Think fast
Thoughts and ideas on how to build tools, automate workflows and speed-up the workplace.
When to Build vs Buy Software: 2025 Guide
Deciding whether to build vs buy software solutions is one of the central challenges for IT procurement teams. Each time we encounter a need for a new tool, capability, or other software asset, we’re faced with this decision. The trouble is, there are a lot of moving parts at play here. You see, on one level, this simply comes down to maximizing return on investment. However, so many different factors influence cost-effectiveness that it can be hard to know where to start.
Ronan McQuillan
Feb 13, 2023
What are Internal Processes? + 7 Improvement Strategies
Internal processes are the basic building blocks of pretty much everything your business does. Every company has thousands of internal processes, whether they know it or not. These could be anything from how employees book time off to how your engineering department develops and ships new product features. No matter what kind of process we’re talking about, however, it pays to get things right. Ineffective, inconsistent, or undocumented processes are the enemy of efficiency.
Ronan McQuillan
Feb 9, 2023
What is IT Transformation? + 8 Examples
It would be easy to write IT transformation as just another buzz phrase - but it’d be a big mistake too. You see, the IT department is the core of your operations, right across the rest of your organization. We talk a lot these days about digital transformation, but you won’t get far without the right tools, people, expertise, capabilities, and capacity. IT transformation helps you to achieve exactly that.
Ronan McQuillan
Feb 9, 2023
3 Types of Workflow | In-Depth Guide
When it comes to building efficient internal operations, understanding the logic that governs common tasks is crucial. However, this is nearly impossible if we don’t have a firm grasp of the core types of workflow. That’s just what we’re covering today. You see, workflow is an incredibly broad term. We could be talking about just about anything - from simple vacation approvals to highly complex automated replenishment tasks. This presents us with a few major challenges.
Ronan McQuillan
Jan 3, 2023
8 Steps to Create & Optimize a Workflow Model
An effective workflow model is the foundation of all sorts of change, transformation, and optimization projects. Therefore, you’d expect this to be something that’s widely understood. The reality is that many businesses don’t have such a clear idea of what workflow modeling is, what it achieves, or how to go about it in the real world. In turn, this undermines their efforts to improve their workflows - since they’re missing a crucial first step.
Ronan McQuillan
Jan 3, 2023
Workflow Management | Ultimate Guide
Workflow management is an essential part of building an efficient, modern business. In fact, defining, implementing, and maintaining robust workflows is one of the most fundamental, far-reaching aspects of how your business operates. And yet, it’s widely underutilized. So, huge numbers of organizations either don’t meet their goals through workflow management, or else they fail to achieve any real coordination and oversight at all. Today, we’re diving deep into everything you need to know.
Ronan McQuillan
Jan 3, 2023
Workflow Management Tools | 2025 Buyer’s Guide
Workflow management tools are a key part of any digitization effort. To regularize and streamline repeated tasks, we need appropriate technology. If you want to be competitive nowadays, this is basically non-optional. The trouble is that this can mean so many different things in different contexts. For example, managing your ecommerce sales won’t have much in common with managing internal HR tasks. This means that workflow management software also has a wide scope, in terms of potential use cases and functionality.
Ronan McQuillan
Jan 3, 2023
Business Process Management | Ultimate Guide
Business process management is the cornerstone of any successful organization. From early-stage startups to massive enterprises, BPM is the key to efficient, robust, and consistent operations. However, process management is also widely misunderstood. Part of the problem here is that BPM is so ubiquitous. In fact, it touches on just about every aspect of your business, including ops, IT, HR, finances, marketing, sales, legal, and much, much more. Because of this, there’s a huge market for products that want to bill themselves as one-stop-shop BPM platforms.
Ronan McQuillan
Nov 29, 2022