5 Process Management Templates For Agencies

When something is going wrong in your organization, you know it. Projects are delivered late, clients are dissatisfied, and working with the team just feels, well, chaotic.

The cold, hard truth is that there could be a number of factors causing inefficiencies. But how do you identify them and fix them to transform your agency into a well-oiled machine? One answer—process management.

In this article, we’ll explain what process management is, how and why it’s important, and a few common examples of process management templates.

What is Process Management?

Process management is the discipline of identifying areas within your agency's processes that need to be improved or even removed altogether. Good process management ensures your organization is operating as efficiently as possible. Through a selection of different methods, you will be able to analyze, measure, and even optimize each process you have in place.

For a better understanding of process management and other management tools, read more here.

What is a Process Management Template and Why is it Important?

Identifying the area(s) that need to be improved is one thing, but figuring out the best possible solution is another. Similarly, implementing a process into your workflow is one thing, but implementing the right process is another.

Rather than creating an entirely new process from scratch, process management templates prevent you from reinventing the wheel. They also bake in a layer of accountability. Process management templates can easily show you who is responsible for a specific task, review cycle, and approval. Having this structure in place not only helps teams easily identify bottlenecks in their workflows, but it is a huge time-saver.

By leveraging process management templates, you have more visibility into and control over the performance of your workflows to ensure they are still meeting your agency’s and clients’ needs. Without good process management, processes can break, become inefficient, or obsolete.

5 Process Management Templates You Can Use Right Now for your Agency

There are several process management templates that agencies can start with. Here are a few examples:

1. Customer Onboarding

You want to make sure your new customer or client has an enjoyable experience with your agency from the start. Implementing a customer onboarding template will help you organize and follow a series of steps or tasks to ensure nothing is missed or overlooked.

To give you an idea of how this type of template is typically used, here are a series of steps that may be taken while onboarding a new customer:

Step 1. New Customer Card Creation - Create a new card to display the customer’s name and basic information to be stored within the template.

Step 2. Add Custom Fields - Add the customer’s additional information such as primary contact, contract value, service type, and any and all information regarding the details around their project to the card.

Step 3. Assign Card to Account Manager - Assign the card to the team member or account manager responsible for working with that specific customer.

Step 4: Client Prep - This step in the process can involve sending the client a welcome packet or any onboarding materials they need to complete prior to project kick off.

Step 5. Client Kick Off - The account manager then begins scheduling a kick off call to review and complete a creative brief. Moving this card to “Client Kick Off” to show the onboarding process has begun.

Step 6. Complete - Once each subtask is completed, move the card to “Onboarding Complete”.

This template not only gives you an idea of what steps to include in your process, but it also allows you and your team to easily see where the particular customer is in the onboarding process and what is left to be completed.

After using this template over time, you will also be able to determine how much time each card spends in each step. This will then give you a baseline velocity. From there, you can then optimize to hopefully speed up the steps that take the most lag time.

2. Employee Onboarding

When onboarding a new employee, it’s important for him or her to hit the ground running. This means ensuring your employee onboarding process is solid—and this template can help you do just that.

Similar to customer onboarding, this template includes all the necessary steps to onboard the new employee and prepare him or her for their first day on the job.

Here is an example of steps that may be included in your employee onboarding template:

Step 1. Card Creation - Create a new card to display the employee’s name and basic information to be stored within the template.

Step 2. Complete Custom Fields - Add the employee’s additional information such as date of hire, position title, and both short- and long-term goals to the card.

Step 3. Assign Card - Assign the card to the team member respondible for training or mentoring the new hire.

Step 4. Employee Prep - Move the card to “Employee Prep” to show the onboarding process has begun. This step can include reviewing training materials or attending training sessions, signing payroll paperwork, or signing up for benefits. You can also create sub-tasks for each of these individual steps in this card.

Step 5. “First Day” Card - The steps in this section could include sending welcome emails, scheduling a team meet and greet, or an office tour.

Step 6. Complete Card - Once each subtask is completed, move the card to “Onboarding Complete”.

From sending out welcome emails to observing training progression, this template is ideal to not only get your newest employee fully onboarded, but view their progress at the same time.

3. Agile Development

Since an agile process includes teams working on specific tasks in iterations or “sprints'', it’s crucial to see and understand the status of all work and at all times.

If you prefer an agile approach to managing projects or processes, then you will likely repeat these steps for each sprint.

For example, if you and your team were creating a new product feature, here is what one sprint may look like:

Step 1. Card Creation - Create a new card to represent a particular task that will go into the upcoming scheduled sprint. This card can include details such as epic or story name or title, a description of the feature, the number of story points (or ideal days), the iteration or sprint date or number, priority level, and the task due date. You can then use this card as a template.

Step 2. Backlog - After creating a card for each task that needs to be done related to the feature being built, you can then organize those cards in the “backlog” column. As you begin the next sprint, move the task cards that you will work on into “To Do”.

Step 3. To Do - As you begin the next sprint, move the task cards that you will work on into “To Do”.

Step 4: In Progress - As the team works on their assigned task cards, they move them into “In Progress”.

Step 5. Review - After the tasks are completed, move the card to “Review” to trigger a notification for the next person to review the feature.

Step 6. Testing - After the feature has been reviewed, it can move to the “Testing” portion of the project to ensure that the feature is working as expected and according to specs.

Step 7. Complete - Once the testing is complete and approved, the card then moves to the “Complete” column, to signal the deployment team that the task is ready to be deployed or pushed into staging.

4. Baseline Workflow

A baseline workflow allows you to list out all the tasks needed to complete a project, move them through the project life cycle, and label their status until each one is completed.

For a baseline workflow template, here is an example of steps you can build:

Step 1. Backlog - Add all the tasks that need to be done to the “backlog” column.

Step 2. In Progress - Once the assignee begins working on his or her tasks, they move their appropriate task cards into “In Progress”.

Step 3. In Review - After the task is completed, the task gets moved to “In Review”, which signals the appropriate reviewer to review the work (if necessary). This could be a stakeholder, a proofreader, a QA engineer, and so on.

Step 4. Blocked. ”This signifies that the task is being held up for some reason and requires a project manager, product owner, or decision-maker to intervene. This step helps to keep work moving in the right direction.

Step 5. Done - The task is approved and complete.

5. Project Management

Regardless of the project size, this template is great for implementing a project management framework and structure to project management. Therefore, these steps could vary depending on organization type.

Here is an example of what a project management process template might look like:

Step 1. Initiating - This column would include task cards for all the necessary pre-planning project work, such as developing scope documents.

Step 2. Planning - This column includes task cards such as developing the project management plan, creating a timeline, and building a work breakdown structure (WBS).

Step 3. Executing - This column includes task cards for beginning the execution work, such as assigning tasks to team members, contractors, and vendors.

Step 4. Monitoring and Controlling - This column can include specific work activities that need to be monitored to ensure they are actively being worked on and no risks are introduced.

Step 5. Closing - This column represents the work that has been completed and delivered.

How Rindle Can Help with Process Management

Similar to what we outlined above, Rindle’s user interface offers a visual “board” that allows for creating and tracking work across different phases and cycles. From organizing a content marketing campaign to launching a new product feature, Rindle is your go-to process management solution.

Additionally, with its no-code interface, Rindle allows you to customize your process management templates how you see fit. Whether you want to leverage automation to optimize an existing process or build an entirely-new workflow, Rindle makes your job easier.

Visit Rindle for a free trial in introducing process management templates into your agency.