All posts in Project Management

How to Perform a Root Cause Analysis (Free Template)

root cause analysis

If you’re chronically ill, pain medication will help but not solve the issue. Just like if you’re experiencing abnormally high customer churn, the last thing you want is to spend all your time firefighting.

You need to find the cause.

That’s exactly why root cause analysis is a vital process. It helps you to understand the causal focus and underlying issues behind your biggest business problems.

For example, Eastman Chemical‘s customer complaint numbers were cut in half after conducting a logic tree root cause analysis to pinpoint their deeper issues. Clipper Windpower saved $1 million in lost revenue by identifying the underlying causes of their turbine malfunction.

In this Process Street article, we have a root cause analysis template for you to follow. Our aim is to give you a comprehensive overview of the root cause analysis process, from a simple introduction and break down of the key principles to when and why you’d want to perform a root cause analysis.

We’ll be covering:

Let’s take a quick look at the root cause analysis template.
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12 Free Proposal Templates: The Only Way to Win Business

Proposal templates

How many proposals do you submit, on average, per month?

Five? Ten? Fifteen? …More?

And out of those, how many do you win?

Zero?… One?… Maybe two if you’re lucky?

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s TIGER grant program accepted less than 10% of eligible grant applications” – CDN2, Four Types of Grant Funding

Hearing “No” after “No” after “No” is devastating, disheartening and downright depressing.

Where are you going wrong? How can you improve? What in God’s name do you need to do to get a YES?!

If you’re looking for ways to create a blinding proposal that will flatten your competitors, dazzle your prospective buyers, and result in a long-awaited YES from a panel of reviewers, you’ve come to the right place.

All you need is ten minutes and the following 12 free proposal templates:

If you don’t have ten minutes, feel free to dive straight into these winning proposal templates:

Or, if you’re curious, take a sneaky peek at the website proposal template to give you a taste of what’s to come!

These are the topics we will cover in this post:

Ok, let’s go!

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How LA Creative Technologies Uses Process Street to Streamline Client Onboarding, Offboarding and Project Management

How LA Creative Uses Process Street to Streamline Client Onboarding, Offboarding and Project Management-10

LA Creative Technologies uses Process Street to streamline operations, with particular focus on (but not limited to) client onboarding, offboarding, and project management procedures.

With process automation and cloud process documentation solutions, Process Street has allowed LA Creative Technologies to productively, effectively and efficiently manage their remote team, and complex procedures.

We spoke with LA Creative’s Founder and CIO Josh Weiss to find out how they are using Process Street for client onboarding, offboarding and project management. We then opened the floor, accepting questions brought forth by our webinar listeners. Here’s what we found out.

Click on the relevant subheader below to jump to that section. Alternatively, scroll down to find out all Process Street and LA Creative Technologies have to say.

Let’s get started.
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How to Handle Workflow Approval (Without the Hassle)

workflow approval

Workflow approvals are a bottleneck of the worst kind.

Projects get delayed waiting for approval, and those reviewing the work spend more time searching for the piece than they do reviewing it.

Professionals take 18 minutes on average to locate a document manually––20% to 40% of their time––and spend 50% of their time searching for information.” – Ashish Deshpande, 50+ Key Statistics to Help You Automate Smarter in 2020 and Beyond

That’s where we here at Process Street come in.

We know how important it is to have an effective method for organizing your workflow approvals. Heck, everything our content team does goes through at least two rounds of review before it goes live.

Check out task five in the following free process template for a snapshot of how we handle workflow approvals with Process Street!

That’s why today we’ll be covering:

Let’s dive right in.
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Service Level Management: How to Manage SLAs and OLAs Masterfully

Service Level Management

When defining, documenting, and delivering services to customers, it can be a little difficult (read: incredibly taxing) to keep on top of everything.

As Philipp Unterharnscheidt and Axel Kieninger at the Karlsruhe Service Research Institute both say:

“IT services supporting business operations are an increasingly critical factor for business success today (Guldentops 2003). The management of service quality, which is the central objective of Service Level Management (SLM), however remains a major challenge for many companies.”Philipp Unterharnscheidt and Axel Kieninger, Service Level Management – Challenges and their Relevance from the Customers’ Point of View

To help companies keep on top of things – and manage their services, service levels, and SLAs and OLAs masterfully – there’s service level management.

This may be the point where you’re thinking “But what, exactly, is service level management? What are the benefits of it? The best practices so it’s done properly? And how would Process Street even help with service level management?”

Worry no more, reader. You’ve come to the right place.

Just read through these sections to get to grips with service level management:

Let’s dive straight in. ⬇️

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17 Service Level Agreement Examples to Track Your Service Management Metrics

service level agreement

In today’s business environment where managed services are constantly being outsourced, creating a concise, official document outlining the terms of an agreement between the client and service provider is critical to setting the foundations for a trustworthy and ultimately fruitful relationship.

“Service-level agreements, amongst other things, bolster trust in and between organizations – making it clear what needs to be done, to what standard, and when.”Adam Henshall, What is an SLA? How to Use Service-Level Agreements for Success

It’s simply an essential component that requires care and attention.

As you may well have already noticed and perhaps even put to good use, Process Street has been creating some excellent content for those of you looking to create first-class service level agreement’s in quick and easy fashion.

For a comprehensive introduction into what an SLA is, exactly what one consists of and why you need them, have a read through the following article:

If you are already familiar with the fundamentals of SLAs and are looking for guidance on how to create and edit one for your organization, you’ll find this post useful:

Bear in mind that the article referenced above also contains a free, easy-to-use Process Street template from which you can create as many service level agreements as you like.

And that’s what this post is all about – providing free, easy-to-use examples in the form of practical templates.

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Operational Level Agreement (OLA): The SLA’s Kick-Ass Sidekick

Operational Level Agreement

Let’s face it.

Delivering stellar services to customers and clients can be tough.

And with villains such as poor communication, stress, and human error constantly rearing their ugly heads, it makes that job even harder.

In fact, a study by Quantum Workplace found that more than 80% of people thought miscommunication happened very frequently, frequently, or occasionally in the workplace, while Identity Guard uncovered that the average American employee makes 118 mistakes per year.

So that mistakes are quashed, miscommunication is thwarted, and that everyone is on the same page so the objectives, targets, and goals defined in your service level agreements (SLA) can be upheld, an OLA is the answer.

An OLA is to the SLA what Robin is to Batman. Superboy to Superman. Chewbacca to Han Solo. And by reading through the following sections in this Process Street article, you’ll discover why an OLA makes for a kickass side-kick:

Now, don your cape and let’s fly through this post! ⚡️
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Video Review: How to Give Effective Feedback

Video Review

Videos are a powerhouse when it comes to marketing, explaining your product, and much more.

Heck, when users are spending 88% more time on websites that have videos, you can see their power just in terms of retention.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to request or create effective videos if you don’t have experience in the field. Terms can be confusing, and video producers might struggle to act on the feedback you give if you don’t know how to communicate the message effectively.

That’s why it’s vital to know how to perform an effective video review; there’s an art to it.

At Process Street, we’ve gone through the hard work of learning how to review videos and give actionable comments. That’s why I’ll be showing you how to do just that., including:

Let’s get started.
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14 Best Online Team Management Tools for Productive Teams

14_best_online_team_management_tools_for_productive_teams-01

This is a guest post by Nandini Sharma, an Assistant Marketing Manager at ProofHub – a leading collaboration software. With years of experience in marketing, she has found some amazing ways to reach a large audience and create a connection.

Boosting team morale and productivity could be considered as the number 1 goal for every project manager.

The term team management isn’t just about allocating tasks to be checked off by your team before the end of the day. Key factors that contribute to the concept of effective team management are teamwork, collaboration, and recognition. Without them, a company’s overall performance is at risk. This is where team management tools come into play.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard a project manager tries or how many expensive tools she/he invests in, something or someone is often left behind. And here in-lies our problem…

…and where there is a business-related problem, there is a Process Street solution.

You see, not all team management tools are meant for you. Without the right approach and the right tool, your chances of keeping each team member productive and satisfied, are next to impossible.

You need to find a tool that works best for you and your team and you need to find it soon.

In this article, we will explain the importance of effective team management. We will then present you with our 14 top team management tools so that you can find the right one for you.

Click on the relevant subheader below to jump to that section. Alternatively, scroll down to find the information you need to evaluate the best team management tool for you.

We’ll start with the basics of team management.
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10 Templates to Optimize Creative Workflow Management

10 Templates to Optimize Creative Workflow Management

It’s a common misconception among marketing creatives that structure and planning impede creativity.

But of course, this isn’t true.

Not having a creative process in place can actually make your work more strenuous and ineffective. When there isn’t any project planning or set goals, it allows more room for inconsistencies, not meeting deadlines, miscommunication between your team and the clients, and overall chaos.

Good creative workflow management should encourage creativity, not hinder it. The key is developing a process that’s regulated enough that it boosts efficiency, but is also adaptable enough to be applied to the variety of projects your company will work on.

So, how can you achieve creative workflow management that provides a framework for your team without holding them back? That’s what we’ll be focusing on in this article.

In this article, we’ll be looking at:

First things first; if you just want the free process templates for creative workflow management, then you can find them right here:

If you’re unsure what a Process Street checklist looks like, check it out (pun intended):

If you want these templates, just sign up for a free trial (it takes about 2 minutes).

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