EPISODE 3: How to Find Opportunities to Improve Your Process

How to Streamline Your Processes - Episode 3/8

Are Your Ready to get into the Good Bit?

In This Episode (3) We will Look at Finding Opportunities to Improve Your Process - Where and How to Look.

This week I will share a couple of models that will help you look at any process and work out where the opportunities are to improve them. Over my many many years of looking at processes I have developed these techniques so you can skip right to finding the opportunities rather than figuring out how to find them.

You will need a copy of your Sustainable Profit Model that we looked at last week and also the process map we created last week. Go back to last week's episode if you missed this ( find it here ).

Hi, I’m Rebecca A business operations adviser helping busy business owners win their time back.

Let's get into it.

Do You Want to Streamline or Optimise: What's the Difference?

First, a Small Confession

I want to do you one better... This series is titled "Streamline Your Processes" and I will show you how to do that but I am also keen to show you how to optimse your processes.

Streamlining versus Optimising: What's the Difference?

Streamlining is about looking at the processes you have and trimming the fat; it's figuring out ways to improve what you have by making it more efficient. Optimising is making sure we have the right process in place. It's ensuring that the process truly guides us to our goals in the best way.

How Do You Optimise Your Processes?

Introducing The A.I.D.E. Model

The A.I.D.E. model stands for Action, Intention, Decision and Error. I have developed this model to help diagnose what is happening in your process as it stands and therefore where your opportunities are. The model helps you ask the right questions to figure that out.

How to use the A.I.D.E. Model

To use the A.I.D.E. model we need to take the process map that we created last week (See last week's newsletter here ). We then run through each of the questions listed above with the people who do the process step and list out everything you find.

In this video I run through the fictitious company we looked at last week as an example.

Before You Jump In and Start Fixing Things - Let's Find the Ones that Will Have an Impact

It is really easy to jump straight in and begin fixing the errors that we found in the last exercise but wait... Optimisation is about ensuring we are focused on what will have an impact.

How to Identify Those with Impact

To find the opportunities that will have an impact we build a bridge from the Sustainable Profit Model we created last week (see last's week's episode here ) and the A.I.D.E. Model we just created using the IF...Then technique. The If...Then technique is where you build hypothesis of if we did something then it would cause something else. What we want to cause is improvements in things that will impact our sustainable profit.

Go through what you have laid out on your A.I.D.E. Model and identify anything you can think of that would impact how you make sustainable profit. The next video runs through an example.

If...Then... Technique an Example

In this video we run through how to build your hypothesis. We looked at some of the errors we identified. Firstly when we take too long to respond to incoming inquiries the enquirer goes elsewhere. So this hypothesis is: IF we responded faster to emails and booked more calls THEN we would win a higher volume of jobs.

We also identified the error that sometimes the sales people cancelled the meeting and we lost the sales call. Hypothesis: IF the sales team cancelled fewer calls THEN we would win a higher volume of jobs.

We also said that sometimes calls that were scheduled weren't pre-qualified so they wasted the sales team's time. IF the sales team didn't spend time on unqualified sales calls THEN they could spend more time on value-add activities.

Collect Up All Your Hypothesis

Next week we will be looking at how to prioritise your hypothesis, for now create a long list of all that you can think of and we will be ready for the next stage.

What if You are Looking to Streamline and Not Optimise?

If you truly are looking to streamline and not optimise - perhaps you are looking at a very specific process - there are key things that you can look at. Grab your process map and run through the checklist below.

The Streamlining Checklist to Run Through

Duplication

Anywhere where the same thing happens twice - how can you share or pass the info along?

Excess Movement or Distance

Either physical or with your mouse; are people searching for things or having to go further than they need to to get things to move the process along?

Waiting

Are there stages where tasks or people are waiting? Are there bottlenecks that need addressed? Can you add capacity, can you batch the work in a different way to stretch out how long it is available, can you adjust future steps? Are people waiting on approvals that could be removed?

Standarisation

Are there decisions that you can pre-agree if they fall within certain parameters? Can you create templates for things that are similar?

Elimination

Are there any steps that don't contribute to the goal of the process? Bits that were added in the past for a reasonable reason that are now redundant? Get rid of them!

Automation

Automation within apps - are there automations in the apps that you are using that you aren't taking advantage of?

Automation between apps - when you onboard a new client do you always set up a folder; create a new entry in your CRM and send out contracts? When you finish with a client do you always send the invoice, update the CRM, send out a feedback form and close off the job in Asana? When you do the same series of actions across your apps you can use low code platforms like Zapier or Make.com to automate this for you.

Use AI - AI is brilliant at pattern finding and creating summaries are you using it to analyse your data? to create your proposals? or to create summaries of your meetings?

You Should Now have a Pile of Potential Opportunities

Next week we will look at how you prioritise these ideas and the week after how you actually harness them.

See you Next Thursday

If you want help streamlining (or indeed optimising) the processes in your business I am running a summer discount on my "Streamline Your Processes" package 20% for anyone who signs up in July or August - to find out more head to my profile and look at the featured section.