“The difference between good organisations and awesome organisations are their processes”.
– Doug, We Are Open
One of the next steps as part of our new strategy will be to question our existing processes, digital tools and policies. Why do we have them? Why do we work in this current way? Why are we using one digital tool over another?
One approach to a digital spring clean is the very simple but effective idea of a ‘system ecosystem’. This involves listing and mapping out all the digital tools, processes and outputs that occur within your organisation into three types:
- Internal organisation and communication – these are programmes/tools that you use in your work or to communicate with your colleagues e.g. MS Teams, Salesforce, Whatsapp, Click Up
- Client facing – programmes that you engage with your users on e.g. WordPress, Eventbrite, social media accounts, membership platform, Basecamp
- Product orientated – programmes that you use to create outputs that you share with your users e.g. Adobe, Canva, Survey Monkey, Mailchimp
From the map you can begin to identify key areas where there are bottlenecks, pain points or even tools you’d like to implement. This gives an indication of areas that need a more detailed review and potentially where staff can be trained in order to address inefficiencies or reduce the strain on a team/colleague.
To watch a short video describing system ecosystems in a little more detail and to view an example of a map in practice, please follow this link.
