Chapter 5 – Day-by-Day Processes.
This is your assembly line. This is the A-B-C steps of how you build your widgets, work on a file, or guide a client through a process.
This system above the other two (the Decision System and the Big Picture System) is the one that will most benefit from input from your team. The more removed you, the CEO, are from the hands-on of making your product or working with customers, the more you’re going to want the input from your people in the trenches.
Document Your Current Systems
The first step is to document how you go through your workflow now, as is. Break down your business into every workflow possible. This might include the manufacturing of widgets, how customers are greeted and seated or made to wait, how you process payments and how you make deposits, how you handle customer complaints or returns, how you process special orders, and so on.
Write down all of these different processes and how you currently work them, step by step. Once these systems are documented you’re going to have a much easier time identifying where in your assembly line something needs to be tweaked or changed altogether.
It is absolutely essential that your processes aren’t just something you discuss – they must be set down on paper (or in a word file anyway).
Write in Obvious and Immediate Improvements
You’re probably going to see some immediate beneficial changes from your top-down view, write them in right away. Complete the system’s document and get it out to the relevant employees.
Test and Retest
Test the new workflow, and change again as necessary. Test again. And so on. You’re not just fixing errors, you’re working to ensure that the error cannot happen again. It’s an ongoing process and you’ll keep working at it over time to make it better.
A good way to test your systems is to have a new hire tackle them. If they have any trouble understanding a step or two then find out what could be simplified, integrate the changes, and test it again.
It’s important to understand that when you find a better way to do something you get together the authors of the system and you implement it a.s.a.p. Don’t let any form of bureaucracy slow down improvements to your business. “Later” is a waste of your company’s time.
Have a System for Creating Systems
The creation of these procedures is one of the workflows that you’ll want to document. Since a major goal of these systems is to free up time for you, the head of your business, it only makes sense that the creation of systems can be handled by others as well as your business’ workflow systems.
Your staff will also more fully appreciate the power of systems when they are integral in creating a process or two of their own.
Of course you shouldn’t be afraid to check out the documentation yourself – it’s a great way to maintain a Big Picture view of your company.
(We’ll show some example points for a system-building system later.)
Working with the Finalised System
In the end you’re going to have a step-by-step procedure that can be followed by someone if, for example, the employee who usually handles that particular workflow is out sick, or you have a new hire.
You may also find that you have systems that you no longer need. For example you might be storing hard copies of customer interactions – but through analysing your systems you find that nobody ever references these hard copies, they only go to computer records. You’ve just removed some bloat from your company’s time and money.
As the boss, it’s also your responsibility to make sure employees have a system to follow. We’ve all had that boss who just magically expects us to know how to get something done but doesn’t lay out how to do whatever it is, and then gets angry when we’re unable to perform to their expectations. But that’s the boss’ fault, not the employees’.
That means that the process must be followed exactly as specified. However, the process itself can be changed if the writers of the process are deliberately taking a step back for the express purpose of bettering the workflow – but it is not to be changed by just anyone at all while the process is actually in motion. That being said, when a positive change is suggested – change the system immediately.
Sometimes your documented process can be a simple bullet point of linear A. Do this B. Now do this and so on. Other systems might require some kind of non-linear checklist.
Remember that when you’re crafting your various Day-to-Day systems to step back and take a bird’s-eye view of the whole process.