Jan Copley, Attorney at Law
www.copleycoaching.com
Member of WealthCounsel

[Part 3 in a series of 3 articles.]

Now that you’ve decided you need processes in your office and you’ve started to document them, there are two more steps:  implementing and improving your processes.

Implementing Processes.  You may have something written down, but you still have to make sure it works!  Have your team members do a dry run on every new process.  Ask them if the written process is easy to follow and covers all the steps to getting something done.  Make necessary corrections so that someone tackling the task for the first time — a new employee, perhaps — can handle it from start to finish.

Improving Processes.  Processes are not static!  You can learn things from them, including how to do things more efficiently.  After using a process for awhile, visit with your team about it.  You and your team may decide there is a more efficient way to do something.  Keep the lines of communication open so your team members feel empowered to make suggestions for improvement.  Make sure everyone is empowered to observe that something is “stupid” or inefficient, even if it’s done that way because you’ve always done it that way.

Please let me know how this helps you!

Editor's Note:

Read Jan Copley's previous articles The Why of Creating Processes and The How of Creating Processes.