Reviewing and Improving Workflow and Productivity: Methods and Tools

This webinar was presented for Florida Library Webinars on March 8, 2017. https://floridalibrarywebinars.org/events/16003/
Most of our libraries and organizations have been around for numerous years, sometimes hundreds. Often that means many processes are created, changed as needed, and left in place long past their due date. Unfortunately, that means we are frequently working inefficiently, following old processes or cobbled together workflows.
The first part of the presentation will suggest methods for understanding and reviewing workflow. In the second half, we will take a look at various simple and lightweight tools and ways to use them to make work more efficient, especially in processing text, files, and data in batches.

Transcript

1. REVIEWING AND
   IMPROVING WORKFLOW
   AND PRODUCTIVITY:
   METHODS AND TOOLS
   March 8, 2017
   Cynthia Ng
   @TheRealArty
   

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2. Kuribo. (2008). Red panda eating. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red_Panda_eating.jpgCC BY-SA 2.0
   

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3. SOME CONTEXT
   

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4. UNDERSTANDING WORKFLOW
   

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5. FLOWCHART
   

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9. TASK ANALYSIS
   

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10. Reidsma, M. (2013). Slide 38. Websites are for People. http://matthew.reidsrow.com/articles/29CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
    

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11. JOURNEY SHEET
    

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13. TYPES OF MATERIAL
    Hardcover
    Trade Paperpack
    Children's Fiction
    Children's Non-Fiction
    Magazine
    Newspaper
    DVD
    

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15. SWIM LANES
    

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16. Kerr, P. (2006). Swimlanes flowchart of a business process. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.
    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Approvals.jpg
    

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18. QUESTIONS TO ASK
    Does the order make sense?
    Which steps are flexible in the ordering? Conditional upon
    other steps being completed?
    Can specific steps be done more efficiently?
    How many people are involved? Can it be reduced?
    Is the most suitable person doing each step?
    Is the process consistent? Consistent with other departments?
    

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19. THE IDEAL WORKFLOW
    

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20. REORGANIZATION
    

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22. CARD SORT VARIANTS
    

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23. Rosenfeld Media. (2009). CS002: Figure 1.2. https://www.flickr.com/photos/rosenfeldmedia/3344341528CC BY 2.0
    

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25. GETTING TO THE IDEAL
    

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28. TOOLS TO INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY
    

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29. KEEPASS (KEYCHAIN)
    Reichl, D. (2010). KeePass Main Window. Free license.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KeePass_Main.png
    

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30. TOTAL COMMANDER (MUCOMMANDER)
    

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31. NOTEPAD2
    

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32. IRFANVIEW
    

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34. LIGHTSCREEN
    

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35. PDFTK
    PDF Labs. (2014). PDFtk Free. .
    https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/
    

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36. SUBLIME TEXT
    Roe, A. (2012). Sublime Text 2. Copyrighted/Fair Use.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sublime-text-2-screenshot.png
    

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37. MARCEDIT
    

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38. EXCEL
    

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39. TRELLO
    

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40. TAKE AWAY
    

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41. THANKS!
    Cynthia Ng
    @TheRealArty
    about.me/cynthiang
    

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