With the right tools, managers and lower-level decision-makers can quickly look into operational problems, check out trends, follow up on hunches, and act quickly to improve work processes.  
These 'smart business' tools will help you examine your important business processes for strengths and weaknesses, and show how waste and inefficiency creeps into work and how you can remove it.

TOOLS FOR CHANGE

Doing Your Homework

If you are to avoid falling into the trap of applying a symptomatic rather than fundamental solution to your process problem, it is vital that, in so far as possible, improvement decisions are based on facts, rather than intuition.

This step requires discipline, especially on the part of team leaders and facilitators. As the result of the enthusiasm and expectations raised during brainstorming, some team members will be impatient to get on with the business of finding and implementing a solution. Some will have prior conditioning nudging them to 'rush to action'.

Various analytical techniques may be used to help you validate or eliminate ideas on your list.

Click here	Fig. 1 - Flowcharting An exercise that allows you to discover weaknesses in a work process and identify possible improvements in it.
Click here	Fig. 2 - Customer Model To find out what people working in a process need from each other to do a good job, and where they require better service.
Click here	Fig. 3 - Cause & Effect Diagram For identifying and listing all the possible causes of a problem you may have. Similar to the 'Why-Why Diagram' discussed in the previous section.
Click here	Fig. 4 - Check-sheet A simple statistical tool that measures the frequency of things that are causing a problem.
Click here	Fig. 5 - Pareto Chart Ranks the causes of problems in a process in order of their importance. Allows us to concentrate on those few major factors that cause the bulk of the problem and worry about the rest later.

Choosing Among Alternatives

In deciding which alternatives you'd like to pursue, and in what order, remember to think in terms of two factors:

• ATTRACTIVENESS - the appeal of an idea from the customer's perspective - the external customer or internal process worker, or even the organisation itself. (The solution is worthwhile only if it adds value from a customer viewpoint in terms of suitability, acceptability, quality, cost and delivery).
  

• CAPABILITY - your ability to implement the solution given your resource constraints and other operational priorities.

Think also in terms of project costs, benefits and financial returns. By considering the hard project costs and cost savings, as well as intangible benefits, you can quickly zero in on the most worthwhile opportunities on your list.

First: Rate opportunities by Attractiveness. Measurable, or somewhat measurable benefits affecting return on investment may include:

-	Time saved in producing reports
-	Operating efficiencies such as shortened production cycle, improved customer response time, speedier order fulfillment
-	Lower capital investment from process improvements such as healthier accounts receivable, or better product defect detection.
-	Improved customer service and satisfaction, and therefore higher revenues from repeat sales and add-on services.

Intangible benefits, whilst difficult to quantify, usually provide the greatest and fastest payoffs:

-	Improved operational and strategic decisions from having better and more timely information
-	Improved employee communications and job satisfaction resulting from lesser work loads and greater sense of empowerment
-	Improved knowledge sharing
-	Higher brand profile

Second: Rate opportunities by Capability. Consider actual costs as well as the availability of critical resources.

For the cost component, you might include:

-	Cost of new equipment (eg. computer hardware) vs. cost of retaining or upgrading existing equipment
-	Time costs and expenses for staff designing and implementing the solution
-	Staff training and retraining
-	Cost of hiring external specialists
-	Marketing costs
-	Cost of equipment downtime

Key resources might include:

-	Sufficient factual data to support decisions
-	Supportive internal culture
-	Available finance
-	Available qualified human resources
-	Ability to protect (patent)
-	Calibre of existing technology

Third: Create an Opportunities Scorecard. To build the scorecard, draw a matrix (as shown) on a whiteboard or with a charting tool. Number the various improvement opportunities (or assign a brief description) and then place each into the appropriate square. Based upon their position within the matrix, decide which opportunities to pursue, which to defer, which to discard.

 

WHERE TO FROM HERE?

We hope you find the simple problem-solving tools and techniques we've described very useful in discovering opportunities for improving your business.

However, you are only at the beginning of a never-ending journey. Improving work quality involves much more than knowing how to use these few tools.

It involves changing attitudes to work that may have developed over many years. It means challenging beliefs that we may have accepted without question. It requires new knowledge of the systems, processes and procedures of the organisation and how we go about improving them. It will need careful planning and preparation, and perhaps advice from professionals working in the field.

Good luck!

Tip #2:  Keyboard Shortcut Alt + TAB Here is another FREE helpful hint that you can use to improve your efficiency on the computer. You can use the shortcut Alt + TAB to switch to any active window or application. To switch to the next active window press and hold down the 'ALT' key, while pressing the 'TAB' key.  If you do not release the 'ALT' key a windows selection screen will pop-up and by pressing the 'TAB' key more than once you are able to switch to any available window or application. You'll find this tip very useful in conjunction with last months tip which was the 'Exit' tip (Click here to refresh your memory).  With these two shortcuts you can jump to any application and exit all with the use of keyboard shortcuts.

 

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