Adrian Bucura, Head of IT Service, Sibiu City Hall, says it is absolutely possible for most workflows, adding: “I think that in this implementation everything depends on the organisational sense of those who are doing the definition. Public administration has worked for hundreds of years in one form or another. Workflows exist, but they are not established as such. Identical problems are solved in a similar way in any mayoralty or county council. I see no difficulty in defining 70% of the workflows in a municipality. We haven’t done the work of defining workflows, but the work of computerising the town hall is not finished either”.
Gabriela Vlad, Head of the IT Service, Brasov City Hall, says that we need to discuss, first of all, the establishment of well-defined workflows and then their pre-definition/automation. “Talking about workflows as processes and procedures, no two institutions are alike, even if the object of activity is the same. An important role is played by organizational culture, which refers to everything that means collective standards of thinking, attitudes, values, beliefs, norms and processes that exist in an organization”, says Gabriela Vlad.
The Zalau City Hall has not defined its workflows either. “Although since 2004 there has been talk of a process management application to manage all the workflows in the town hall, the idea has died on the vine. This year, the idea was brought back, but with the crisis…”, says Violeta Conde, head of Information Technology Office, Zalau City Hall.
Silvia Baciu, Head of the IT Office, Alba Iulia City Hall, told us that this year the City Hall is implementing a project that includes a document management and workflow component.
“In the document management system we currently use, we have not implemented a system of predefined workflows. All users who circulate documents have been trained and know the paths that each standard document type must follow. When an authority (mayor, deputy mayor) wants a document to have a different path or a certain path, the program can easily do this. Our experience so far tells us that a combination of predefined workflows (only for standard documents) and the possibility to randomly transmit any document could be the key to success”, believes Adrian Bucura.
Alin Nita, CEO of FivePlus Solutions, mentions that workflows can be quite clearly defined within the organizational chart and component structures: “If working without the support of IT solutions, workflows can be altered by human error or ad-hoc arrangements, so the definition of the workflow is hit by the randomness of implementation. In this case, pre-defining workflows is possible, but not feasible. If one works electronically, with IT solutions that can manage the workflow, initially configured/implemented in the respective structure, we consider pre-defined workflows possible, useful and feasible”.
From Integrisoft’s experience, workflows can be pre-defined in a very high proportion at institution level (>80%) “If we are talking about pre-defining workflows for the whole public administration, I don’t think it would be very feasible (first of all, it doesn’t correspond to the organization chart), and if a common workflow could be identified, the percentage in which the workflow would be achieved without changes would still be small, under 50%”, says Florian Simionescu, Integrisoft manager.
Bogdan Rusu, Presales Specialist SAP Romania, reminds that nowadays the public sector faces a variety of challenges, including the need to streamline the organization, minimize risks, implement legislation and reduce the complexity of internal processes (de-bureaucratization).
“In most public administration institutions, approval flows, for example, are not so well managed and are the main area where improvements and efficiencies can be implemented. The concept of Business Process Management (BPM) refers to the automation of manual activities and internal workflows. BPM in the public sector takes many forms and can include internal workflows specific to public administration, citizen relations, economic development, case management focused on emergency situations, support to ensure compliance with local and international legislation”, underlines Bogdan Rusu.
Defining workflows – a complicated process?
Defining workflows for public administration is not difficult, if approached correctly and organised.
“Again, I appeal to the concept of organizational culture and the quality standards implemented in the institution. The first step is to define the need, the need for standardisation and procedures. Then it is important to allocate specialised human resources to carry out the analysis step. Define the activities for which workflows need to be implemented, define the tasks included in the workflow, the applications and then allocate the documents within the IT systems/subsystems”, explains Gabriela Vlad.
The Integrisoft manager believes that workflows are quite hard to define: “Institutions don’t know the exact circuit either, most of the time. There is no (internal or external) analysis to standardise and optimise the workflows, no one who has an overview, who can put it into practice and follow it up. I think that the real flows should be studied, after defining and practicing them for a few months, and taking optimization measures based on the feedback loop at key points.”
Alin Nita believes that the weight in defining workflows lies in the determination with which the institution’s leader and subordinate managers believe in the usefulness of real and realistic communication within the organization. “If these managers/leaders are determined, they will support through decisions and human resources the definition of workflows and then their compliance. The use of applications where workflows have already been implemented reduces the risks that workflows will not be respected, i.e. that dysfunctions will occur in the respective structures”, says Alin Nita.
How can errors/delays be avoided?
A first criterion, defining from Adrian Bucura’s point of view, is the quality of the people: “Regardless of this, the staff must be trained at least twice a year and made aware of the importance of the work they are doing and of the consequences that may arise from a delayed response”.
In general, errors can be procedural or human. They can be avoided by properly defining the analysis stage and making each user of the flow responsible for solving the task (registration, approval or control) within the terms set by the procedure. A predefined workflow eliminates the possibility of assigning a task or document for resolution or endorsement to a person without competence in this respect.
“There may still be problems with workflows due to redundancies in public administration. Electronic implementation of workflows and the use of appropriate applications (where workflows can be reconfigured) is a necessary solution in this case”, believes Alin Nita.
The main advantage of using workflows is to increase the efficiency of the whole institution due to the standardization of processes, which allows a better control of the execution and, therefore, a higher degree of quality of services offered. The second advantage relates to the flexibility to adapt workflows to the changing needs of the institution. Last but not least, the use of automated workflows allows for process refinement and simplification by analysing the execution history of workflows and eliminating unnecessary steps.
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