Today’s blog is in memory of my little guy Terry. Dogs love routine, and a routine is essentially the result of a finely tuned process repeated regularly. Click to Tweet

Terry was certainly a stubborn little dog, but when he knew exactly how things were going to go he was happier and well behaved.

Is your team happier and more productive when they know what to do and achieve consistent results ? I bet they are! I don’t mean to say they should be doing one task over and over again. Imagine a common approach to problems, or a fool-proof process for expense reports. It’s dreamy!

From Poop to process….

Some days that stubborn little dog of mine wouldn’t erm….go #2. I’d wait and wait and be late for a meeting or an appointment. So I had to develop a process.

But first I needed to try all the available options. I tried taking him out as soon as I woke up, waiting until the last minute, before he ate, after he ate…you get the picture.

Finally I got there. Wake up, eat, go out, circle the block, and 90% of the time I had success.

But then there are always variables – rain, another dog visiting, his furry friends at the park that distracted him from his duties. So sometimes I made minor adjustments for those days – if the dog park looked busy I circled the other way, I took the dogs out seperately if we had a visiting dog. I had a process, but was willing to adjust as necessary.

The key is, you need a process that meets your goals 80% of the time, and then you can adjust as needed for the other 20%. Why spend all of your time trying to plan for the 2% chance of rain?

Process doesn’t need to be rigid – it can change with circumstances. When data starts telling you to change – DO IT!

Do you sometimes feel that everything is an ad-hoc task? Do you try every possible option for a problem and never know if what you are doing is working? Sometimes a little process thinking can get you on your way, and it doesn’t have to be hard.

The 80/20 Rule – 3 steps to making it work and adjusting for change

1. Map out your process that happens 80% of the time.
2. When a bump in the road pops up, try #1 then adjust.
3. Go back to 1 and document your “new” variable process.

Map, Adjust, Repeat. Don’t make a job out of it – use some sticky notes that you can move around every day until you get your process refined.

Process is a process – give it a try.

Until next week,
Nicole

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @whiteboardcons to stay up to date on what we’re up to this week. Have thoughts or ideas? Use #betterfastercheaper to join the conversation!

We have a saying around the Whiteboard office: “It’s a process, it’s a process, it’s a process! It’s NOT a peacock!” Click to Tweet

Weird, right?

What we are trying to say is, don’t be overwhelmed by process design or process improvement. It doesn’t have to be fancy or showy – simple is definitely better in the process improvement world.

But I don’t have any processes…

Ah, we hear that a lot. And to that we say, in the nicest possible way: sure you do!

EVERYTHING is a process. Grilling the perfect steak (season, marinate, sear, flip, grill, serve), getting ready for work in the morning (turn off alarm, shower, dress, breakfast, coffee, car), checking your eMail (sort, read, respond, file).

Let’s look at that last one a little closer.

Do you follow the four eMail steps mentioned above? Or, are you like most people in that eMail causes you untold anxiety every single day? Is your Inbox full of unread eMails? Do you try to keep up, but never quite get there, and then get more emails from people wondering why you haven’t responded?

Guess what? You have an eMail process. It may be ineffective, but you have one! And improving it doesn’t have to be hard.

If your boss told you to fix your eMail process, what would you do? Would you buy expensive process mapping software and hire a consultant to see what the problem is, and then take a training course in how to handle your eMail effectively?

I sure hope not, because you don’t want to turn this into a big showy fancy peacock! Even worse, you don’t want to avoid fixing it by just spending more time at your computer until your Inbox is empty. (Because you know it will fill up again tomorrow.)

I hope you would get a pencil and a piece of paper and draw a really simple process map and really think about all the steps that you take to handle your Inbox. If you do it right, the problem would jump off the page at you! Easy peasy.

It’s Not What You Think

So what is your process for handling eMails? Let’s say you just got back from vacation to find 480 unread emails. What do you do? Perhaps you sit down and draw this process map:

Simple. Straight forward. But no problem appears to jump off the page. Well, again, with respect, we say: “I don’t think so.” It probably looks more like this:

That’s the difference between what we call a “Thought to Be” process map and an “As Is” process map. When you dig into it, the“As Is” really tells the story. In this example you’re wasting time and energy by handling each eMail one at a time, whether they are “info only”, “action required”, “urgent request”, or “meeting requests”. Now the problem jumps off the page – it’s actually a loop with no defined ending!

What if you looked at your Inbox as a pile of tasks, and organized them just as you do your daily To Do list? Then your process map might look like this (we call it the “Should Be” process map).

Suddenly there’s nothing in your Inbox but prioritized action items. Your new efficient process has saved you time and energy, and your customers (and your boss!) are happier with your response time.

Give it a shot and let us know how it works, would you?

Until next week,
Ruth.

PS – Make sure to follow us on Twitter @whiteboardcons to stay up to date on what we’re up to this week. Have thoughts or ideas? Use #betterfastercheaper to join the conversation!

You may remember the word “osmosis” from high school science (things tend to flow from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration), or you may have learned it in Psychology 101 as “the unconscious assimilation of ideas”.

(Raise your hand if you just thought of the Borg from Star Trek when you read the word “assimilation”.)

Today I want to show you how you can apply the word osmosis to the creation of a Process-Driven Culture.

Resistance is Futile

Are you a change agent? Are you a process improvement nut? Are you lucky enough to be both? If yes, I bet you have a permanent bump on your head because you feel like you bang your head into a brick wall all day long.

You have some great ideas that would make your organization better, faster, and/or cheaper, and you’ve even proven that those ideas work. You have the experience and the data. There is an excellent business case for doing what you suggest and industry best practices show that your idea is working elsewhere.

So why won’t your boss/staff/peers make the changes you suggest? Why won’t they apply simple process improvement tools or go to a conference on business process design?

It comes down to science really.

Back to high school science: remember learning about inertia from Newton’s laws? “An object at rest (or in motion) will remain at rest (or in motion) unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” It’s the same with people – all people will resist changes in their current state unless they are given a darn good reason not to.

Or, Unless They Decide to Change On Their Own

Many of you are probably familiar with the term “coaching” as it refers to employees. A good manager “coaches” their staff members to do the best job they can do via conversation, open-ended-questions, and leading by example.

Cy Charney, author of Just-in-Time Management, says that “Coaching is a process that will let your employees know that what they do and who they are matters to you. Good coaches train their people to do the job right every time.” I would add to that by saying that good coaching involves coaching up and across, as well as down!

Teach your boss, your peers, and your employees to Define It! Map It! Prove It! without them knowing they are being taught!

By using good coaching techniques you can engage people in conversation and get them to start really thinking about problems they are trying to solve, using process improvement tools, and looking for data to prove that what they are proposing will work.

Have a flip chart (or a Whiteboard!) in your office. Ask people to draw their ideas. Slowly steer them in the direction of a process map with swimlanes. Start requiring that kind of diagram on a regular basis.

Ask people for numbers to back up their issues and concerns. Lead them to develop clearly defined problem statements. Start to help people to continually frame their statements in a data-driven manner, and do the same yourself.

Essentially, people will learn by osmosis.

By introducing concepts via coaching, you are making the concept of a process-driven organization and data-based decision-making commonplace. People won’t realize they are following a specific methodology, just as they don’t realize they are using algebra when they analyze numbers.

They assimilate to the new culture you have created. And then, when they are ready, you can start introducing formal programs.

Hey – if you do it right, they will think it was their idea.

Until next week,
Ruth

PS – check out Cy’s book for some excellent coaching tips, as well as literally hundreds of practical management lessons. Click here to go to his website

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @whiteboardcons to stay up to date on what we’re up to this week. Have thoughts or ideas? Use#betterfastercheaper to join the conversation!

Starting a business is super risky, and I’ll be the first to say that it takes a great deal of hard work. There are some tips and tricks, however, that can help make your life easier from the start though. Today, I’m going to tell you a trick that helped us.

Am I normal? I wake up scared every single day!

Starting your own business is really scary and overwhelming. We understand that completely. Someone once told me: “As an entrepreneur, you need to wake up scared every single day”. Click to Tweet

Do you worry about what sales tactics you are going to use? Do you stress about product delivery schedules? Have you struggled to find out your target market? Are you so busy operating your business you haven’t thought about strategy or planning?

A quick tool and a little bit of thinking can get you ahead of your competitors, and let you focus on running your business – Better. Faster. Cheaper.

Entrepreneurial Strategy in 15 minutes!

Before Ruth and I started WBC we brought every Post-It Note and marker we could find and we covered the walls with our ideas and then organized them. This type of activity may seem “lame” or corporate. But it gives your organization direction.

The Mission Statement Builder Template

Our mission is to _______ (what you do) for ______ (who are your target customers) with our _________ (unique service/product) in order to ________ (achieve a result *hint: use data).

Before you start filling it out – think about these questions:

• Why are you starting this business?
• What kind of product do you want to offer?
• What do you want to be known for?
• What kind of values do you want to embrace?
• What kinds of customers do we want? How would they describe us?
• What kind of experience will our customers have when they interact with us?

Brainstorm and then prioritize them. It’s really that simple!

The next step is to communicate this mission statement to your team, your staff, and your customers so they know what you stand for.

A good strong collective strategy works better than one that no one knows about. Or one that is all things to all people. Make your business go from scary idea to reality. And that’s the first big step to being your own boss!

See you next week At the Whiteboard, Ruth will be talking about one of our favourite thought leaders, Cy Charney – and his take on leadership and management. (Enter your email below to subscribe to our mailing list.)

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @whiteboardcons to stay up to date on what we’re up to this week. Have thoughts or ideas? Use #betterfastercheaper to join the conversation!

If you like this article, share it on Twitter here.
Nicole

If you think you can get people to believe you based on your charm and good looks, you’re wrong. There is a reason that people ask you to put your money where your mouth is – they want you to Prove It! And it’s easy, I promise.

Is it Faster to New York or By Bus?

Consider the question: “Is it faster to New York or by bus?” Obviously it’s unanswerable – there is no starting point, and there is no option to consider. That’s the way it is with most, or all, business proposals that have no data – no points of reference, and therefore no way to answer the question or make a decision.

Have you ever presented a great idea only to have people stare at you and just not “get it”? Do you present dynamically and passionately, and then leave the room without a decision from the people who control the purse strings? If someone asks you to gather “relevant data” do you sometimes feel overwhelmed?

Never fear. Although numbers are important, the use of them does NOT have to be complicated and threatening to you, your team, and your project. In fact, just a few key numbers can help you be more successful every day.

Just remember, of the three basic process improvement steps, “Define It! Map It! Prove It!”, the most important by far is “Prove It!”Click to Tweet this!

Main Goal: Help People Believe You

You walk into a room seeking money for staff training. Your pitch is something like, “our costs are going up because our staff aren’t trained properly, so we’re going to start a massive training program.”

You might as well be asking whether it’s farther to New York or by bus. Any financial controller worth their salt will look at you and say “Prove it!”, and then hit you with a barrage of questions.

How much have costs gone up? Over what period? Is the increase significant compared to your sales volume? Could anything else be causing costs to go up? How do you know it’s training that’s the problem? How much do you want?

If you don’t have those numbers to tell your story, the chance of you convincing your financial controller to spend the money on the training program are very low. If, on the other hand, you can add four simple numbers like in the following statement, the controller will have no choice but to support you!

“Our cost per unit has increased in the last three quarters by 5% per quarter even though our sales have been stable over the same period. The only major change in the organization has been the addition of 25 new sales employees who have not yet met their targets. Analysis shows that the new employees would benefit from training program, at a cost of $100 per employee, or $2500.”

Anticipate the questions. Gather the simple numbers. Prove it!

See you next week!

Ruth

#BetterFasterCheaper

Finding the true meaning of life…Process Improvement!

My long time friend recently asked me, “ok, seriously, what exactly is process improvement? I’ve heard it mentioned in the news many times, but if you asked me to explain it, I would have no clue how”. And so I said, “Simply put? it’s the art of looking at the way something is done today, and finding ways to make it better.” “That’s it?”, “That’s it my friend”.

And that’s when it dawned on me; there is a key element missing from classic process improvement! …and that is the way it’s communicated.

So often I have sat in conferences or listened to former colleague consultants of mine talk about process improvement in the most technical of ways, losing their audience five minutes into the discussion. And I would think, why? there is no need, process improvement doesn’t need fancy jargon. No wonder people think it’s a manufacturing concept! Here are my two secrets, and hopefully they help our readers really get to the core of process improvement.

Two secrets to demystify classic process improvement

1. Use an every day example: There are thousands of processes in your everyday life, and most of us don’t realize it. For example, how do you get ready in the morning, how do you get your kids lunch ready for school? What are the steps you take, and how many?. Everything is a process, right down to tying your shoes. Remember the bunny ears story?….make two bunny ears, pass one through the other and pull tight!
2. Ask the question: How can I make it better?: Now that you have a scenario (e.g. your commute to work), is there any way to make it better or faster?. Let’s start asking the questions. Does the route you take or the time you leave the house, affect how quickly you get to work? What about dropping the kids off or getting coffee? Maybe you have to move cars in the morning to get out of the garage, can this be arranged the night before?

In the mean time, stay tuned for our next blog next Friday at noon. (Enter your email below to subscribe.)

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @whiteboardcons to stay up to date on what we’re up to this week. Have thoughts or ideas? Use #betterfastercheaper to join the conversation!

Welcome back to the Whiteboard! As I started writing about one of my favorite topics, ‘what is missing from classic process improvement’, I couldn’t help but think about our Process Improvement 101 seminar that took place today (June 15th). This seminar is so full of information, that I feel guilty not sharing some of its goodies with you.

The premise of the seminar is to show you how easy process improvement is, and how much you can benefit from it. Remember the American Airlines story about the olive? It’s a classic! A few years ago American Airlines decided to remove one olive from each first class passenger’s salad in order to reduce costs ( or improve the dining process). In doing so, these guys saved $40,000 a year! It’s just proof that a tiny process improvement can draw big rewards.

In the seminar we take you through 3 key steps of process improvement:

1. Define it! – creating a succinct problem statement, using facts and leaving out solutions, to describe your problem.
2. Mapping it!- creating a visual, using several tools of the trade, to represent your problem
3. Prove it! – collecting the hard facts that will support your problem statement, and most likely, also your gut instinct.

Out of these key steps, Mapping it intrigues me the most. Why? Because of the human learning style. Did you know that approximately 65 percent of the population are visual learners?

Visually representing a process by mapping it, allows you to see things that may not necessarily jump out at you when you read them.

Top 3 business problems revealed by process mapping:

1. Touch points. How many people, teams, departments must a product or service pass through to reach the customer? The higher the number of touch points in the process the longer the process will take, and the higher likelihood that a defect will occur.
2. Duplication. Process maps are great at visually highlighting work that is duplicated across the company by different teams. Do you ever have two people sometimes doing the same task when you don’t mean to?
3. Bottlenecks. Bottlenecks occur when there is a blockage in the flow of information or work. Have you ever been in line at customs? Planeloads of cranky travellers trying to get home or start vacation and only 10 customs agents to serve them? (Stay tuned for an upcoming blog post on the Glascow Airport security clearance area – what a great job they’ve done!)

In the mean time, stay tuned for our next blog next Friday at noon on what is missing from classic process improvement. And it’ a lot! (Enter your email below to subscribe.)

You can also get our free process mapping tool as well as a course module on the seminar today – it will be just like you were there LIVE! Just email us! We’ll be posting them on the site for download soon too.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @whiteboardcons to stay up to date on what we’re up to this week. Have thoughts or ideas? Use #betterfastercheaper to join the conversation!

Until next week,
Nicole

Last week Ruth gave you a virtual tour of our new website (which we love). This week, I thought I would introduce you to the kind of work we do. We spent the first few weeks in our new adventure telling people what we do. We described ourselves as management consultants, but that was sometimes met with a blank stare. Then we tried business process improvement specialists? Equally blank stares. Finally we settled on – Business Problem Solvers. People got it!

What is a management consultant?

Wikipedia says:

Management consulting refers to the practice of helping organisations to improve their performance, primarily through the analysis of existing organisational problems and development of plans for improvement. Organisations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including gaining external (and presumably objective) advice and access to the consultants’ specialised expertise.

That’s exactly what we set out to do when we started this company. Years in both the private and public sector gave us a ton of exposure to consultants. Plus we were successful internal management consultants for a number of large organizations. We always knew what we wanted – creative honest THOUGHT LEADERSHIP. So, we thought we’d give you our top 7 tips to hire a management consultant.

How to choose a management consultant?

Here are the Top 7 Criteria you should look for when hiring a management consultant.

1. Look for an expert. A great consultant will have both tangible business experience in your area paired with accreditation in a methodology.
2. Keep it simple. Look for a consultant that doesn’t overcomplicate a problem in order to increase their billable hours. Some problems have simple solutions.
3. Find a guarantee. Consultants can’t always guarantee on-time delivery or 100% project success. But, they should be setting metrics that define success and aim to meet them. Look in your proposal or contract for something that makes sure you as the client are happy.
4. What can I get for free? Negotiate for some additional training or template materials you can use for their next project. Our strong client relationships are what keeps clients coming back time and time again.
5. Look for honesty. A consultant should never sugar coat your situation or not speak their mind. They have experience and should speak their mind. offering honest and objective advice every time. That’s what you are paying them for!
6. Find a unique product offering. What can the consulting firm you select do that other’s don’t offer. Do they offer end-to-end solutions? Do they just write recommendations, or can they successfully implement them for you too?
7. Look for innovative solutions. Consultants should be setting you up for future success, therefore the solutions they recommend should be forward thinking, applying the most up-to-date (but cost effective) technologies.

All that for the right price. Easy, isn’t it?

Stay tuned next Friday at noon for our next blog posting. We’ll teach you the basics of process improvement and how you can apply them in your own organization – so you can be better, faster, and cheaper. (Enter your email below to subscribe.)

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @whiteboardcons to stay up to date on what we’re up to this week. Have thoughts or ideas? Use #betterfastercheaper to join the conversation!

Until next week,
Nicole