Putting an end to paperwork

Measures arise in a company in the most diverse areas and on every scale. Whether it's a small task that needs to be completed quickly or an extensive project that needs to be broken down into several sub-steps - which departments, teams or individual employees should be tasked with processing it? Who is responsible for the implementation? And how can the achievement of objectives be precisely controlled and monitored within the planned timeframe? The central administration and tracking of measures in companies can only succeed with a functioning measures management - a task that requires electronic support.

Wanted: Central authority for recording and coordination

The organization of measures is handled in companies in very different ways, e.g. in the form of Excel lists or via e-mail exchange. Often the situation arises that each department or even each individual employee organizes his to-dos and also the related communication and information forwarding differently. This has a number of disadvantages: as a rule, it takes a great deal of effort to track the current status, progress or responsibilities of a measure or even to gain an overview of all the pending measures. Overdues can also hardly be monitored in this way. In addition, scattered measures cannot be systematically evaluated, which makes it difficult for those responsible to monitor their success.

In order to manage the various company-wide measures in a structured manner, a central instance is therefore required that collects and tracks the various tasks and associated activities from a wide range of company divisions. This is possible with suitable software support. If a company or organization already uses an integrated management system, e.g. for the implementation of the quality management standard DIN EN ISO 9001 and other standards, it is usually quite easy to build a measure management system on this basic framework and to use already existing information for this purpose.

Measures management with ConSense

ConSense GmbH from Aachen, provider of innovative software solutions for process and quality management, has developed a module for measure management for this purpose, which complements the basic versions of the various ConSense software products. The module centrally records all measures from all company divisions and thus offers an overall view. Whether upcoming tasks from CIP, audits, complaints and more - from here, measures and possible sub-measures are centrally managed and controlled.

Via the system, the measures can be assigned to the respective responsible parties, e.g. individual employees or organizational units. Those involved automatically receive detailed information about the measures and deadlines assigned to them and are reminded of due dates. If deadlines are exceeded, the system sounds an alarm and, if previously defined, informs the superiors. Superiors can use the system at any time to find out about the progress of implementation and the current status. For an overall view, different reports can be compiled, e.g. on open and overdue measures. ConSense has added the possibility of analysis and the release of measures to this module. The analysis always helps when the goal is clear, but the concrete steps still need to be worked out. By approving measures, it is possible to ensure that the effort and costs remain manageable.

Overall, the systematic recording, processing and control with the ConSense measure management facilitates the timely and complete implementation of a wide variety of tasks.

All tasks in view with the ConSense task board

Collecting and processing all pending measures in one central location - this can be implemented easily and systematically with the ConSense measure management. But most of the time, the tasks managed in the measures management only cover a small part of the tasks that each individual employee has to deal with in their daily work. "That's why ConSense goes one step further with the ConSense Taskboard. The ConSense Taskboard is based on the Kanban method for process control and the Kanban board known from it, which visually displays upcoming tasks in a structured manner and sorted by priorities, making progress visually traceable," explains Dr. Alexander Künzer, Managing Director of ConSense GmbH.

The main source for the tasks displayed in the task board is the ConSense task management. In addition, tasks from other sources can be added, e.g. emails marked as for follow-up and tasks from MS Outlook as well as from ConSense Minutes, the tool for easy and systematic documentation of meetings.

All these tasks are brought together in the ConSense task board and displayed in clear tile form on the personal board. Here they are then available for further processing. All tasks to be completed are sorted in columns according to the categories "Open", "In progress ", "Waiting" or "Completed" and are color-coded according to the traffic light system for urgency. Thus, the ConSense task board visualizes all personal tasks at a glance and enables individual prioritization, planning, implementation and control. The user can call up at any time in which step the respective task is. With the ConSense Taskboard, all important information and deadlines as well as the flow of processing are always present and can be easily integrated into the workday.

Reliable implementation ensured

A software-supported measures management system brings structure to the implementation of measures and helps to implement them systematically and uniformly. With the module "Measures Management", standardized processes can be established for the processing of measures, including analysis, approval, control and effectiveness testing, which are also managed in a visually uniform manner in each department. The task board also helps with the personal organization of each individual employee. Our experience has shown that this is a considerable relief in the daily work of companies of all sizes. The positive feedback from our customers provides confirmation: Companies are grateful for a uniform standard that gives structure to the handling of measures and ensures reliable implementation," emphasizes Dr. Alexander Künzer.