So what exactly is business process standardization? Process standardization is the act of making all processes within the company unified and ultimately, replicable. Standardization for each important process ensures that everyone in the organization is only performing one, true version of the process so that miscommunication is avoided.

Why is standardization important?

Process standardization helps your business to identify the many ways a process is being done. As the saying goes, without awareness, nothing can change in the organization. Creating more awareness and transparency around your processes means that the company can now begin to solve the scattered ways of working, and align everyone on one clear way forward.

IT process standardization has many benefits:

• Identify the many ways a process or workflow is currently being done.

• Find a clear way forward to improve collaboration between departments.

• Communicate the new process to the organization and avoid miscommunication.

• Create repeatable processes that encourage scale.

In the past, communicating how to perform a certain process was done extremely manually. It involved paper, pens, and sticky notes, along with email chains and further wasted resources. With the revolution of remote working during the pandemic, this way to reform processes is not only inefficient, but it’s also not possible with remote colleagues.

Mapping and modeling your processes digitally is more of a necessity than ever. Digital process organization allows remote and in-house colleagues to collaborate together, making the uptake of the new process easier and quicker. It’s all about removing the friction associated with change.

Start standardizing your business processes

In the pandemic, speed and efficiency matter more than ever. Businesses are now more concerned with scale and growth in order to survive in an uncertain world. What’s more, standard business processes also make your company more resilient, meaning that sudden changes won’t completely disrupt the entire business.

In your daily work, making business processes uniform and repeatable means you will be able to balance multiple priorities and demands without constantly losing time in small details. Standardized business processes allow you to see what is absolutely essential, helping you to be more effective. McKinsey noted that standardization is one of the key factors of success in the post-pandemic world.

Don’t waste any more time and resources, start standardizing!

Step 1: Map out your current process

Review all the existing mutations you have for one core process and gather the relevant stakeholders. It’s important to gain a complete overview of how the process is functioning right now.

The team you have assembled can begin working to create a unified “best practice” process for this scenario, taking into account the different variations. Often, variations occur from a lack of transparency. Once everyone is discussing the process, these variations are easy to identify and correct.

In FireStart, you’re able to model the process digitally, without needing to use pens and paper. This can be especially ideal if your team is working remotely since even after the meeting they will be able to access the process in the cloud.

Step 2: Assign roles for each step in the process

For each task in the process, assign a relevant role. It’s often the case that within a company, processes run on autopilot, meaning that there is a lack of transparency in the wider team around who is responsible for what. Keeping tabs on who does what is essential for reaching the organization’s higher goals. Success starts on the micro-level.

Assigning roles also ensures that tasks won’t sit unattended, costing the team more time which can result in missed deadlines.

To keep tabs on who is completing what task, FireStart allows you to assign roles, not people. So if one employee is on holiday, another employee in that role can claim it. For example, if you have a task that needs to be done by an HR professional, you can assign that task to your HR team to make sure that the task will definitely get done. When someone from the HR team claims the task, the rest of the team will be notified to avoid double-work.

Step 3: Communicate and implement the new process

With your roles and tasks defined, you can now make the process live. Previously, this would involve lengthy email chains or virtual meetings. With FireStart, you can simply invite all the stakeholders to FireStart Cloud to show them exactly what the new process is, and where they contribute.

A big part of change management is making the change as natural as possible. This is why FireStart makes it so easy for your teams. You can use FireStart as your central information hub, opening it each morning to see what tasks need to be done, or being reminded of new tasks via email or platforms like Microsoft Teams.

Step 4: Monitor and track the progress

Part of any new change is monitoring the success. Over time, you will gain new insights into how the process is working for your organization and identify ways to iterate and change.

FireStart makes this part of the equation easy by making it simple for teams to collaborate remotely to update the process when improvements can be made. You can also lock workflows to make sure that no one can make changes without consulting the team first.

Resiliency post-pandemic depends on you

Ultimately, an organization with a streamlined process ecosystem will naturally be more resilient than one with disjointed processes.

IT process standardization empowers companies to:

• Collaborate between departments so no information is lost.

• Save time with shorter process cycles so tasks can be finished quicker.

• Document everything digitally making sharing and tracing of procedures easier.

Standardization helps minimize resource waste and manage process quality, setting realistic expectations for departments and empowering them to reach company goals.