The Stressed Out Business Owner s Policies & Procedures Toolkit Companion Handbook

Transcription

1 SA M PL E E FR E The Stressed Out Business Owner s Policies & Procedures Toolkit Companion Handbook By Iain Dooley from The Procedure People, a Working Software Company iain@workingsoftware.com.au (outside Australia) procedurepeople

2 Table of contents 1. Introduction 2. Training videos 2.1 Your first procedure 2.2 Process Management: Creating New Products 2.3 Process Management: Creating New Roles 2.4 Process Management: Staff Guide to Maintaining the Documentation 2.5 Staff Management: Creating a New Generic Hiring Procedure 2.6 Staff Management: Hiring Some to Fulfil a Role 3. What do we want out of our Policies & Procedures? 4. Your first procedure 5. Think about your Policies & Procedures as a user interface rather than a knowledge base 6. As much as possible, put your Policies & Procedures at the POINT OF ACTION 7. Make the LAST STEP of each process become the FIRST STEP of the process that follows it. 8. Use checklists to replace supervision or approval 9. Your company culture should aim to REDUCE communication and INCREASE accountability 10. You need to test your procedures by hiring new people as much as possible 11. Foster a culture of COLLECTIVE OWNERSHIP of your Policies & Procedures 12. Frequently Raised Problems (FRPs) 2

3 1. Introduction This document is a handbook companion to the Stressed Out Business Owner s Policies & Procedures Toolkit. Along with a link to this handbook you will have received a link to your very own install of our toolkit and an invitation to a free 1 hour Skype consultation to help you setup your first procedure. We ve prepared a series of training videos that take you through the basics of how our Policies & Procedures toolkit works. These are linked below. The rest of this document consists of strategic and tactical advice that will help you on your way to creating a more sellable business. 3

4 2. Training videos 2.1 Your first procedure Process Management: Creating New Products 2.3 Process Management: Creating New Roles 2.4 Process Management: Staff Guide to Maintaining the Documentation 2.5 Staff Management: Creating a New Generic Hiring Procedure 2.6 Staff Management: Hiring Some to Fulfil a Role 4

5 3. What do we want out of our Policies & Procedures? The goal of our Policies & Procedures is to create a more sellable business (even if you don t want to sell it). There are 2 reasons for this: Until you can sell your business, it s not really an asset (just a job you own) and; It s good to know that, if your circumstances changed, you would be able to sell your business for a profit (rather than a firesale that left you inadequately compensated for all your hard work) Good Policies & Procedures need to be 3 things: Used: if you write processes and they re not used rigorously for everything in your business, you ve wasted your time. Improved: if your processes aren t being continually updated, their days are numbered. You have to m ake sure processes are continually improved if they re going to last long term. Interconnected: you want to avoid boomerang processes. A lot of the time, you write processes so you can get stuff off your plate, but as soon as the work is finished it ends up back on your desk. Your processes need to chain together so your business runs like a machine (then you have a truly sellable asset) 5

6 4. Your first procedure At the beginning of this document there is a link to a video which shows you quickly how to create your first procedure, however I would like to make some more detailed notes here about that process. 1. Figure out a highly repetitive task you have to do all the time, preferably every day. Start small, and start easy. Even if this task only takes you 30 minutes to do each day, that s fine. This could be something like managing your calendar, making follow up sales calls, creating a todo list from items tagged in your , sending out invoice reminders to clients who haven t paid yet; anything. 2. Next time you do this task, write down everything you do, as you do it, into a process page in your first product (as described in the video above). Don t worry about making it clear or concise or anything. Just dump your brain onto a page. If it s a computer based task you could also just record yourself doing it with a screencast application, or use screen capture software to take pictures to make things more clear. We use Wistia for video hosting (as you can see at the start of this document, it has a handy way to link to videos but keeps them private) and we use Dropbox for linking to screenshots (on OSX we use the Glui app for taking and annotating screenshots: 3. Even if you already have staff, don t start by trying to get them to do this for you. Start by going to one of the following websites, depending on where you re located: odesk (Global), Hire My Mum (Australia), Hire My Mom (USA). Which site you use is up to you. Generally you can find someone a little cheaper on odesk but if you re in the US or Australia you might like to use someone local to you (especially if this is your first time outsourcing work or the work involves access to sensitive information). 6

7 4. Post a job and hire someone to run through the task. Make it clear to them that this is the first version and that whilst you re not expecting them to be mind readers, they should do their best to read the instructions thoroughly before asking questions. The quality of questions you get back from this person as they go through your first process will be a strong indicator of how efficient they are: if they constantly say they re confused and want to jump on Skype to chat about things, get rid of them. What you re looking for is someone who can effectively read and follow instructions, and ask intelligent questions when something isn t clear. 5. As you answer their questions, have them update the document. They should also be able to improve the formatting of the process to make it more clear. The reason I suggest you don t do this with your existing staff if you have them, is because it can be very disruptive and threatening. You want to introduce change gradually and get your ducks in a row before you start making changes internally. 7

8 5. Think about your Policies & Procedures as a user interface rather than a knowledge base 8

9 6. As much as possible, put your Policies & Procedures at the point of action 9

10 7. Make the last step of each process become the first step of the process that follows it. 10

11 8. Use checklists to replace supervision or approval 11

12 9. Your company culture should aim to reduce communication and increase accountability 12

13 10. You need to test your procedures by hiring new people as much as possible 13

14 11. Foster a culture of COLLECTIVE OWNERSHIP of your Policies & Procedures 14

15 12. Frequently Raised Problems (FRPs) 15