If you have been looking at how to turn your business into a lean, mean, money-making machine, then the topic of systemization is likely to come up at some point. A lot of business owners will understand this to mean taking a systematic and repeatable approach to labor and processes, but what are the specifics of systematizing your business? Let’s break it down into a few steps.
Outline your processes
The first thing that you need to do is to think about all of the processes that your workers rely on. It’s best to sort these processes, so you might want to find all the processes related to a specific role, or all of the processes related to a specific goal. Keep a record of these processes, which of them are done the most often, and break them down into steps. Workflow managing tools can help you do this with some of the larger processes, helping you find the sub-processes that might need to be systematized, too.
Find the way to sharpen those processes
Focus on the processes that are repeated the most often by the most people, or on those that are most vital to the most important goals of the business. Then look at methods to make these processes more efficient, using tools like lean six sigma supply chain consulting, for instance, when it comes to processes that keep the supply chain running. Reducing loss, finding more efficient methods, and automating steps within those processes can help you improve your overall outcomes related to that process. Of course, these should be tested in real-time to make sure that they’re real improvements and not just changes for the sake of change.
Use input from those who do the tasks
You can take a forensic approach to improve the processes in the business and implement those changes across the board, but you should never assume that you can do without the input or feedback of those who actually do the processes that you’re tinkering with. Not only is accepting and welcoming feedback going to enhance the motivation of your team, but it’s also going to help you take into account perspectives and circumstances that you may not be aware of all the time. Some changes may not be as helpful as you want them to be without a little tweaking.
Turn it into procedure
Once you and your team have improved the processes (or at least decided that the current method of performing them is the most efficient) then you need to turn those processes into procedure. Write instructions on how to complete those tasks and make them part of your employee handbook so that when a new person enters a role and has to complete a process for the first time, you already have the most efficient and effective way of completing that process ready for them to learn.
Not all work can be systematized. However, the work that can, should be. The steps above can help you do that.
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