"Rather than spending time thinking about your system, your system should spend time thinking about you!"
Businesses are a combination of the 3 P's: People, Process, Product.
Systems are processes, so they must support your people and your product.
Step 1: Discovery chats
Before we use any technology, I want to learn about your business. We'll have a chat with you and your team to learn who does what, when, and how in your daily business.
We'll write down the regular tasks that each person or role in your company does. We'll consider:
- Marketing
- Sales
- Operations / Production
- Management
- Customer service
- HR
- Admin/Finance/Accounting
- IT
- Legal
Most businesses build their process slowly over time. By writing it all down on paper, we often find tasks that can be made simpler or removed before we even think about the tech!
Step 2: Our Systems Framework
Now that we know what tasks are done in your business, it's time to think about how they're done.
There are 5 categories of business process automation. For each task in your business process, I ask myself the following questions to find ways to automate and improve them.
1: Validation
Do we have the correct and complete information to progress to the next step?
If not, how do we get it?
2: Integration
Where has this task's information come from? (A phone call? An email? An app? A database? )
Where does it need to go next?
Could the apps be connected to eliminate manual data entry?
3: Allocation & Notification
Who will this task be given to?
How do we balance workload?
How do they know they've been given this task?
How are due dates picked?
Who else needs to be kept in the loop?
Has the customer been told about the progress? If so, how?
4: Stagnation
If this task hasn't been finished by its due date, who needs to be reminded?
Should we automatically escalate / re-allocate it to someone else?
Should the customer be informed about the delay?
5: Quantification
How are we measuring performance at this step?
What are we measuring?
How often is performance reviewed?
What do we think is a good/bad performance level?
Step 3: Prioritisation & Documentation
Step 2 will generate a lot of ideas. Usually, it's a list so long that we can't tackle them all at once. We'll focus on building only those that offer the most help to your business with the least cost to build.
At the end of this stage, I'll deliver 2 documents:
- An easy-to-understand document summarising your current systems and processes
- An action plan listing which items we're going to improve first
Sometimes during this step, we find that your existing data needs a little tidying up before it can move to the new system.
We might need to:
- Fill in missing information and remove duplicates
- Reformat and restructure the data so it's ready for the new system
If your data needs some cleaning, we'll add this to the action plan. That way, when we build your new system, everything slots in perfectly from day one.
Step 4: Build & Test
To some extent, if we do a good job of steps 1-3, then step 4 becomes much easier. We can get to work and build with confidence that these upgrades will provide a big improvement to your systems.
We'll get together for demo sessions early and often during this phase. That way, if we decide to take a different approach, it's easier to fix things sooner rather than later.
Once you're happy with the solution I've built, I'll update your documentation. That way, it can be used when training your team or hiring other contractors.
Whenever an organisation updates a system, there will always be varying levels of enthusiasm from the team. The best way to get everyone on board is to include everyone in the process. By getting you and your team involved early, your ideas can be added to the system. This gives your team comfort in knowing that the system has been built to serve them, not the other way around!
Step 5: Train & Launch
Because you and your team have been involved during the build and testing phase, training becomes a lot easier when it comes time to launch! Still, it's worth taking the time to practice using the new system and double-check that there are no problems that haven't been caught during testing.
Wherever possible, we try to do a "gradual" launch rather than a "press the big red button" launch to make the transition as smooth as possible. During this period, we'll monitor the system closely to catch any early problems.
Once we're happy that everything is running smoothly, we'll get started on the next upgrade on our list!
Ongoing support
Once you see the first automation working well, something clicks. You start seeing opportunities for automation you'd never noticed before. "Wait, could we do this with the invoicing process too?" "What if we also automated the notification to our suppliers?" You develop an eye for it.
As your business grows and new ideas emerge, I'm just a phone call away to help you tackle the next project!
That said, too many businesses end up with a "black box" that only one person understands how to modify or maintain. This leaves you dependent on them every time you want to make a change.
My goal is to build systems that you and your team can maintain yourselves without needing a developer. That's the mark of a great system.
Sound like a plan?
To book in for a chat about your business, click the button below.