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
2. Kuribo. (2008). Red panda eating. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red_Panda_eating.jpgCC BY-SA 2.0
3. SOME CONTEXT
4. UNDERSTANDING WORKFLOW
5. FLOWCHART
9. TASK ANALYSIS
10. Reidsma, M. (2013). Slide 38. Websites are for People. http://matthew.reidsrow.com/articles/29CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
11. JOURNEY SHEET
13. TYPES OF MATERIAL Hardcover Trade Paperpack Children's Fiction Children's Non-Fiction Magazine Newspaper DVD
15. SWIM LANES
16. Kerr, P. (2006). Swimlanes flowchart of a business process. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Approvals.jpg
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?
19. THE IDEAL WORKFLOW
20. REORGANIZATION
22. CARD SORT VARIANTS
23. Rosenfeld Media. (2009). CS002: Figure 1.2. https://www.flickr.com/photos/rosenfeldmedia/3344341528CC BY 2.0
25. GETTING TO THE IDEAL
28. TOOLS TO INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY
29. KEEPASS (KEYCHAIN) Reichl, D. (2010). KeePass Main Window. Free license. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KeePass_Main.png
30. TOTAL COMMANDER (MUCOMMANDER)
31. NOTEPAD2
32. IRFANVIEW
34. LIGHTSCREEN
35. PDFTK PDF Labs. (2014). PDFtk Free. . https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/
36. SUBLIME TEXT Roe, A. (2012). Sublime Text 2. Copyrighted/Fair Use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sublime-text-2-screenshot.png
37. MARCEDIT
38. EXCEL
39. TRELLO
40. TAKE AWAY
41. THANKS! Cynthia Ng @TheRealArty about.me/cynthiang