Trying to juggle your time in a business to make a change is one thing. Knowing all of the steps of the change is another challenge, however. If you don't know, and can't communicate, all of the steps then you run a high risk of not seeing the improvement through.

I had a fascinating / terrifying personal experience very recently that had relevance to a meeting I had this week... about Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). A few weeks ago I was diagnosed as having a detached retina. Thankfully I live near to a superb hospital and they worked their magic on my poorly eye (and yes, I got to watch them as the whole procedure was done under local anaesthetic...). Which brings me to my conversation about SOPs.

Can that be true? Can developing a business routine really help to drive the performance of a business? For many businesses, the answer is 'yes'!

Also available for iPad. Improvement plans can be overwhelming for many businesses. On top of the day to day activities that you need to complete, the 'continuous improvement' plan can easily be left to one side. After months of being busy the improvements don't happen and eventually something else will take priority and the opportunity to improve risks being lost.

One topic of discussion that I find most beneficial for my clients is getting them to move their thinking from transactions to processes. Businesses are full of transactions; products being bought and sold, items being manufactured and distributed. And of course there are other essential tasks like paying the workforce! When we get lost within the hurly-burly of transactional work, we can lose sight of the overarching business process. This process is what we need to focus on, in order to improve how the organisation performs.

When your business takes on a new production order one of the immediate challenges is to ensure that all of the information you need to start the job is present. I call this 'making the unknowns known'.

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...