One thing I’ve seen in various companies I’ve worked for is that each and every company has its own culture, and its on set of processes. Not every process is a great business process, so how do you make it easily remembered, repeatable, consistent, and easy to follow. Remember that the easier the process is to follow, the more likely that an employee is going to follow that process.
How is the result of a great business process achieved?
5 Tips for Great Business Process
- Create a set of cheat sheets, or cheat cards that employees can use to study, like flash cards.
- Make it hard for people to not follow the process. This is all about decision management. If a process requires daily caring and feeding, make sure that employees know that, and understand the importance of that caring and feeding to their eco-system.
- Be Consistent, and model the process yourself. If you want something done a particular way, the best way to get it is to make it so others can emulate you and achieve that process. That means that you should walk the walk, and be consistent.
- Create flow charts to give a meta view of the process. that makes it so that the process can be visualized.
- Use scripts for parts of the process that work well with it. If I know that I want my employees to always answer the phone a particular way, I will print out what I want them to say, laminate it, and stick it in front of them to read every time they answer the phone. I’ll also make sure that we have a proper data entry form (either paper or computer) for them to take down notes about the call, and handle it correctly, including call back information, and referral source.
What are some of your tips for making a process easy to follow?
