Ask A Mentor: Tips On Controlling Workflow

Dear Mentors,

Do you have any suggestions on how we can get control of our workflow and still be responsive to sales? Background: I’m part of a marketing team that has worked hard to define our priorities, schedule projects and allocate resources to best support our company’s sales efforts. Our sales reps constantly come up with last-minute “emergencies” that have to be taken care of immediately, blowing our planning efforts out of the water.

Yours,

Frustrated

Dear Frustrated,

You might try building a web form (perhaps a Google form or something on your company’s intranet) that you ask people to fill out with any requests made of your department. Text above the form can set some type of boundaries regarding how requests will be handled and the timeframe within which they should expect a response.

Or, institute some type of project management system where those who need your department’s help may submit To Do items (again, with boundary-setting text) and can also see the many other things you are working toward. Good luck!

Amy Hufford

Dear Frustrated,

Does your company use Slack? Depending on the volume of requests, you could try setting up a dedicated Slack channel. People forward the work request emails to Slack with subject line #workrequest (for example). The emailed requests go into the channel work-requests (for example). You can then comment just as you would on a regular Slack channel.

Julie Tereshchuk

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Compiled and edited by Julie Tereshchuk