Getting work done the right way
Chuffed Solutions has been successful in helping teams get work done and deliver value to customers. One way is to work with them in organising time and tasks so they are empowered to create the best work they can. It can be easy to put the responsibility of good work on individual members of the team but the fact is that leadership is the real source of providing an environment that is efficient, optimised, and productive.
The first part of the journey is to find your systems, not processes that’s a whole other subject, but a contained unit that receives some input, does work, and a result pops out the other side. This is our measuring stick for everything,
- making the input smaller is efficiency
- increasing the output is optimisation
- the ratio of input to output is productivity
Now, look at what those are and derive a metric that is easy to understand and communicate.
Assumptions=Risk, and that leads to waste. This is because assumptions come with acting on variables that you may not be able to control. With that, the more you have is an increase in something not delivering in a way you expected, and at a point, you end up putting more in through course correction than the work itself. Avoid this by always making sure your tasks have dependencies and tag assumptions as such, then proceed by verifying them starting with mission-critical tasks.
Whether in a team, department, executives, or a third party, an action or decision that takes too long leads to blockers because of waiting on something, or more commonly someone. To remedy this, add the blocker as a separate task in project management tools e.g. Accounting to send data. By separating the completion of a task from the person blocking it, you can identify the bottleneck and avoid it.
It’s a common occurrence to have to go back and snag a lot of unfinished work. In getting deep into the interdepartmental process, Chuffed has seen not only things being lost in communication, but over-communication which leads to people writing reports that never get read or reporting on things more than once. To fix, create a space in a tool like Notion.so to create a single source of truth, and build a culture that is not only documents first, but everyone has a responsibility to read. Departments need to write one report for everyone.
Whether it be physical or digital, products have to end up in the hands of consumers in a timely and satisfactory fashion. This is the core of your success in output, and what can be observed is that poor processes can lead to challenges in delivery, friction is the most powerful force in the world. Have a process review system in place. Break down each operation and connect the nodes, then ask “is this as quick and effective as possible”.
At the end of all products, there are customers, but every issue that arises only serves to add another task somewhere else. It has been common for Chuffed Solutions to find that low-quality assurance and shipping as not complete leads to servicing and support bloating to a size larger than the product creation itself. Avoid this by having a rigorous testing procedure and QA team that know what customers are expecting
Growth is a part of success, with it you find new customers, but more importantly, deliver more to existing ones. A problem can arise when the mechanism for delivery cannot cope with the requested output. This is a problem of not scaling correctly. To make sure you can always meet demand, overcompensate with any team related to delivery, if you are looking to ship 100,000 units in a year structure your logistics to ship 150,000.
What Chuffed has commonly seen is how many stakeholders can slow down progress and require a greater input for a given output. This is less of “too many cooks” and more misaligned expectations and goals. To remedy, write a vision statement for all work that needs to be done, and get ahead of the conversation by making everyone understand and be clear on it.
Knowing the difference between leadership and management can define success in many situations. Being a good leader is to hold the guiding light in the unknown darkness. Productivity needs as higher output as possible, but the right balance is key for that. Make sure that teams are working on short, medium, and long term goals in the right ratios, I go for 4:2:1 respectively.
As the adage goes, use the right tools for the right job. Chuffed Solutions has a wealth of experience helping companies select the right solutions for them. It’s common that existing in one industry leads to using software for a completely different one. Understand your industry-standard software and the market(s) they operate in. Take a heuristic approach and score each option against weighted criteria, adding “remaining with the current solution” and “building an in-house solution”.
In conclusion, it’s easy to work in a way that can increase input or decrease output, but by being mindful of these areas and measuring each part of the operation you can ascertain where the improvements need to be made.
If your company needs help with optimisation, efficiency, or productivity then contact us for a free 20 minute consultation