Streamlining Your Processes #1: Assess Current Processes

#3 ! It's happening.

This week, I am continuing my series on creating a fully process-driven business. Last week I introduced the idea of Process Based Management. I received a lot of positive feedback and I want to address just one comment I received.

Yes, digital transformation and PBM are similar and heavily intertwined. I don't used digital transformation because I work with a lot of trades companies. While I can and do take the businesses into the digital realm, we don't go fully digital, mostly because of the physical nature of the industry. I prefer PBM as a term because of this reason.

In this article, we will explore key steps to help you initiate the organization and optimization of your business processes. By embracing digital transformation, automation, and remote management, you can pave the way for efficient and successful operations. We're getting really actionable today. Let's dive in!

Don't Skip This Step: Assess Current Processes

Begin by understanding your existing processes. Document each step involved in your business operations and identify any inefficiencies or bottlenecks. I've included examples and links in this article to resources that I use everyday to help clients understand their business processes.

It is critical you don't start trying to 'pick and fix' while you're doing this process. If you're a business owner, your natural response will be to stop assessing and start fixing. Don't! In my experience, it is better to delegate this task to someone who is well suited to documenting processes, like an experienced online business manager (OBM).

Laying the Foundation for Efficiency

During the assessment, focus on understanding the following aspects of your processes:

Workflow Documentation

Document each process in detail, noting the sequence of tasks, responsible individuals, and any dependencies or handoffs. Checklists are great tools here.

Try this Notion checklist for free!

Identify Inefficiencies

Identify areas of your processes that are inefficient, time-consuming, or prone to errors. Look for redundancies, unnecessary steps, and bottlenecks that hinder productivity and hinder your team's ability to deliver results.

This is a great time to ask your team a series of questions and then compare their responses to one another.

Hint: Send the questions to your team. Have them reply in video format with a transcript function. Loom , Fireflies.ai , Zoom with Fathom - AI Meeting Assistant . All of these are good options.

Here is a sample question list in Notion

Communication and Collaboration

Evaluate how information flows within your organization. Assess communication channels, both formal and informal, to determine if there are any gaps or breakdowns. Look for opportunities to streamline communication and collaboration among team members. This is where you'll start to build your SOPs. A clean, easy to use, and easily understood template is the core strength of this step.

Use this template!

Loom is my favourite tool for creating SOPs as you can show your team exactly what you mean and it is so simple to use.

Input and Output Analysis

Examine the quality and accuracy of inputs into your processes, as well as the outcomes or outputs they produce. Identify any issues with data integrity, dependencies on external factors, or gaps in the deliverables.

Before you can move to the next step, mapping, you must have as much data as possible. If there are gaps in the data, they'll be gaps in your process flow maps. Process flow maps can be labor intensive so it's a very good practice to ensure data documentation has been checked and double checked.

Next week I'll introduce the Process Flow Map and offer some advice and tools that we use to create really effective and usable maps. Maps are one of my favourite tools because they promote the idea of continuous improvement.

Let me know if this was helpful! Process mapping is a difficult process but extremely rewarding when you see the inefficiencies start to be revealed and then solved.

If you have any questions about any of the steps above DM me on LinkedIn or book a free 45-minute discovery call with me.

Thank you for reading. Referrals are a huge help to growing my newsletter. If you find this article valuable, please send it to your network.

Process to Profits!

Dylan