Nick Sonnenberg is an entrepreneur, columnist, guest lecturer at Columbia University, and the Wall Street Journal’s bestselling author of Come Up for Air: How Teams Can Leverage Systems and Tools to Stop Drowning in Work. 

Nick is also the founder and CEO of Leverage, a leading operational efficiency consultancy that helps companies implement the CPR business efficiency framework.

It’s the culmination of Nick’s unique perspective on the value of time, efficiency, and automation, which stems partly from the eight years he spent working as a high-efficiency trader on Wall Street.

In this episode of The Employee Onboarding Podcast from Process Street, Nick discusses:

• How operational efficiency saved Leverage from bankruptcy
• The key to successful onboarding
• Creating a “wow” moment for new hires
• Come Up for Air

You can listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, Podchaser, Podcast Addict, Deezer, & all your favorite podcast platforms!

This is a big blog post about Business Process Management software (BPMS). If I’ve succeeded in doing what I set out to do, this article should provide pretty much everything you could ever need to know about BPM software.

At its core, the article is built around the following pillars of BPM software:

• Top BPM software
• BPM basics: The idea behind it
• BPM in practice: How to use it
• A glossary of BPM terms
• Use cases of BPM software
• Using Process Street for BPM

I have tried to distil the information in this article to only the most crucial elements, and many sections have been abbreviated where they deserve entire articles to themselves!

Thankfully, where necessary I have provided links to supporting material where these concepts are expanded upon, should you be interested in delving deeper.

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Today, we’re going to take a look at Improvizations, a workforce consulting firm that works with a huge variety of organizations to improve and automate their business processes. 

As part of our Solutions Partner program, CEO and founder of Improvizations Bryan deSilva engages his clients and gets them as excited as he is about continuous improvement. 

Together, we’ll dive into how Bryan and his team accomplishes this with Process Street, along with a bit about his own life and what gets him so excited about workflows. 

• What Improvizations specializes in
• What Bryan loves most about being a Solutions Partner
• The best part of Bryan’s job
• What Bryan does when he’s not building workflows

Ah, the days before I started using project management software.

I don’t miss them.

70+ hour weeks of pure stress and disorganized skitting from task to task, unable to focus on the things that mattered when they needed to get done. It was a lesson hard-learned but one of the most valuable I’ve ever had the misfortune of going through.

So I’ll save you the trouble and show you the best free options on offer.

You don’t need a massive budget or a lot of experience to get the most out of these apps – hence why they’re the best free project management software. Most have paid plans but all are functional with the free version and all will help you and your team organize your projects and get things done on time and to a high standard.

I’ll be covering:

1. Process Street
2. Agantty
3. Airtable
4. Asana
5. Avaza
6. Backlog
7. Bitrix24
8. FreedCamp
9. HiTask
10. KanbanFlow
11. MeisterTask
12. Paymo
13. Pivotal Tracker
14. Podio
15. TeamGantt
16. Toggl
17. Teamwork Projects
18. Todoist
19. Trello
20. Wrike
21. Zenkit
22. Jira
23. Hubstaff
24. Basecamp
25. ProjectLibre
26. Notion
27. Zoho Project
28. Kintone
29. nTask
30. Nifty

Enough talk – let’s get stuck in.

Would you eat a McDonalds Big Mac that was out-of-date, had been dropped on the floor, and made with a stranger’s bare hands?

No! Me neither.

Unfortunately, that’s what thousands of people in China, unknowingly, did.

Back in 2015, the Chinese meat suppliers for McDonald’s were secretly filmed and caught:

“Handling meat and chicken with their bare hands, taking meat that had fallen on the floor and adding it back on to the production line…and forging production dates on beef patties.” – ET2C, Lessons on the Importance of Quality Control Checks

Around 4,300 McDonalds beef patties were tested and found to be out-of-date and contaminated with bacteria.

As a result, over 2,000 McDonald’s outlets across Asia were dramatically affected. The reputation of McDonald’s and their meat supplier was irreversibly damaged, and McDonald’s saw a 7.3% drop in sales.

McDonald’s was definitely not ‘lovin it’.

If only they’d used Enterprise Quality Management Software (EQMS) to regulate their supplier’s meat handling processes and control the quality of the produce they were delivering.

Companies who use EQMS to manage quality, experience fewer product quality issues (less than 1%), and improve their productivity by 20%.

Keen to find out more? Join me in this Process Street post as we run through the following:

• What is EQMS and how does it work?
• Who uses EQMS?
• Is EQMS it just for regulated organizations?
• What are the bottlenecks of EQMS?
• The best EQMS alternative (+free templates)?
• Top 8 EQMS software

Let’s make our way through the golden arches and get started!
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McDonald’s is the master of workflow optimization.

They sell 2.36 billion hamburgers annually. While at college, I estimate I made at least 200,000 when I worked for them. Every one of those burgers was a process involving many tasks. In the kitchen, we had lots of processes. They were difficult to forget, and I’d often wake up shouting, “How many nuggets do you want?!”

McDonald’s processes are continually improved and optimized to be smoother and more efficient. I once discovered a technical – yet easy – process that saved me a lot of work. What was it? At the end of the article, I’ll tell you how I used a 5 step process to complete it.

In the meantime, let’s look at how Process Street can help optimize your workflows. To use workflow optimization, you need to know:

• What is workflow optimization?
• How do you optimize a workflow?
• Optimize your workflows with automation

Implementing a quality management system (QMS software) is an important investment companies cannot overlook.

One Harvard Business Review study found that companies with an ISO 9001 certification have much higher rates of “corporate survival, sales, employment growth, and wage increases than a matched group of non-adopters.”

For instance, 65% of companies save $25,000 or more in costs within their first year of implementing a QMS.

Adopting a QMS software can also boost efficiency and consistency of work, increase customer satisfaction, raise product value, and reduce unnecessary costs and overall risks.

A good quality management system is all about achieving a quality-driven culture within your company, and as a result, making your product better and marketing it faster. But in order to access these benefits, it’s important that you choose the right QMS solution for you and your company.

In this Process Street article, we’ll be going over the foundation of everything you need to know before choosing your quality management system software.

We’ll be covering:

• What is a quality management system (QMS)?
• Agile QMS
• Best QMS software
• Build your agile QMS with Process Street

Join us as we take a closer look at the success story of Kelli Segretto of K Segretto Consulting, a leading Property Management Consulting business.

In this partner spotlight, we will explore how the strategic integration of the Solutions Partners program has played a crucial role in driving K Segretto Consulting and her clients to new heights of success. 

You will discover how Kelli leverages the power of Process Street to create customized workflows, setting a new standard in property management consulting.

Learn how Kelli leverages the Solutions Partners program to grow her own consultancy, along with fun facts about her personally and the workflows that have brought her the most joy.

• The scoop with Kelli’s process management consulting company
• What Kelli loves most about the work she does as a Solutions Partner
• The most fulfilling workflow Kelli has built for a client
• What Kelli does when she’s not building workflow
• What else makes Kelli tick? 

A 2017 study from Pew Research found that more than 70% of the U.S. is scared that robots are going to take over our lives. And, while we can’t perfectly predict the emergence of a Skynet singularity, we can say with some certainty that technology is set to take over the repetitive, dehumanizing elements of our jobs instead of putting us out of work.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a strategic priority for 84% of businesses, and in some cases has been used to improve sales team efficiency by over 50%. Even I’ve used AI in the past to generate hundreds of relevant hashtags for social media posts at the click of a button.

It was once the stuff of utopian science fiction and huge enterprises, but now practically anyone can take advantage.

For this post, we will dive into 20 different applications of AI in the real world:

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Imagine transforming the often-daunting world of employee onboarding into an engaging, human-centric experience.

This is exactly what we delve into on the latest episode of the Employee Onboarding Podcast. Host Erin Rice, our resident people and operations star at Process Street, sits down with the trailblazing Leigh Elena Henderson. With over 20 years under her belt in corporate America, Leigh brings a whirlwind of HR insights and innovations.

Are you eager to discover the secret sauce to effective onboarding? Craving real-life stories from the HR frontlines? Or maybe you’re just keen to hear how a seasoned HR expert is reshaping the narrative of employee integration.

Either way, buckle up for an episode that’s set to revolutionize your perspective on welcoming new talent.

• Podcast Introduction: Meet Leigh Elena Henderson, a seasoned HR expert.
• HR Innovator Spotlight: Leigh’s journey with HR Manifesto LLC.
• Icebreaker Moment: A light-hearted discussion on laundry habits.
• Personal Experiences in HR: Leigh’s professional journey and passion.
• Onboarding Experiences: Insights into effective & challenging onboarding processes.
• First Week Priorities: The importance of connectivity in new hire integration.
• Employee Engagement Strategies: Empowering new hires for success.
• Remote Onboarding: Addressing the complexities and solutions.
• AI in Onboarding: Exploring the potential impact of technology.
• Organizational Fit and Culture: Leigh’s approach to hiring and cultural integration.
• HR Besties Podcast: Introducing Leigh’s new HR-focused podcast.

Listen below, or read on for the full transcript.

You can listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, Podchaser, Podcast Addict, Deezer, & all your favorite podcast platforms!