Workflows that fit: start with the results, not the software

Why workflows disappoint

• They are built around the software, not around the work. Steps exist because the system offered them, not because the team needs them.
• They are built by people who don't do the work. A workflow designed in a project meeting rarely survives contact with a busy fee earner.
• They copy the past. Recreating the old process carries its workarounds across too (see "Just make it work like the old system").
• Nobody reviews them. They are set up at go-live and left alone while the system gains new capabilities every release.
• Matter types sprawl. Dozens of similar case types, each with its own half-finished workflow, and people unsure which to pick.

The signs are familiar: steps people skip, tasks completed in bulk at the end of a file, and the things that really matter still tracked in a diary or a spreadsheet beside the system.

Start with the result, not the software

Ask each team what it wants to be true, in its own words, and leave the question of how the system does it until later. Good results are short, plain and testable:

• "No work starts until the conflict and AML checks are complete."
• "Every key date is flagged to the fee earner and the supervisor before it falls due."
• "Clients hear from us at each main stage without having to chase."
• "A file cannot close with money still held or a bill unpaid."

Then look at your last few files of that type and sort what you find into three piles. Keep what works. Change what is there but gets in the way. Add what is missing and still lives outside the system. For each one, note why it matters and how you would know it had worked: fewer chasing calls, no missed dates, cleaner file reviews.

Take it stage by stage

Most matters follow the same broad shape, whatever the type of work. A few questions for each stage draw out what matters:

1. Taking instructions: what must be true before any real work starts?
2. Doing the work: what happens on every matter, in what order, and who does it? What do you wait for from others, and when do you chase?
3. Checks: where should someone senior look before work moves on, and what happens when the usual approver is away?
4. The client: when do clients most often ring to ask what is happening?
5. Key dates: which dates would cause real harm if missed?
6. Closing: what has to happen before the file can close?

Firm-wide rules first

Some rules should apply to every matter, whichever team runs it: your risk policy, insurer requirements, file review standards and how money is handled. Agree those once, with the partners, COLP and COFA, and build them into every workflow, rather than leaving each team to reinvent them. Done well, the same workflows give your compliance officers the early warning they need (see Early warning for your COLP and COFA).

Tidy up your matter types

A workflow review is the natural moment to simplify. Check which matter types are actually used, merge those that are really the same work, and use one type with variants (a purchase with or without a mortgage, say) instead of several near-copies. Fewer, clearer matter types make workflows simpler to build, and easier for people to choose correctly.

Where AI now helps

The slowest part of a workflow review has always been capture: turning conversations with busy people into a process someone can build. AI is genuinely useful here.

• Interviewing in plain English. An AI assistant can ask a fee earner one question at a time about how a matter really runs, and follow up on gaps, without anyone needing to learn process notation.
• Structuring what it hears. It can turn those answers into stages, steps, roles, checks, waits and deadlines.
• Drawing it. That structure becomes a diagram the team can look at and agree, which is where most of the real corrections happen.
• Handing it on. The same structure can be saved as BPMN 2.0, the open standard for process diagrams, and as a plain-English brief or structured data that a workflow builder, or an AI workflow generator, can work from.

Two cautions. Use only AI tools your firm has approved for firm information, and keep client details out of the conversation. And AI does not know your regulatory duties, your insurer's expectations or why your team does things a certain way. It speeds up capture; people still decide what the workflow should be, and check it before it is built.

Our free workflow capture tool works this way. Describe a matter type stage by stage, or let your own approved AI assistant interview you and paste its answer in. You get a diagram to agree, and BPMN, draw.io and structured files to build from. It all runs in your browser, so nothing is sent to us.

Whichever system you use

None of this depends on a particular product. A clear statement of the results each team needs, mapped stage by stage, is what any workflow builder needs, and it shows quickly whether your current system can deliver them or whether something is genuinely missing. That is also the most useful thing you can take into a selection, if it comes to that (see Workflow: deep, basic or none?).

We review workflows with each team, agree the results that matter, and align your system to deliver them, independently of any vendor.

To see what can be produced, download our example workflow pack: five worked examples (residential purchase and sale, estate administration, debt recovery and a settlement agreement), each as a diagram, BPMN and draw.io files, a plain-English brief and structured data.

Download the workflow review sheet (Word)