For Small businesses, not being able to replicate processes without having the boss or the office administrator around is one of the major productivity sappers that can be experienced. That being said , its also pretty easy to resolve using some simple tools and by first making the decision that its something that is central to running your business.

Tool no. 1: Flow charts

MS Office programs such as Excel, Word, Powerpoint or Publisher all have common Flow charting symbols in their toolbars – Look for “Basic Shapes” in the shapes menu. You can also download some simple Charting programs cheaply such as RFFlow . The main shapes I have used in the past are :

You can use these basic shapes and add the specific information inside them to illustrate any process that happens within your business. They are easy to create , easy to display and understand. See the example below for a simple quote request process.

Tool No.2 - How to’s/Procedures

Create simple how to and procedure documents in Word and use the snipping tool program ( in MS Vista and Windows 7) for screenshots of software programs functions or any item on your PC. As they say ( cant remember who now!!) a picture paints a thousand words. An example of a simple instruction for a process in a software system is shown below.

If you dont have the “Snipping tool” program there are a number of programs available to download such as Snagit or Fastone. You can also use the PRTSC key on the keyboard, open MS Paint or Word and paste the picture of the screen and edit to size.

Using these tools enables all staff to create very quickly easy to read and understand documentation.

Finally, put these documents in a place where people can find them – Centralize the filing structure and make it easy to find. Tell everyone that there is a procedure, its not a secret!Even at its most simplest , if you can implement some standard processes you can save many hours and a heap of frustration.Make a promise that you will spend a half hour each day/week doing some documentation of a process.

So to summarize:

1. Make the commitment to improve yours and your teams productivity.
2. Try some of the tools and practise using them so you can create documents quickly.
3. When you have someone ask, “can you remember how we do ……….” , this is your alarm to say ,” yes, but lets create a work instruction for it – NOW”. Because even though you may need to put aside another job for 15 minutes now , you’ll have that extra time next time and next time etc.
4. Keep reminding ALL your staff that these documents exist !

Save some time, then spend it doing the things you love!

Tim