Quick Process Redesign
Time for the team building activity: 20–25 minutes
Setup effort: Easy
Estimated cost: Free
Business value: Encourages process thinking, improves efficiency awareness, and strengthens collaborative problem-solving in team building activities
What is Quick Process Redesign?
The Quick Process Redesign activity challenges teams to analyze a common workflow and redesign it to make it simpler, faster, or more efficient. Participants are given a familiar process—often something slightly inefficient—and asked to rethink how it could work better. Examples of processes used in this team building activity include onboarding a new employee, approving a purchase request, planning a company event, or responding to customer support requests. The objective is not only to identify problems but to propose a practical improvement to the process. The exercise encourages teams to view everyday workflows from a strategic perspective.
How do you play Quick Process Redesign?
Divide participants into teams of 3 to 5 people. Provide each team with a description of an existing process (for example: the current employee onboarding process involves five steps and takes two weeks; redesign it to make it more efficient). Explain the objective clearly: analyze the process and propose a redesigned version that improves efficiency. Teams work through three steps: Step 1—Process analysis (7 minutes) to identify weaknesses, delays, or unnecessary steps; Step 2—Redesign brainstorming (8 minutes) to propose improvements or alternative workflows; Step 3—Presentation (5–7 minutes) where each team presents its redesigned process. Participants may vote for the most efficient or innovative redesign.
Why it’s great for a team
Quick Process Redesign is highly practical because it focuses on improving how work gets done. Participants learn to analyze systems rather than individual tasks. The activity strengthens process thinking (evaluating workflows step by step), collaborative analysis (sharing different perspectives on inefficiencies), creative problem-solving (exploring alternative workflows), and a continuous improvement mindset (recognizing processes can always be refined). Because the scenarios are realistic, the exercise often generates ideas that can be implemented at work.
How to organize it effectively
Choose processes that are simple enough to analyze quickly but complex enough to improve, such as administrative workflows, internal approvals, or customer journeys. Provide teams with a visual mapping format (flowcharts, step lists, diagrams). Encourage participants to remove unnecessary steps and improve clarity. After presentations, compare redesign approaches and debrief with questions like: What created the most inefficiency? How did you decide what to remove or change? What improvement would have the biggest real-life impact? When well facilitated, Quick Process Redesign strengthens analytical thinking, innovation, and collaboration around process improvement.