The Streamlined Business Blog is all about getting—and keeping—Operations Under Control by implementing good business systems, processes, and standard operating procedures. Our staff experts blog regularly on a range of topics including: Operations Mapping approaches, systems-based management, standardizing operations, calculating costs and ROI for systems improvements and a whole lot more.
Operations Manual
How smart do you have to be to assemble an IKEA shelf?
So you just bought a shelving set at IKEA and go home to set it up. You crack open the box and the instructions. Can you put together without a degree in Engineering? The IKEA assembly problem is so common it’s gotten to be a joke! Chances are you can muddle through the instructions until READ MORE
Share Your SOPS How You Need To, When You Need To
One of the key elements to making policies and standard operating procedures actually useful is to share your SOPs with your employees. While this sounds obvious, a lot of organizations create old-fashioned SOP documents and employee handbooks only to store them in a binder somewhere that lives in a file drawer with the extra pens READ MORE
What’s the Right Level of Detail for Procedures and Work Instructions?
Two common mistakes people make when writing policies and procedures involve opposite sides of the same coin—Not enough detail or Too much detail. Some policies and procedures fail because they are so vague and generic that people can’t use them. Other policies and procedures are so long-winded and complex that people can’t follow or understand READ MORE
Tip – Avoid Jargon in Your Employee Manuals
Jargon are words and phrases that are common to specific jobs and industries, but that many people won’t understand—also known as “Geek speak”. Examples of jargon are everywhere. For a fun list check out The Original Hacker’s Dictionary. Here’s our favorite new term from that list: “BOGOSITY n. The degree to which something is BOGUS READ MORE
Add a “Help Line” to your Policies and Procedures
There is a simple and powerful step you can take to dramatically increase the usefulness of your standard operating procedures, Operations Manuals, and Employee manuals. You can make it easy for employees to get help or ask questions by adding a Help Line. If you build a “Help Line” into your procedures and you READ MORE
Get Expert Help to Complete Your Procedure Manuals Project
There’s another reason your project for developing a company procedure manual or for bringing your ancient policies and procedures manuals up to date might be stalled and stuck on the back burner. As we began in our earlier post 5 Ways to Finally Get Your Procedure Manuals Done, sometimes projects bog down because the task READ MORE
Set a Goal Date to Finally Get Your Procedure Manual Done
Is yours one of the many organizations that wants to develop better standard operating procedures and operations manuals, and maybe even have started projects to bring your corporate policies and procedures manuals up to date, but—despite your good intentions—the effort always seems to take a back seat to other priorities and nothing ever manages to READ MORE
Divide and Conquer to Complete Your Operations Manuals Quickly
As we began in our previous post, 5 Ways to Finally Get Your Procedure Manuals Done, often organizations really want to develop standard operating procedures and improve their operations manuals, but their goal never gets past the “good intentions” stage. There doesn’t seem to be enough time or resources to complete the entire project. Well, READ MORE
Start Small and Build on Your Success
Expanding on the points from our previous post, 5 Ways to Finally Get Your Procedure Manuals Done, if you have been wanting to develop standard operating procedures and improved operations manuals for your organization, but keep getting bogged down, maybe you are trying to take on too much at once. Many organizations want to review READ MORE
5 Ways to Finally Get Your Procedure Manuals Done
We’re amazed at the number of people who really want to develop better standard operating procedures for their organization, who clearly understand the benefits of standardized procedures and who even have management mandates and funded projects to develop or update their policies and procedure manuals. But–despite all that–never manage to actually do anything about it. READ MORE