Introducing the Team Assistant application. Examples of specific uses

Introducing the Team Assistant application Examples of specific uses

Perspia a. s. 4. 5. 2011

What is team assistant? Team assistant is a tool to immediately improve the management of your company. It helps you define, effectively manage, and easily assess processes to optimize efficiency. All the benefits of process management are now available to you. Start with the area which will make the greatest impact for your company, and then gradually add other areas. Team assistant adapts to you and not the other way round. You decide which functions best suit your needs. Get your employees ready for a change for the better. The better you explain the new principles of management to them, the more effectively they will use team assistant. It doesn’t matter whether you run a construction company or import oranges, whether you have five employees or 250. With team assistant you have process templates defined precisely according to your needs. Certain business activities require considerable human input. Cooperation may be required from multiple organizational units and even different companies. Other processes are focused more on system functions, work with documents, or particular projects. There are two perspectives on using the team assistant application. The first looks at specific areas (cases) which can be managed by team assistant. The second breaks all processes down into seven basic groups. You choose which approach is better suited to your needs.

E T

[email protected] +420 296 348 111

Perspia a. s. Václavské náměstí 832/19 110 00 Praha 1 – Nové Město

www.teamassistant.cz 2

First perspective: 15 practical applications of team assistant ITIL Would you like to improve the performance of your IT department as well as user satisfaction with the quality of IT services provided? Then consider using the proven processes from the ITIL library, the internationally acknowledged standard for managing IT services.

Standards and certifications Would you like to demonstrate to your business partners the quality of your services through the implementation of international standards, and document this with a certificate from a recognized authority? Then you already know that you can’t do without process management. Team assistant will simplify your situation.

B2B cooperation No company is able to provide goods and services without cooperating with its business partners. Have you noticed how much your company performance depends on good cooperation? It doesn’t matter whether you are a supplier or customer. Solve your common problems together!

Optimizing software investment So you’ve decided to implement a standard software package for key company activities. For optimal performance you need to properly place the software into the particular environment of the organization. Team assistant will help you incorporate this software into your processes and thus maximize the benefits of your investment.

HR processes Are you among those companies which realize the importance of working with human resources? Are you continually trying to improve in this area? Team assistant gives you exactly the kind of support you need to achieve your goals! It doesn’t matter whether you are a large corporation or a company with just a few employees.

Internal support processes Do you know how much energy you devote to managing key processes as opposed to support processes? Your information systems help you with the key processes, but what about the support processes? Don’t lose time with details and use team assistant to handle support activities. Devote yourself to what is truly important.

B2C cooperation Customers want to be equal partners. This means minimizing the information imbalance in your relationship and allowing customers to assume partial responsibility. Let your customers share in the process for providing goods and services. You will increase their satisfaction and loyalty.

E T



Virtual assistant Every manager must devote attention to many different things. A good assistant can make this easier by monitoring deadlines, providing overviews, pointing out potential problems. A good assistant doesn’t make mistakes and doesn’t forget. Team assistant will help you organize work as a team.

3

www.teamassistant.cz

Achieving goals in the virtual community In today’s world geographic distance is not an obstacle for cooperation. Are you managing a virtual team? To effectively achieve your goals the same principles still apply. Combine the unlimited possibilities of your team with proven methods for organizing cooperation and take advantage of process management.

Organizational guidelines Most companies have a folder somewhere full of printed guidelines. And most companies also have problems with implementing these guidelines. Team assistant makes it easy for users to apply guidelines, monitor deadlines, and propose the proper steps. You monitor and confirm compliance. With team assistant, illogical or poorly working guidelines don’t have a chance!

Project management Are you applying a project approach to achieve certain goals? Perhaps you don’t need specialized tools for project management and can make due with a simpler, open source tool. Team assistant will help you to organically incorporate project management into company processes.

Obligations and deadlines Is your work limited by legal or contractual deadlines? Do you have specific prescribed obligations? Then failing to meet these deadlines would be a serious problem. Team assistant will help you to keep deadlines under control!

Approval Processes in the form of requests are relatively numerous in every company. These are often optimized first and bring quick and noticeable results for a large number of company employees.

Planning The creation of plans or forecasts is generally a complicated activity. It consists of several steps, some of which may be repeated. Often, a number of employees are involved. You may begin using specialized software, or define your planning process and manage it using team assistant.

Application integration Many company processes impact multiple information systems. The selection of various integration techniques depends on the type of integration links, volume, and frequency of requests for the transfer of data between these systems.

E T




Second perspective: 7 types of processes which can be managed by team assistant Human-centric processes Certain activities depend on human input. The human component remains extremely important even in the age of the computer and advanced automation. Key elements for success are a good system for managing tasks, a flexible roll system, clear presentation of information, and support for cooperation among task owners, including the ability to delegate tasks. Well done work requires good working conditions, which in turn is related to a broad spectrum of HR processes. Team assistant offers support in carrying out your employee development strategy. Long gone are the days when people had to sit in a single office. Geographic distances are no longer an obstacle to cooperation. Virtual teams are being used more and more frequently. Combine the unlimited possibilities of your team with proven methods for organizing cooperation and take advantage of process management. Commercial activities do not just take place within companies, but also include communication and cooperation with clients, purchasers and suppliers. Handle your business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C) needs in conjunction with your partners and you will save time, cut costs, and increase trade. Certain processes are crucial for a company, while others are secondary but you still can’t get by without them. Team assistant enables you to save time spent on dealing with secondary processes so that you can better concentrate on the truly important matters. A typical management activity is the granting of approval. Vacations, business trips, and purchase requests all must be approved. Establishing an effective approval process often brings quick and noticeable results, which is why this area is often addressed first in many firms. The creation of plans or forecasts is generally a complicated activity. It consists of several steps, some of which may cyclically repeat. In certain companies a number of employees are involved in preparing plans. Plan preparation requires the availability of precise, up-to-date information and the synchronization of all planning participants. Define your planning process and manage it using team assistant. You will avoid needless complications. Few companies today can get by without computers, the internet, and in turn, an IT department. Would you like to improve the performance of your IT department as well as user satisfaction with the services provided? Try ITIL, the internationally acknowledged standard for the management of IT services, and implement these proven procedures into the team assistant application. You can demonstrate the quality of your products or services to your business partners through the implementation of international standards and acquisition of appropriate certificates. The majority of these standards require that you map out your processes and document their application. Team assistant will not only help you to formalize 5

E T



www.teamassistant.cz

these procedures, but also put them into practice. Your company guidelines will not end up hidden away in some file. Instead, team assistant will help users apply the guidelines, meet deadlines, and take the proper steps. At the same time, records are continually kept documenting that the defined procedures have been adhered to by your company. Every company is limited by legal and contractual deadlines. Failure to meet these deadlines generally results in problems. Team assistant can even function as a virtual assistant. It monitors deadlines and provides you with overviews. It points out potential problems, doesn’t make mistakes, and doesn’t forget. If you apply a project approach to achieving certain goals, perhaps you do not need a specialized project management tool. Define a project in the team assistant application and incorporate it into other related activities. In the context of other company activities, you can find ways to improve performance.

System-centric processes Certain processes can react to events generated by another system or other process. Cooperation with other information systems is common. Human intervention here is generally limited to handling exceptional or special situations. In such cases, the system should react and continue to work without human intervention. Information about the current situation is provided on the system dashboard. Typical requirements in this area are strong integration capabilities, the possibility of incorporating various systems with SOA architecture, and the ability to generate and present exceptions to the human operator. If you cooperate with your business partners, this means that you share business to business activity, resulting in a product or service for your customers. How can you make this process more efficient? Get your information systems to cooperate. There is no reason why your systems cannot exchange data and information directly with one another and thus minimize human work. Team assistant can help you. Everyone appreciates not having to manually enter data from business partners into their system. Many HR processes impact a great number of information systems. A good example is the hiring of a new employee. This generally means setting up access to several information systems. Minimize the work of your administrators and let team assistant take care of some of the steps for you. And HR is certainly not the only area which affects a wide range of other processes. The selection of various integration techniques depends on the type of integration links, volume, and frequency of requests for the transfer of data between these systems. Team assistant can help you integrate these systems so that they share the necessary information among themselves.

E T




Document-centric processes Certain activities place a great deal of emphasis on working with documents. For example, the approval of a loan application involves numerous documents and records. Special functions for managing the lifecycle of these documents and records are absolutely essential. A number of companies use special document management systems. The integration of processes into DMS is another common requirement. The definition of processes and clear formalization of the documentation of their application are prerequisites for obtaining certification and other internationally recognized documents verifying compliance with strict ISO standards. Obtaining certification may even be necessary for your company to do business. Clearly defined procedures will help you to train new employees more quickly and effectively. Printed guidelines stored in some file are a thing of the past. Post them online in a clear graph and bring them to life! If you would like to have satisfied business partners, you must have satisfied employees who are able to perform given tasks on time and know how to handle customers. Investment into human resources is always returned. Document your HR activity using team assistant and reduce unnecessary administrative work. Important business documents include more than just orders and invoices, bids and specifications, price lists and customer satisfaction surveys. Your relationship with business partners and clients encompasses so much more. Pamper your business partners with reliable cooperation – approach your goals using defined steps and have everything documented. Even when applying a project-oriented approach you need documentation. Tender documentation, project records, acceptance documents, and a number of other documents must be created, carefully studied, reviewed, and approved. And they must always be retrievable. Every client appreciates the consistent application of project methodology. Do you have a complicated system for mandatory document creation? Manage document organization through team assistant and be certain that every document is in its place. Like a good secretary, team assistant doesn’t forget, it provides clear overviews, and it doesn’t make mistakes.

E T




Case Management Customer Relationship Management (CRM) includes support for customer service operators responding to inquiries, handling cases, requests, orders, and many other tasks. Case management procedures must ensure the provision of comprehensive information to resolve a case. This often involves close cooperation with a specialized CRM system, and at the same time it must quickly provide precise instructions for further steps. To increase user satisfaction with your IT department you can use proven procedures from the ITIL library, the internationally recognized standard for managing IT services. Team assistant enables you to define these procedures into a single template, providing a better overview of the status of individual requests and pointing out emerging problems. If you allow your customers to become equal partners, you will increase their satisfaction and loyalty. Team assistant gives you the tools to directly involve your customers in your processes. You will eliminate unnecessary administration which slows down the work of you and your clients.

E T




Rules-based Processes or Decision-intensive Processes Business pravidla odráží způsob, jakým funguje vaše společnost. V některých se ukrývá konkurenční výhoda – jsou tedy unikátní. U dalších je naopak žádoucí použít mnohokrát ověřené postupy. Například strategie komunikace se zákazníkem volajícím na linku podpory obsahuje pravidla a reakce na všechny možné stavy a kombinace vstupních informací a pomáhá vám efektivně řešit požadavky zákazníků. Spoustu pravidel lze popsat pomocí jednoduchých podmínek „když – tak“, jiná mohou mít složitou hierarchickou strukturu. Team assistant zvládne obojí. Čím užší je obchodní (B2B) spolupráce s vašimi partnery, tím propracovanější bývají dohody upravující postupy vzájemné kooperace. Pokud to promítnete do detailnější specifikace procesu, může za vás team assistant sám detekovat různé stavy spolupráce a bez časového prodlení nabízet správná řešení nebo další postupy. Stejná situace nastává i v dalších oblastech. Čím propracovanější jsou vaše HR postupy, tím přesněji mohou reagovat na individuální stavy vašich pracovníků. Pokud vaše společnost funguje na bázi procesního řízení delší dobu, stávají se vaše procesy nevyhnutelně dokonalejšími a propracovanějšími. Zároveň dokáží samy detekovat a řešit jemné odchylky. Například při implementaci norem na řízení kvality je neustálé zdokonalování přímo součástí požadavků na systém. Vaše směrnice mohou brát v úvahu více atributů a nabízet lepší postupy. Hlídání lhůt může být více kontextové. Různé schvalovací postupy mohou brát v úvahu více kritérií pro stanovaní správného postupu schvalování – můžete zodpovědnost rozložit na více pracovníků, například v závislosti na typu žádosti a schvalovacím limitu jednotlivých úrovní manažerů. Team assistant se tak více přiblíží ideálu fungování vaší osobní virtuální asistentky.

Project-oriented Processes neboli projektově orientované procesy Projektové i procesní řízení má své nesporné výhody. Oba přístupy mají i společný cíl: dosáhnout předem definovaného výsledku v daném čase a efektivně využít zdroje, které jsou k dispozici. Kombinací obou přístupů vznikají projektově orientované procesy. Ty jsou obvykle rozdělené na fáze se samostatným sledováním stupně rozpracovanosti. Kontroluje se kompletní využívání zdrojů a monitorují se celkové náklady na dosažení cíle. Team assistant vám umožní začlenit řízení projektů do vašich stávajících i nově budovaných obchodních postupů tak, abyste snáze dosahovali svých cílů. Pohlídá termíny a zorganizuje potřebné dokumenty. Poskytne vám náhled na celkový stav i na stav jednotlivých dílčích kroků. Virtuální týmy mohou být dobrým příkladem pro využití projektově orientovaných aktivit. Lidé na různých místech řeší zadaný úkol, jejich kroky se vzájemně ovlivňují, doplňují a zároveň lze na jednom místě sledovat celkový pokrok v dosahování projektového cíle. Informace jsou efektivně předávány mezi jednotlivými řešiteli navzájem i mezi řešiteli a managementem projektu.

E T




Event-centric Processes neboli procesy orientované na události Každá společnost využívá jeden nebo více informačních systémů (ERP, CRM, apod.) Pokud se rozhodnete zlepšovat vaše stávající procesy, které zahrnují práci s těmito systémy, potřebujete je modelovat a měřit. Vhodným mechanismem, jak je neinvazivně napojit do stávající infrastruktury, je využívání mechanismu událostí (event-centric processes). Všechny důležité informace pro získání přehledu o stavu procesu a jeho efektivitě jsou získávány v kontextu událostí vznikajících v primárních informačních systémech. Tento mechanismus lze s úspěchem využít při integraci aplikací. Řada firemních aktivit má svůj informační dopad na více informačních systémů. V závislosti na typech integračních vazeb, objemu a frekvenci požadavků na přenášená data mezi těmito systémy jsou voleny různé integrační techniky. Aplikaci teamassistant lze také využít na definici postupů, které pomáhají uživatelům řešit různé situace vznikající při běžné činnosti vaší společnosti. Využijte toho, že vaše informační systémy obsahují relevantní data, jež team assistant umí využít a dále zpracovat. Pokud vaše auditní databázové systémy obsahují záznam o incidentu, team assistant nabídne administrátorovi kroky, jak postupovat v souladu se směrnicí vydanou pro tento účel.

E T




Introducing the Team Assistant application. Examples of specific uses

Recommend Documents