A few years ago, and much to my wife’s horror, I took a book called The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber with me as holiday reading. In this book E stands for Entrepreneur rather than Electronic, and through examples it demonstrates the value in having business processes documented. The idea is that as the fledgling company grows, you can employ staff who are smart and can get things done, point them at the procedures manual and they should be able to get on with the job with a minimum of time consuming supervision, something the growing business doesn’t have a lot of. This frees the business owner from doing jobs in the business he or she shouldn’t be doing and lets them get on with working on the business. Part of the reason that some of the fast food franchises are just about identical the world over is because each franchisee has an operation manual explaining exactly how to run the business. It is one of the best business books I’ve read.
Unwittingly I’ve been producing procedure manuals in various forms for years. When I was rallying we had a ring binder with laminated instruction sheets for various jobs on the car. If we needed to swap parts or make adjustments during service time we had detailed instructions on how to do it, so that the work was completed in the shortest possible time.
A Paul Gorman seminar I went to in 2006 had a guest speaker from a company that hired broadcast quality video camera equipment from their office in London to world locations. Kits were tailored to the needs of the individual hire and sometimes, generally due pressure of time, essential bits of the kit were left out. Fed up with checking each kit personally, the managing director instigated complete documentation of the company’s processes and added checks at various stages of despatch to at least reduce the number of mistakes being made. Once this had been completed ownership of the process documentation passed to the individuals involved in that part of the company. If they could improve the process they did, and documented it. The quality perceived by their customers soared - the equipment was identical, simply the correct equipment was being delivered. The company ran smoothly and when a kit sent out failed, a task normally handled by the managing director who was away, the staff member simply located the process documentation, followed it and the crisis was over by the time the managing director appeared in the office.
I highly recommend reading Michael Gerber’s book, even for large companies. It was a real eye-opener for me and now we document every process Operations Support does. Our documentation is simple and effective, a well indexed word processing document with plenty of screen shots and photographs.
If you decide to create a procedures manual, I have a few pointers:
- The aim of documenting the procedure is so that pretty much anyone could pick up the document and complete the process, so write accordingly. Consider a glossary if jargon or abbreviations are commonplace
- If possible have someone who isn’t familiar with the process try out the documentation - you’ll soon find out if there are any bits that need further explanation
- As in out video camera example above, the point of the documentation is that it’s followed. There really is not point having it if it’s not used on a day-to-day basis. Consider having check lists to help verify that the process has been carried out
- Make sure the procedures are available to all the staff members that need them. Obviously you need to be careful with some areas of the company, for example accounts. Print copies of the procedures and keep them up to date, so that you are not reliant on the computer being available. Laminating is a good idea if there is a chance that the sheets could get mucky, as I did with the rally car book
- Involve your development team in the documenting process. Make sure they understand they are part of the process and they have a say in it. All you are doing is making it easier to get things done, there’s no performance measurement involved
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