Recently for Software Contracts I have gone through our entire process, documented it and streamlined it. It amazes me that every time I go through a process we still will always find a better way. I would like to go through how you can do this yourself.
The beginning – define the overall outcome
Today’s topic is defining your entire process outcome. We need to think about where we want to ultimately end up before we plan the journey. Ask yourself, what does your business set out to achieve? Try to give your outcome real business outcome; to earn money is a rather nieve outcome. How many slogans have you heard that say “we want your money?” Every process must have an outcome before you start. You need to be perfectly clear of where you are going otherwise you will loose focus and your process will become inefficient. Think of the outcome as the “destination” and the process as the journey.
For example the overall outcome for most contractors is to have a full time-permanent contract with their customer. Or a bank will probably have an outcome of the customer fully investing all of their funds into the bank.
A well respected business will not actually have the outcome as the last process. Usually the second last process of a business will be to follow up on the goods or services. The last process will be to go back to the start and try to secure more business with the same customer.
So if you are a well respected business, your outcome will be the third last process. If there are processes that you expect to follow, you need to change your outcome to the last or third last process.