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Don't rush your job

It's interesting to watch and take note of what happens when people rush their jobs. Things get missed off. Parts of the job that normally get done, and can be done from memory, don't get done. Depending on where you work this may or may not be critical. For a surgeon this may be life and death (or a fire fighter, or a pilot for example), for everyone else this could at least mean a poor customer experience for our clients, or the reworking of a job at a later date. Two improvements spring to mind with this problem in mind. 1 - using checklists can make life a lot easier (so when you are pushed for time you don't need to rely on your mind!). 2 - appropriate time should be given to a task and scheduled accordingly (or deferred if possible - should there not be enough time). Business does go quickly - but reworking the same problems time and time again is even slower. Look at the areas where you find mistakes occuring. If they are due to people rushing the job the

Business improvement - just stop and think!

One of the simplest things we can do if we want to improve our business is to stop and think. Just stopping to reflect upon what we are doing can give one of the greatest impacts we can have within our own business. When we take a look at what we are doing we are able to see activities and arrangements that don't lend themselves to being the best possible way. These areas for improvement become more obvious when we take the time to stop what we are doing and take a step back from the (hectic) day-to-day. 'Does it work?' is a great question to ask when we step back - does it work well? By taking the time out to ask this question you will most likely find opportunities to improve leaping towards you. This is not hard - it just takes the discipline to periodically stop and think about what we are doing. Smartspeed Consulting Limited BESPOKE BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT | LEAN TRAINING | OPERATIONS TROUBLESHOOTING www.smartspeed.co.uk

Do you want a productivity boost?

One item of conversation that crops up time and time again is that of wanting a boost in productivity. Projects get delayed and don't seem to move, let alone the piles of paperwork on your desk that seem to build up from normal working; these all detract from our ability to be productive. Well, there is a simple approach to improving productivity. It can give a one time boost, or can be used on an ongoing basis to maintain higher levels of productivity. It's quite simple and all to do with 'keeping your house in order'. Write a list of everything that you think you need to do to get all of your tasks / projects back on track. Resolve to sort out this list and focus on clearing as many items as possible. In fact don't stop until you do clear the list. When you have finished you will be in a position to tackle new jobs and hence become truly productive. The list that was holding you back was stuff that should have been done already and therefore a case of obliga

What is your job?

Many people spend their days working without truly appreciating what their job really entails. I'm sure that you have seen other people work really hard at what they are given (or have chosen) to do, and yet aren't producing results of any real merit. Most jobs are designed for a purpose - to add value to a specific process or client, they are there to make the process or client experience better. If you are familiar with Parkinson's Law (that effort expands to fit the time available) you will see the countless unnecessary tasks that fill the days of many working people. Jobs that do not fit with the value that the organisation is trying to generate, and do not help anyone to deliver meaningful results. Not understanding current work content and how this generates value to the end client is crucial if we are to spend our days doing something that is useful, profitable and enjoyable. Does your day-to-day work deliver the results? Smartspeed Consulting Limited &#

A lack of sequence

We all know that our projects and our tasks are a collection of steps. We take time to map our work (looking for improvements) and then find that productivity does not increase as a result. Could it be that we are reviewing the wrong areas? Could we be better off by doing something different that just mapping what we think we do? Sometimes the improvement that we need is at a very lowest level within the organisation's efforts - in the day to day activities, not necessarily the strategic ones. How we file our work, how we decide when to give the information to the next stage of the process and the format of the information can all have big impacts in the productivity of our work area. When we don't understand what the best sequence is for our work we find ourselves not being as efficient as we could be. What is the right sequence for the work in your business? Can you engineer the handovers and sequences of work so that you can become more productive in your work? H

Take advantage of down time

Busy busy busy are our days and yet there is always the opportunity to get more done if that is required. There are many tasks that can be run at the same time as others, effectively getting two things done at once. Looking for these opportunities to piggy back other activities can add a further degree of productivity to your day. Of course, you also have the opportunity of jettisoning tasks that yield little value to your cause (or your stakeholder's) and have less to contend with in the first place. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

How do you remember to do everything?

Pretty much everyone has a huge stack of items that they need to do. When seeing the amount of confusion that this can cause it raises the question of how do you remember everything that you have to do. At most people's disosal are existing systems that can be used to capture all of this information. Whether this is a CRM system, email, paper or something else there is one thing that is certainly true. If we keep it only in our heads thenwe risk a continuous state of confusion. If this situation applies to you then the following considerations may help you to enjoy more productive days: - find a way to get your list of tasks out of your head on an ongoing basis. - decide how you are going to prioritise your activities. - keep your lists up to date and maintain a flow within your list, flush tasks when they stagnate (either do them or remove them from your list if no longer relevant). Keep your brain working at full tilt through better organisation of your list of tasks

How do you work out your priorities?

When faced with a massive list of tasks that need to be completed, and let's say that some of them will affect the ability to improve your businesses, how do you choose the right task to start with? I have seen many justifications for people choosing what is considered a real priority - that one thing that must be completed first, and in many cases there was no rationale behind the choice. If you ever find yourself in this situation then I offer a simple consideration to help you find the most important activity to focus on. Evaluating your task list in terms of urgency (or deadlines) and impact (the benefit of doing the work versus consequences of not doing the work) can make the top task stand out, hence making it an easier decision. Try it and see how you get on. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' http://www.smartspeed.co.uk/

What do you really want?

Have you ever been to that meeting where various issues get discussed and consensus is achieved, yet the actions don’t seem to reflect what was discussed? What is the reason for this, and how do we overcome this problem in the future? In many cases the level of information is not sufficient. Time that passes between the agreement of the action and its execution can be too long, allowing the gist of the action to change. Having a slightly higher level of information can make a difference in that the accuracy of the action can be improved. We’re not talking about huge increases in information, just that little bit more that can help give the exact outcome you’re looking for. So how can you proceed if you are faced with this situation? Confirm the action with the people responsible so that clarity is present (so that only one outcome can occur) and help them to schedule their activity so that the task gets done sooner rather than later. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For W

Struggling with routine tasks?

With so many day to day tasks required to complete our jobs it is hardly surprising that some items don’t get completed when urgent projects appear on our desks instead. The day to day gives way to the fire fighting and unique most times. The use of a timetable is one way to coping with your daily (or routine) tasks, but often the rigid nature of a timetable means that it can be discarded in a matter of days when the other items get in the way (that spur of the moment meeting, that customer complaint, that colleague who has phoned in sick etc..). How can we create a way forward that is more flexible to cope with both the erratic demands on our time and the stability of routine tasks? You could consider a ‘start of shift’ approach with a list of tasks that need to be completed and an ‘end of shift’ slot so the tasks that didn’t get completed at the start of the day could be completed at the end. You could timetable parts of the week into our diaries, once we had worked out which

Are you getting the most out of your software?

There are so many things you can do with your business software and yet how many of us can really make the software work for our business? Just as so many people leave their formal education and don’t continue learning we do the same with our computer programs. We learn enough to get by, in most cases, and then don’t progress. Occasionally we could dip into the help menus and see what stood out as interesting, ask other people how they use the software (for tasks that take a long period of time for example) or search the web for ideas to improve what we do by researching better methods. If you used a small portion of your time at work to find better ways to use your software you could face a big improvement in productivity over the longer term (if not immediately), so why not start today?   Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' http://www.smartspeed.co.uk/

The return of checklists

When we sit back in our chair in the office and review what has been taking place during the day we sometimes find ourselves wondering how much better we could have done things – don’t we? One of the tried and tested ways to make the working day more effective and more efficient is the use of checklists. Whilst we have probably realised this for ourselves the issue of concern is how we (and our colleagues) stop following the checklists so easily – how do we make checklists that stick? The simple answer is to create more effective and more meaningful checklists than we had previously. If you recall the continuous improvement cycle you can see how this fits in – we tried it one way and it didn’t work – so let’s try it a bit differently. If you start with areas of your organisation that keep failing you will be able to create checklists that may be warmly greeted. If it helps people to reduce their running around and reduce hassle from customers then there may well be an inc

USPs? Is this service design?

There is a lot of talk (constantly) about what is your USP. This is an important marketing concept about the uniqueness of your service offering, but an observation is that most businesses state what is currently the most unique thing about them. What about the service as it could be? What about the niggles that people face when engaging with your type of service? Could a revised approach to how you deliver your service set you apart from the competition? What could be your USP? Can you engineer a new way of delivering your service and become even more unique? Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk