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Automating a Process Using Privia
We have developed a written process for proposal development, but it is all on paper. Privia provides a workflow automation system for business development and proposal efforts. We want to automate our process. Before we can jump into it, we need to prepare. This article is a collection of things that we must consider in order to automate our process. It should, however, have broad application and provide insight for anyone who has an existing process but is thinking about introducing proposal software like Privia.How will the roles defined in the MustWin Process be converted to Privia roles?
The functional/process roles we define are different from those that an information system would typically define for access control. Information systems are normally concerned with read/write access to the file system. To properly automate the business logic of the MustWin Process, the workflow needs to branch based on who is performing which set of activities defined by the process. Luckily, Privia enables you to define process roles and then assign people to them. It actually provides two ways to do it. If you embed the assignments in the process itself, you will be limited to the names of people that are already set up to fill that role. However, if you make assignments as the Project Manager prior to the start of the workflow, then you will be able to choose from everyone in the organization. In our case, this is probably a better way to go since the organization will not have everyone already categorized according to our role descriptions. Instead of implementing it within the process workflow, we may need to treat it as part of initiating the process.
Can you draw a flow chart of the process?
We are conditioned to believe that all processes can be drawn as a flow chart. But the proposal process has so many chaotic elements, that there may be break points where things happen in an uncertain or uncontrollable manner. Since our process is in written form, we explain to people how to handle events. When we automate it, we have to tell the computer how to transfer information from one step to another without fail. It may be possible to prepare the workflow in multiple parts to get around a problem area, but in order to prepare, we need to attempt to draw the flow chart in order to determine whether we have any problems like that. Other relevant questions include:
- Is the process flow an unbroken line? Is it actually more than one process or does it have any sub-processes? Are there any steps that are disconnected from the main process flow (Privia allows these)?
- Does the process contain any loops (these are not allowed in Privia)? An example of this might be a loop for handling an RFP Amendment. If there are there any parts of the process that loop or have unknown iterations, you need to redesign these steps so that there is no loop.
- Are there any places where the process could pause or abort?
- What conditions, branches, or options need to be considered?
- How do you handle events that can happen at any time (such as RFP amendments)?
- What starts/ends each step? Do any of the steps have more than one possible starting point?
- Which inputs are mandatory and which are optional?
- What are the input files/information for each step? What is the output of each step? This is partially for planning to automate the process using the workflow system and partially to help provide guidance and documentation for the newly automated system.
What guidance should be provided with each step?
The CapturePlanning.com MustWin Process is designed to tell people who is responsible for doing what at each step and why it is important. It not only tells them how it should be done, but also provides guidance to help them achieve it. This guidance can be delivered in the form of one or more files with each assignment within the workflow. These files need to be identified and prepared.
Which decisions, approvals, notifications, reminders, etc. should be coded into the workflow?
You should take full advantage of the Privia workflow platform. Instead of simply assigning tasks, make sure expectations are set by sending notifications. Make sure decisions are collaborative. Don’t wait indefinitely for completion. Send reminders. By automating these things you make sure they happen, while lowering the amount of effort required to administer the process.
Which Opportunity Profile fields should be configured as a Privia opportunity fields?
The MustWin Process defines some fields to track basic data about an opportunity. It provides tables to use if you do not already have an opportunity tracking system. Privia has a tracking system. The Opportunity Profile fields defined in the MustWin Process will need to be added into Privia.
How should the Proposal Quality Validation approach be implemented as a workflow?
The first step in Proposal Quality Validation is to identify what you need to validate. Then you figure out how many reviews of what type do you need to validation all of the items you have identified. It’s dynamic — one step leads to an unknown number of potential sub-processes. Traditionally this is done using an MS-Word form. While you could probably automate this fully using Privia, it might be overkill to treat each validation item as a sub-process. It would probably be better to automate the creation of the Validation Plan rather than each validation item.
Conclusion
If you can avoid the problems like process steps that loop or steps that dynamically generate other steps (like the validation process), then automating your process should be fairly straightforward. However, you need to think through the issues and plan ahead before you start coding the workflow using the software. This will not only help you implement it quicker, but should also help you end up with a better implementation. Because there may be more than one way to do some things, you may want to allow some time for experimentation after you implement your process. You may find that taking advantage of the features the software provides may lead to new ways of doing things.
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