ZAGENO Announces New Leadership Appointments in Product and People Operations

… most recently as Verana Health’s Senior VP of People and Culture. “Our new Chief Product Officer Bivha Singh and Chief People Officer Ellenmarie … Read source

Digital Product and People Operations tips:

Use automation to help you

The best way to improve your own workflows is to automate them. If you find yourself doing routine tasks over and over again, you can save yourself a significant amount of time by automating them. For example, if you are constantly scrambling to find the right version of a PSD file for every new issue of a magazine, it might be worth setting up an action in Finder to automatically place the right file in the right folder. This frees you up to focus on more important tasks and also ensures that everything is created and stored correctly.

Start with the goal

The best way to get started with building out a repeatable process is to start with the end goal in mind. What do you want to achieve? Once you have that answer, start thinking about the actions that need to be taken. If you’re having trouble coming up with the right process or deciding where to start, try thinking about which tasks are repetitive and time-consuming. You can often tackle these problems by creating an automated workflow.

Find an opportunity

It might sound crazy, but when it comes to improving your workflows, quite often it’s easier to find a problem than it is to come up with an original idea. If you’re looking for a good opportunity for improvement in your company, look for things that are complicated or take a lot of time. One thing I’ve seen many times is designers who spend too much time tracking down the latest versions of their files. Instead of manually updating files every time they make a change, they could set up an action that automatically takes care of this for them.

Build your own solutions

You don’t have to rely on third party tools or other people’s solutions for everything. If you come across something that is tedious and repetitive, try building your own solution for it. Everything from automating manual steps in your workflow to developing your own tools from scratch can be worthwhile in the long run. The added benefits of building your own solutions include the fact that you will know exactly what you are using and you will be able to customize it to your particular needs.

Document your process

Once you have a repeatable process in place, it’s important to document it. Creating a step-by-step guide for the process will help others understand how to follow it and will also make it possible to train new people to take over your role if you ever leave the company. Documentation is also essential if you want to be able to use a process more than once. If you don’t write things down or document them, it can be difficult to find out what needs to be done.

How to work with processes

It’s not enough to create your own processes or workflows. You also need clear and easy ways for others to work with them as well. Following are some tips for making sure that your processes are easy for others to use:

Make the goal clear

One of the biggest mistakes I see designers make is focusing too much on how they do things versus why they do things. Make sure that other people understand why the process exists and what the main goal is. This will make it easier for them to adapt and follow along with the rest of the process. If you have trouble explaining why you need a certain process, try bringing in different people and showing them examples of when the process has worked well or when it has caused problems. This is a great way to help everyone see how each step in the process is connected and why it is important.