who is working on what and how far along they are. That's why deadlines in project management are so important.

The aim of process management is to make the sequence of events as efficient as they can be. The manager needs to see clearly defined steps and responsible assignees, as well as a big-picture view, for efficient process management. As you can see, this involves cleverly integrating technology and people into the process itself.

Looking more closely, you can see that project management requires a lot of manual work. The data from project management tools only moves when an employee checks a box, or when the manager moves one card to the next kanban board. Even if automations are offered, they need to be manually set up which can be very tedious.

 The data moves automatically from one stage to the next when an employee has completed the task, or when the manager signs off on a critical decision. This means that in the end, the manager spends less time involved with daily tasks and more time making creative or strategic decisions.

While they may seem mutually exclusive, it is possible to perform both process and project management at the same time. Automation in process and project management can also help managers spend less time on mundane project management tasks like writing and sending emails, and more time making strategic decisions.

For instance, project managers can sit down to collaboratively 

define a repeatable process for their next upcoming project. 

From experience, they already know the steps the project will follow and who will be involved. 

, the manager can define the process in minutes and enable some tasks (like sending tasks to each responsible employee) to be done automatically.

To manage the finer details of the project, the manager 

can integrate the process management platform with a project management platform.

 This way, the employees can keep track of all their deadlines and the project manager can maintain a clear high-level view without being consumed by daily, manual tasks.

While it takes the manager a few extra minutes at the start, in the long run, the project manager can use this repeatable process across all their future projects. Efficient project management techniques are now all about long-term sustainability.

Efficiency in the management process means 

future-proofing your existing business processes 

so that you can spend less time each week sending manual briefs. This means future projects will take less time to set up, give the manager a more comprehensive high-level view, and ultimately make all upcoming projects more efficient.

Run more efficient and effective processes with our easy drag-and-drop platform.

Start automating your project management with FireStart

Here's the real difference between tasks and processes, and how you can run more efficient projects.

Run more efficient projects with FireStart. Learn the difference between project vs process management utilizing integrations and automation. Make projects run more automatically and get back hours of your workweek.

What is the difference between project vs process management? Agile projects need more than just a Gantt chart, they require a visual representation of an existing process with a detailed project plan. Complex projects need automation.

What's The Difference Between Process Management vs Project Management?

Business Process Automation (BPA) is software that allows complex business processes to run automatically. Each step in the process, where possible, is automated meaning that the tasks are completed by the computer instead of a person.

Tasks that are commonly automated include tasks that include copying and pasting, sending data internally or externally, and gathering data from internal or external sources.

Instead of risking errors, data loss, or spending hours aligning with internal and external stakeholders, automation takes the brunt of this work to free up employees.

Intelligent process automation (IPA) uses some form of artificial intelligence when automating the tasks in the process. RPA (Robotic Process Automation) is commonly used to add this layer of intelligence. However, other forms of artificial intelligence (AI) can also be used including Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Natural Language Processing (NLP), computer vision, cognitive automation, and machine learning.

The combination of these different technologies helps human employees not be overburdened with menial tasks while being able to rely on the problem-solving abilities of the machine. IPA can, for example, read through complex documents and organize the data so humans don't have to spend hours sifting through multiple pages. 

Although the terms are often used interchangeably, Business Process Automation (BPA) and an intelligent automation solution like RPA 

Business process automation software works like a machine to automate entire processes for maximum efficiency. RPA on the other hand emulates tasks like a human would and can only automate very specific tasks,

 like creating documents or sending emails.

 RPA can learn over time by completing more tasks and can be incorporated into an automated business process.

The biggest benefit of BPA is its future-forward benefits. Process automation solutions can help your company build processes that will last years into the future, not just for today. While RPA can be deployed quickly to automate single tasks, BPA looks at the bigger process picture to make the whole workflow more efficient.

Although RPA can be integrated into a business process, there is no replacement for a business process that is optimized for efficiency. It required more upfront effort, but in the long run, automated processes pay off.

Automation is a great way to lift tedious and repetitive tasks from your team's shoulders. Automation isn't necessarily complicated, it all depends on the process and the type of platform you want to use.

There are multiple platforms, software, and technology available for automating your manual processes.

FireStart is a no-code and low-code process automation tool, so the choice is yours as to how detailed you want to be. Automating in our cloud platform is done by the program itself. Once you've 

) FireStart will automate this process as soon as you hit "Run Workflow."

Knowing when to automate a process can be tricky, however, there are some key signs to look out for in the daily grind that will show you which tasks you can start automating.

One key factor is to notice when you or your team are doing repetitive or manual processes frequently. Any process that follows set steps each and every time can be automated, even if you think the process is complex. Even the most complex processes can be automated, only bringing in humans when it's absolutely necessary, like signing off on an important decision.

Another, arguably more important factor, is to automate the tasks that you don't want to do. There are plenty of tasks that are frustrating, time-consuming, and annoying to do. They zap joy from your workday, so there's no reason why you have to continue along this path. 

Automating boring tasks leaves more time for the tasks you enjoy doing that are critical to your role, encouraging job growth and skill refinement. Let's face it, no one enjoys spending the majority of the workday copying and pasting data from one spreadsheet to another.

It's important not to automate processes that are inefficient and 

To avoid automating broken business processes, first, consider combing through your existing processes and refining them first. Talk to stakeholders and colleagues and collaboratively work towards a standard process that involves all the right people, with a clear purpose and clearly defined steps.

In the long run, process automation software will not only boost the company's bottom line but also encourage collaboration between departments, roles, and teams. Efficient processes help provide clarity around your own role in the process and how your efforts can be best utilized, so nothing is going to waste.

Create your process and FireStart will automate the rest.

Start automating your workflows with FireStart

Process automation allows complex processes to run automatically, empowering teams in many ways.

Business Process Automation (BPA) is software that allows complex business processes to run automatically. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, Business Process Automation (BPA) and an intelligent automation solution like RPA are different.

Process automation is commonly misunderstood and sometimes overshadowed by other automation technologies. Digital process automation has many applications and can be used to effectively automate complex processes. The end result is processes that run seamlessly, freeing up employee hours for work they would rather do.

What Is Process Automation?

Businesses run best when they are efficient. Too often, employees are unable to do their best job because of process confusion. This confusion over tasks in the process leads to missed deadlines, ineffective process cycles, and wasted time.

Many businesses often shift business process management to the backburner. To understand the importance of defining your business processes, it’s important to understand the fundamental role of BPM within your organization.

 enables organizations to clearly see where resources are going and what the ROI is. Executives can have a clear overview of all the resources that circulate around the business, while managers can operate from a single source of truth for their teams. Even employees gain the benefit of knowing exactly who to go to for which task. So no matter how many platforms you may have 

Why is business process management important?

Knowing and defining your processes for your entire business can seem daunting, but it’s well worth the effort. Business process management helps your business to operate transparently with all stakeholders, meaning that everyone knows their tasks without wasted time or confusion.

Knowing your processes helps your business to:

, then you’ve opened your business up to a world of exciting new opportunities to make everything more efficient, like introducing process automation and high-level orchestration. Without a clear overview of the processes and tasks that make your business run, and the people that execute them, it’s incredibly difficult to introduce automation that will work in the long term.

All businesses want to be more efficient, yet the road to efficiency can be unclear. Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) can face even more difficulties due to a lack of resources when compared with enterprise counterparts.

Improving overall efficiency starts with 

. Ensuring that processes are clear, defined, and assigned ensures that everyone in the company knows where they stand in each process. Defining business processes also helps SMBs to ascertain which processes are necessary, and which ones can be improved. Over time, data from your processes can clearly show where bottlenecks are and where they can be improved.

Communication and collaboration are at the heart of every business. A company after all is made up of people. When multiple people are involved in a process, it can quickly become convoluted and confusing, especially when you don’t have a central, visual map of who does what, when. 

Building digital processes helps teams collaborate better together on tasks, gives managers a clear overview of who is handling which task, and assists stakeholders so they can have a good overview of how the business is running. Streamlining the communication between departments also saves time by eliminating the need for multiple meetings or long email chains.

, errors can arise. Employees can quickly have their week eaten up by correcting mistakes, leading to lost time and fewer resources.

Working with process management software helps your business reduce mistakes by eliminating tedious spreadsheets, and keeping everyone on a digital single source of truth.

With the disruption from the pandemic, SMBs have seen the advantages of digitizing, even if they weren’t necessarily ready for it. Small businesses often had to grapple with quickly implementing different digital technologies in order to keep up. In the midst of the chaos, business process management was shifted to the side, which puts SMBs in a precarious position. 

Businesses can benefit from taking another look at their process ecosystem to see where improvements can be made. Digitizing all your business processes can help set your company up for the future, ensuring that disruptions are minimized. This type of future-proofing makes the company more resilient in the post-pandemic world.

Business process management may sound complex, but in reality it's the process of streamlining the daily tasks that you do so you can be more efficient. Optimizing your process ecosystem not only helps your businesses’ bottom line but also helps each employee stay on task.

Businesses around the world gain back hours each week to spend on decision-making and creative thinking by utilizing process management. Over time, your business will have accomplished even more than you thought possible, without all the tedious tasks.

Drive efficiency in your organization

Building processes that last are more important than ever for your business post-pandemic.

Pandemic-proof your workflows with effective business process management. BPM helps to build good process cycles and help your company reach its highest goals.

Business process management (BPM) is the foundational step towards building workflows that support your company. Although its often misunderstood or left to the side, BPM can drastically change how you conduct your business for the better.

Why Business Processes Are Important

Accurately managing your processes can be difficult. Companies often have to grapple with unwieldy processes because there has 

not been enough time or resources to standardize them

. This leaves many organizations with processes that are inefficient and end up wasting even more time and resources.

, it’s necessary to take a look at what exactly business processes are and how to best manage them.

Business processes are a set of structured steps or tasks that empower teams to achieve their goals. Processes are usually designed with many stakeholders involved in order to ensure that every step of the process is documented in a realistic manner.

In a nutshell, a business process creates transparency throughout the whole organization. Employees know what tasks they are doing when, and the management can see that the processes are helping the company achieve its targets.

After the processes in your ecosystem have been

, the processes have to be continually managed and updated. Business process management or BPM is an organizational discipline that allows a company to get a bird’s eye view of all the processes in their company and update them accordingly.

In the past, processes were recorded in an analog fashion using paper, sticky notes, and pens. These days, business 

 is used to keep track of company processes and optimize them.

Digitally recording your processes ensures that nothing will ever get lost and that the processes can be shared, collaborated on, and updated according to the real-time changes at work.

Why is it important to manage your processes?

Digitally managing your process ecosystem can 

 When processes are left unorganized, not formally defined, or improperly communicated to the team, it can be a huge drain on resources and lead to wasted time, missed deadlines, and added frustration.

Creating a business process from scratch may seem daunting, but with these simple steps, business process management can be easy, enjoyable, and effective.

Design your process by firstly mapping out the ideal process and then modeling it visually. In this phase, you should clearly define the tasks in the process and the roles that will be assigned to each task.

In FireStart, this process is made easy with the 

Drag and drop your tasks into the workflow and then assign roles to each task. The roles in FireStart can be assigned to a whole team, so you don’t have to worry about minute details like which specific people will handle each task.

The deployment phase turns your process into a workflow. When a process is active and running, it becomes a 

. In this phase, it’s important to test and see the effectiveness of your workflow. If tasks are missing or some stakeholders have been left out, now is the time to add them in before rolling out the process to the whole department.

With FireStart, running workflows is really very simple. All you have to do is hit the “Start Workflow” button in the corner and the workflow will run automatically when new data is added. For example, in an HR process when a new candidate applies for a job, the workflow will automatically start to collect the resume and notify the HR manager.

Step 3: Monitor your process for optimization

Over time, the process needs may change or you may identify bottlenecks. Monitoring the processes on a regular basis allows your team to be even more effective and more productive.

In FireStart, you can monitor workflows at a glance in the “Workflows” tab. Check in to see where your workflows may be getting stuck to improve the process. We always suggest automating tasks where possible to avoid manual tasks.  This is what’s called business process automation and it can speed up your process cycle times so you can make the most of your team’s resources!

Learn how to standardize your processes for seamless implementation.

Want to start implementing business processes?

Business Process Management (BPM) can improve company efficiency and boost employee morale.

Stay on top of your processes by managing them digitally. Business process management is an important step to making your company more agile and responsive in response to remote working. Keep your processes in the cloud so they can grow with your business as you scale.

Whether you're an enterprise or small to medium business, process management can be a challenge. Fortunately, there are software platforms and tools that can help any size business keep track of its processes.

What is Business Process Management?

A workflow is an orchestrated and repeatable series of tasks that allows users to complete large goals in a timely manner. They are important because they enable companies to reach larger goals, while also effectively 

combining the talents of technology and humans.

combine many elements together such as tasks and processes. In this digital age, they have come to encompass different platforms and tools via API integrations. This has meant that understanding what it can do for your business has become increasingly complex since there is so much that a workflow management system 

 before. It’s an organizational discipline that covers various ways to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve, optimize, and automate business processes.

In BPM, a workflow encompasses more than just the tasks or processes that those tasks build. It focuses more on the management between people, processes, and technology.

Essentially, building a BPM workflow means that you can manage not only tasks and processes but also different platforms and tools. As an example, 

 that allows you to integrate and manage different platforms like Salesforce, 

A good analogy is to think of a BPM platform like a powerboard that you can plug everything into. It helps you manage your process ecosystem in one platform.

Workflow automation is the next logical step to making them run more smoothly. Previously, they were simply a chain of events that needed to be completed in order to achieve the end goal. Now, the chain of tasks can be completed automatically.

By implementing workflow automation, the jumps between technology, processes, and people become smoother. For example, in a 

, the HR Manager doesn’t need to manually send interview or rejection emails, this can be automated to save time. Or collecting and saving CVs can be automated so that is it stored digitally, saving on paperwork and printing costs.

 saves employees and managers from time-consuming tasks, so they can focus on more important tasks.

Start creating by setting up a process. A complete process includes all the necessary tasks needed to reach the end goal. Mapping out the process can be done with paper, or done digitally straight into FireStart Cloud.

In FireStart, when your ideal process is complete you can make it active by clicking “Run Workflow.” From there, you have a 

 of the whole workflow from start to finish. With time, it’s possible to identify and solve potential bottlenecks or make other improvements.

With FireStart Cloud, you’ll always be able to see which stage it’s at by clicking on the “Workflows” tab. The stage of the workflow is always highlighted by a blue line, with the green line indicating that the process has finished.

In process management, there are different “languages” that are used to show the steps in a workflow, but all the languages accomplish the same goal: to visually illustrate a process. Using a standard process language means that anyone is able to read it and clearly understand what each step means.

At FireStart, we use a simplified version of 

BPMN 2.0 to visually communicate the process.

 To understand this language, you need to know the main symbols and what they represent.

 example from before, here’s how a typical employee onboarding process would be mapped out in FireStart Cloud.

You’ll see that team members only need to jump in for critical decision-making steps. Otherwise, everything else in the process can be automated, making the process much faster.

It’s important to note that BPM software, while effective, is designed to work with your current workforce. Workflow automation tools are simply a support for your team, to reduce burnout and endless manual processes which can make their job frustrating.

Start mapping, modeling and automating your workflows with FireStart in under 1 minute.

Manage all your workflows in one place

Understand everything you need to know about workflows and how to create them in FireStart Cloud.

A workflow is an orchestrated and repeatable series of tasks that allows users to complete large goals in a timely manner. Automate workflows and orchestrate your processes with a BPM workflow management tool like FireStart. It will help your team member cut back on manual processes and boost efficiency.

Workflows are integral to a company's success. Without defined processes and workflows, time and resources are quickly used up without significant progress being made. By understanding how to create a workflow and implement it, your business can save valuable time and always stay on task.

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