I visited a client the other day and they were looking sheepish when I asked them how their new process was working. They'd changed the process . They thought I would have been disappointed. The new process was even better; why would I have been disappointed? If a process stays still then it probably isn't being given any attention. Processes should evolve over time if they can be improved upon (and most can). So, as I told my client, if you aren't changing your processes over time then it means that you probably aren't looking at them (objectively) on a regular basis. I should finish this post off by stating that changing and innovating your processes needs to be done in a controlled manner. Changing parts of a process without a thought out approach can lead to disaster, but not looking at them at all - that's nearly as bad! Giles Johnston Author of 'Business Process Re-Engineering', a practical plan to improve business perfor

Time moves fast. The phone rings, the emails land and there's your boss with your next assignment. Oh yeah, and your customers are still wanting their orders shipped on time. Another week passes and your business performance is still at the same level... How do you get out of this situation? The most effective way I have found to get out of this cycle is to punctuate your working week. A small segment of the week where you decide to exit normal working and decide to look objectively at your business. Armed with nothing more than a few good questions you can identify and improve how your business operates. With a little application you can quickly find that your business can transform allowing you to spend less time in a frantic state. It might be painful the first couple of times, to carve out a piece of the week, but if done properly this time will be paid back many times. Worth a look I'd say. Giles Johnston Author of 'Business Process Re

A good friend, and colleague, of mine confessed the other week that he had only just started to use ‘to do’ lists. He was almost evangelical about the use of such a tool. I thought that pretty much everyone uses a tool like this. I then thought about this for a bit longer, and I have met lots of different businesses that don’t capture all of the items in their working lives. They may have a main system, such as MRP / ERP , but it’s the little things that trip them up. The promise they made to a customer, a report to print off for a senior manager, specific preparations for a meeting.... or whatever. Being able to capture these items, process and prioritise them, and action them is a skill. I have a feeling that a lot of people see just how much stuff is on their lists if they do compile one that they feel overwhelmed. Is discarding the list the same as ‘burying your head in the sand’? I think so. If you have read my book ‘ Office Productivity ’ then you will know m

Having a written plan can be a very useful tool. Just being able to capture your ideas, put them into a sequence and then work on them can make a huge difference to your ability to implement changes . When I talk to businesses I often find that only their big projects make it into a project plan. What about the smaller items, the mini-projects that only have a few tasks associated? From my experience I see a lot of people in business decide that they can remember the tasks, or that it isn't worth writing the tasks down. I suggest that if this is you that you reconsider. I don't think that every plan should be a bit ornate project plan with a Gantt chart; I think that committing your notes to paper is the point. A sheet of A4 with a heading and a list of tasks is all you need to get started. Our days can be busy and tasks can be forgotten. Even the most informal of project plans will likely give you a benefit in your quest to improve your business . G

A factor that can derail progress on an improvement project is a lack of clarity around who is meant to be doing what. When creating a formal project plan this is usually not an issue. You assign owner's to each element of the plan and it becomes crystal clear who is doing what. The problem, as I see it, is when the project moves out of scope into less formal project areas. You know that something needs to be fixed / improved upon that is related to your project, but no one knows who is responsible for that area. This can obviously lead to confusion and delay if it is not agreed. Having clarity around the business of who owns what process is vital. Communicating this formally is incredibly useful. Most times this kind of ownership is linked back to 'roles and responsibilities' type documents. For many people these are not visible documents and so a way around this is to create a family tree (organogram) to map out people's responsibilities. If there ar

If you have read some of Dr. Deming's ideas about total cost you will be familiar with the idea that the idea of the cheapest supplier often hides other costs (re-work, transport etc...). In a process the same can be said of time. If you want to find the quickest way to complete a process then you need to educate your team to look for the total time. Sometimes the fastest way of completing a specific step can cause problems elsewhere in the process. Likewise a slower looking idea can save a lot of time elsewhere. By reviewing the process from end to end you can find better solutions than when you look at elements in isolation. Next time you are reviewing specific parts of your process try to keep them in the context of your overall process and look to make the biggest overall process improvement . Giles Johnston Author of 'Business Process Re-Engineering', a practical plan to improve business performance.

Making MRP Work: Available on Amazon My latest book ' Making MRP Work ' is currently available for free on Amazon, via the Kindle reading app. I spend a lot of my time helping businesses to improve how their MRP system is set up. The book is aimed at the manager who is tasked with making MRP work, or who is being measured on their on time delivery performance and has a system that is in a mess.  The book starts off looking at how to configure key elements of the system and then focuses on the managerial approach of running a system effectively. The main links to the book are: UK - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00E9SHAN4 US - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E9SHAN4 ...or find it directly through the Kindle Store. The book will be free until midnight Sunday (11th August) PST. Giles Johnston Author of 'Business Process Re-Engineering', a practical plan to improve business performance.