[Sigia-l] IA: tools, methods

[Anders]

The issue you seem to be trying to address is the
marginal benefit (or cost/benefit ratio) of a given
activity or a set of activities.  I am assuming that
the activities are complex (many tasks and many
conditionals, in which decisions need to be made based
on the result of a previous task.)

Your first step might be to ensure that all parties
involved have the same understanding of what the
activities are.  One way of communicating a complex
activity is to use swimlane diagrams (aka
cross-functional diagrams.) There are many flavors of
these, but in the ones I use, you have a set of rows
running horizontally, one row for each role that
participates in the activity.  Then, within this
framework, you use flowchart symbols, which appear in
the 'swimlane' of the person who does the activity. 
This provides a concise view of who does what and in
what order.  Visio has a template for this under
Business Processes/Cross-functional flowcharts.

You'll need to interview the parties involved to
generate this and you may reveal several inefficencies
during that process.  Once you've completed a draft of
your diagram, present to the team that does the work.
As you walk through the process (which is bound to get
all marked up during this workshop-like process - you
might want to have a large tiled printout of this on a
wall so you can mark it up), you are bound to uncover
places in the process where there is a high cost to
benefit ratio, low effiency in other words.

I've used this process successfully several times for
internal operations/back-end operations design. Email
me offline if you want more details.

-Anders

--- BJ Cook <bcook at gate1travel.com> wrote:
> Does anyone know any good tools or methods to use to
> show workflow
> efficiency or the unefficiency. As far as is
> concerned with inter-office
> paper flow?
> 
> thanks
> 
> BJ Cook
> 
> 
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