Preparing for a three-person presentation, “Whose workflow is it, anyway?“, I pulled together a set of nine posts about assessing and improving publishing workflows. The nine links, all taken from the Magellan blog, are listed below.
The panel discussion included Judine O’Shea and Jason Zech, who led a workflow initiative at Loyola Press, a client of Magellan Media. The talk centered on a Loyola Press case study, an example of how publishers increasingly compete on workflow:
In digital workflows, authoring, content management and content distribution need to be tightly tied together, or time and expense become issues. How do publishers balance the needs of different functions against the expectation that outputs adhere to standards and work across multiple platforms?
Over time, I’ve written a number of posts related to publishing workflows, and several of the ideas contained in those posts are part of the presentation. Relevant content includes:
- Feedback loops: How workflow improvements take hold
- Three gears: How I think about workflow
- Workflow conversations: Questions to ask before making changes
- Five guidelines: Redesigning content-related workflows
- Problem statements: Building capacity for sustained self-improvement
- Process quality: Checking to improve inputs, not outputs
- Swim lanes: Exploring three process considerations
- Adapting processes: Take advantage of software design
- Form follows function: Structures should emulate workflow
Although Loyola is a book publisher, the case study and related recommendations make sense for publishers and marketers who want to cost-effectively serve multiple audiences. If you are looking for ways to assess and improve content workflows, take a look at these nine posts.
