Imagine working on a project without getting complete inputs or information that enables completing a task or milestone. Isn’t it frustrating? It would be even worse if you are assigned multiple activities in parallel or if you don’t get to know when a new one is assigned. Not only as a team member but also as a project manager, often the project objectives are unclear, there are limited resources, and no one communicates the clear picture to you. You feel that you’re shooting an arrow in the dark. However, these aren’t one-off problems; They are signs of a bigger underlying issue. Did you know that almost 40% of the projects that take off get derailed or fail due to poor planning? Complex projects that have multiple teams can be more challenging to manage. Workstreams or project workflows are the best solution to this problem. This comprehensive article will enable you to become aware of workstreams in project management and examples of workstreams. We will also explore how resource management software helps in streamlining workstreams.
As per the dictionary meaning of workstreams, it is an area of an activity in which an organization’s business is divided. A workstream is typically a defined part of work in a project that aims at particular tasks, specific objectives, or defined outcomes. It signifies a distinct trajectory through which the operational work will progress and move towards completion or final outcome. Workstreams usually incorporate various activities, multiple resources, and clients or stakeholders, each adding value to the larger project goals. Workstreams can be seen in various forms, custom-made to the specific requirements of every project. Some examples include marketing workstreams used for product launches, development workstreams in the software industry, or operational workstreams used for various process improvements.
Workstreams are an integral part of any project and project management process. They offer a structured framework on how to break down complex tasks into smaller and manageable ones. Each individual workstream functions semi-independently, which means though each has a particular objective, activities, and schedule, all contribute towards the main, pre-dominant goal.
Workstreams enable project managers to:
Streamline project tasks, manage status and progress, and identify and possible bottlenecks in a timely manner.
Define clear goals and project objectives to ensure all resources in the team are working towards them.
Enhance flexibility and scalability by altering the smaller project elements for easier change management.
Foster seamless collaboration and open communication across project teams by enhancing accountability and clearer project visibility.
Leveraging workstreams in project management is not only a strategy but it’s also creating a supportive and collaborative environment that enables project success. This approach involves all the team members working together efficiently while being aware of their role and responsibilities clearly.
The project manager is responsible for ensuring that this collaboration is smooth and all the resources in the team are aligned and moving towards the final goal or objective. This method focuses on the importance of teamwork and open communication that aids in completing a project successfully.
The following are some examples of workstreams that you need to know.
If you are designing a website for a client from scratch, then the design is not the only important aspect. You must also engage various teams and first build their workflows revolving around the key goal. The workstreams on such a project include:
Gathering all the requirements for the website
Developing various UX and UI strategies
Kick-starting the development
Getting quality checks done at each stage of develop lifecycle
Analysing the user engagement
Synchronizing and streamlining the operations
Now, let’s look at an example of the film production line where the workstream has the following tasks, goals, and responsibilities.
Key Tasks: Writing the script, finalizing the cast, location scouting, determining the budget, and scheduling shoots.
Responsibilities: Producer, director, casting director, production manager, and location manager.
Key Objectives or Goals: Finalize the script, determine the cast and locations, and finalize the budget and schedule for shootings.
Next, let’s look at the film production workstream.
Key Tasks: Shooting or filming the scenes, Handling the on-set logistics, communicating and coordination with the artists and crew, and supervising the equipment.
Responsibilities: Director, production coordinator, cinematographer, camera team, and sound technicians.
Key Objectives and Goals: Shoot high-quality shots while complying with the budget constraints and timelines.
Moving on to the post-production workstream in this example, let’s see the tasks, key goals, and responsibilities.
Key Tasks: Sound design, editing, visual effects, and distribution planning.
Responsibilities: Sound designer, film editor, visual effects specialists, and distribution coordinator.
Key Objectives and Goals: Enhance the raw footage, polish and improve the audio-visual elements, and finally ready the film for distribution.
However, there is a key point to note here that all projects do not always have a linear process. Most of the times, there are a lot of iterations involved and to ensure that such processes do not get out of hand and become complex, it is very important to build workstreams.
As a project manager, you can reap many benefits by utilizing workstreams rather than regular task-based approaches. Workstreams can provide a push to projects and increase the speed along with and provide better visibility of the status and progress. Read on to find the main benefits of using workstreams in project management.
To draft a clear and structured project plan, a project manager must break a project into smaller chunks or workstreams. This way, they can create a clear and organized project plan and assign and track tasks easily. This also ensures that all the aspects of the project are addressed. Creating a workstream before the beginning of your project helps to identify all the constraints and challenges that can appear. A workstream approach helps to make sure that a project is completed within the schedule and budget at each milestone and the final outcome is achieved successfully.
Workstreams enable smooth workflow by chunking projects into smaller and manageable parts. This helps to remove roadblocks and redundancies, thus making sure that tasks and projects progress well from kick-off to final delivery. By streamlining various development processes, businesses can enhance efficiency and cut down the chances of project delays and losses. Implementing a top-rated resource management software streamlines project management to a large extent and helps to break a project into smaller, more manageable tasks, thus enhancing collaboration, and helping to centralize all project data in one online location.
Workstreams also help project managers to efficiently allocate and schedule resources on various tasks as per priority. This way, the utilization of resources is also managed well. Workstreams enable companies to share team members across various tasks and projects, therefore enhancing the productivity and achieving optimal resource utilization. This also helps to ensure that team members are allocated as per their skill set wherever they are required the most or can contribute optimally, improving overall project efficiency.
Complex projects can be executed successfully by adopting a flexible and adaptive strategy that enables accommodating dynamic changes and complexities. Workstreams foster agility by chunking a project into smaller, distinct elements, which allows teams to act quickly to any variations and adjust their strategies, as required. This agile approach improves company’s ability to comply with the ever-dynamic project requirements and client expectations.
By breaking down projects into focused and smaller workstreams, teams are able to take more ownership of their tasks and that in turn enhances employee engagement. For example, in a smaller team that has clearly defined goals and specific key performance indicators or KPIs, employees can comprehend the importance of their contribution in the larger picture.
Mostly, a lot of projects derail because of inefficient planning or lack of visibility into people’s responsibilities, possible risks, and status and progress. When the work is broken into smaller elements, it becomes easier to monitor progress, which further increases the visibility into the project’s overall progress.
In today’s times of technological advancement and generative AI, automation is of utmost importance to reap efficiency and productivity. Workstreams help integrate various automation tools that can help to streamline any mundane and repetitive tasks. This reduces manual effort and the risk of human errors. By automating routine processes, organizations can focus their efforts on more strategic tasks, leading to greater overall efficiency.
Workstreams encourage various team members working on different components in parallel. This means the dependencies are lesser and they can work on their respective tasks. This approach helps in completing the overall project much lesser time than developing a project in a linear manner and also reduces the idle time, where people are waiting for work because it’s happening in a sequential manner and has dependencies.
Identifying the possible risks at the right time is important to be able to mitigate them. Workstreams help reduce the exposure or possibility of risks by spotting dependencies and probable risks promptly. By evaluating the risks possible at the workstream level, businesses can plan and be ready with the right mitigation strategies and exigency plans. This proactive approach to handling and managing risks improves project resilience and the chances of success.
Workstreams also help identify resource requirements at specific areas and junctures of the project, which further helps to allocate the right resources efficiently. This decreases the chances of over or under-allocation. A balanced workload helps to increase people’s productivity, which leads to more productivity and utilization, resulting in higher profitability.
Tracking the time of your team members and understanding how they spend their time on various activities and tasks helps bring better productivity. The right resource management software helps to check each resource’s timesheets, utilization, and productivity in just a few clicks. This helps project managers to create more comprehensive project plans that help make your team members more accountable and take complete ownership.
Another benefit of implementing a resource management software is that such a tool helps speed up all the tasks, thus reducing the processing time. For instance, right from the initiation phase, reviews or getting approvals, various milestones, or finally delivering the project, such a tool sends automated notifications to all relevant stakeholders about timelines and alerts if a delivery is missed. The project lead or supervisor can optimally utilize this feature to send important messages to relevant team members.
Workstreams and workflow management enables assessing the expenses of different projects. A resource management software provides up-to-date data on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, which enables resolving any challenges in a timely manner and improving profit margins. Such a tool also offers insightful reports and visual dashboards that aid in assessing the overall progress at an organizational level, while aiding you to drill down into further details, if required.
Using workflow and resource management software equips project managers to improve task and project management. They can easily streamline various functions and processes and allocate tasks effectively, while optimizing workflows. Monitoring the project progress also becomes easier by automating mundane tasks and it frees up the time of the supervisors to focus on strategic and priority activities. Eliminating redundant tasks and identifying potential improvement areas helps raise the overall productivity and profitability levels.
Managing your workstreams efficiently is the key to successful project execution. However, this requires proper planning and implementation. The role of project managers is crucial in ensuring that workstreams function smoothly and align with the project objectives. Let's explore some best practices that can help in efficient workstream management.
Articulating the key goals, scope, and deliverables of workstreams is very important to ensure each team member understands it and aligns with it. It is also important for project managers to establish defined boundaries for all the workstreams, by clearly outlining the objectives and their expected outcomes. By doing so, your teams can easily focus on specific goals, thus improving overall productivity.
Workstreams are typically self-contained. However, there are many scenarios when there are dependencies. For example, task A should be completed before task B can begin. Thus, identifying and then mapping the dependencies and understanding this flow to decrease the risk of any possible challenges is o=very important.
Goal setting is important as the first step, but then determining milestones and key performance metrics to measure your progress is very important. Ensure your milestones are mapped to a timeline that considers all the workstreams. This enables team members to understand their responsibilities along with the timelines and assures project progress while mitigating the risks. It's also important to keep tracking the progress by monitoring KPIs regularly.
An important point to consider is that siloed workstreams can increase risk exposure because of lack of a focused and united view. Lack of coordination and consolidation between various workstreams can also negatively influence final output quality. This is why establishing a communication plan is important to foster seamless flow of information. It’s also important to decide the communication channels that the teams would be using and their updation frequency. Project managers must make sure that they share regular project status updates and reports. In addition, they should also host regular meetings for all workstream teams to discuss any challenges and status.
Another best practice is to use visual elements and documentation tools to represent various workstreams, activities, and timelines in a clear manner. Project managers must use visualization techniques to visually represent workstream workflows, any dependencies, and schedules. By doing so, teams can better understand all the project dynamics, spot possible bottlenecks, and make data-driven decisions to streamline project execution.
Seamless incorporation and execution of workstreams with all the other project management tools and processes is very important to make sure that there is alignment across the overall project. Project managers must incorporate workstreams efficiently with the current project management tools to facilitate sharing of data, automation of workflows, and cross-functional collaboration. By efficient integration of workstreams, project managers can streamline various project management processes, thereby improving coordination, and foster project success.
Project management can mostly get complex with stringent deadlines and multiple team. Therefore, planning well to make sure that a project moves ahead without any challenges is very important. Using a resource management tool helps improve communication, gain higher productivity, while also refining the workflows. Project managers can transform the way they plan their projects and design workstream with top-rated tool such as eResource Scheduler.
If you are seeking a way to transform your workflow management to a higher level, consider implementing the cloud-based, award-winning resource management software, eResource Scheduler. With its intuitive interface, easy-to-understand design, and automated and customizable workflows, this best-in-class solution offers a robust foundation for creating and managing efficient workstreams. eResource Scheduler can be leveraged as a centralized, online repository for your business’s project and resource data consolidated in one place. You can access any data from anywhere and at any time. The tool also provides you with the needed clarity and status updated on all projects and team members at an organization level. Risk exposure is at a minimal as it flags any probable roadblocks or conflicting priorities. What’s more? Gain insights on project plans, resource allocations and scheduling, capacity management, workload management, capacity management, time-tracking, etc. to transform your resource and project management processes.
This tool empowers project managers to not only streamline various processes, assign the right resources to various projects, and monitor status of projects in real-time. With a promise to enhance the productivity and utilization to almost 18 to 30%, you can navigate through all the challenges easily, and rest assured of improved project performance. So, book your free trial today and try out this multi-user tool yourself.
Also read:
