I often hear people say that they have systems, but they can’t get people to follow them so today I’m going to give you 7 reasons why systems aren’t followed. I hope this will help you get clear about why it’s important to have systems.

Everyone knows that business needs systems. What do you do when you have systems that aren’t being followed, or when they’re being blatantly ignored? You go and find out why. You ask. It may be one of these reasons:

1. The staff just doesn’t see the point. Sometimes the system is put in for the sake of the system, and not much else. Or the reason is the outcome has never been properly explained. I once saw a system for the way the toilet paper was placed on the roller. It was important to the owner, but the staff thought it was a bit too…detailed.

2. It’s too complicated. When a system gets complicated and convoluted, it generally means that it’s actually a whole bunch of systems masquerading as one. Try breaking it down into a flow chart and then looking at each box on the chart as a system in itself. Or look at the outside systems that may be feeding into it. Simplify it wherever you can. Sometimes you can use checklists as part of a complex system to help people confirm that they’ve done it all. Continue reading →

Welcome to Part IV of Anatomy of a Foolproof System. Today I pick up where I left off last week with steps 4 through 6 of the Six Steps to Effective Business Systems.

The next step then is step 4 – Resources. You list the resources that are required for the systems. It might be staffing, job positions, specific equipment, work space or supplies, or information required to perform the work in the system. You include the quantity of each resources needed to successfully perform the steps in the system.

Step 5 are the Standards and Tracking. The standards are the yard sticks that tell you how well or poorly your system is working and whether or not the results of the system are acceptable, unacceptable, or outstanding.

There are three kinds of standards and they correspond with the three basic parts of the system. The resource, or the input standards, the work process standards and the results of the output standards. Continue reading →

Today, in Part III of the Anatomy of a Foolproof System, I discuss in depth the first three steps of the Six Steps to Effective Business Systems.

There’s a wide range of possible systems from massive manufacturing systems of global car manufacturers to simple customer service systems of small retailers. The six step system design process fits them all. You may need to adjust the steps of the process to fit your particular business. That’s okay. As long as you use all six steps. Adapt this process in the way that works best for you.

The first step, System Identification, has three parts.

• The name of the system. The system name (or number) should say what it is so everyone knows and no one has to guess. Usually the system name reflects the work of the system. A system for writing advertising copy would be called the advertising copywriting system, or a system for collecting money from customers would be named the collections systems. It’s a good idea as you go along to work out a sorting or a numbering system (we’ll cover that in a future blog article). Continue reading →

In this part of the anatomy of a foolproof system, I will discuss the Principles of Systemizing a Business.

• A business is a system of systems.
• To create a system – start with the end in mind.

1. Establish the results the system must produce.
2. Determine what work is needed to get those results.
3. Decide what resources are necessary to do the work.

You must know exactly what result you want to produce and you must be precise about it.

The end result is what is produced by the system. The results come from one system and their outputs and they can be the inputs to other systems.

The work is the processes. The work steps – the timing, the coordination, the standards, people, equipment, and procedures necessary to produce the required results.

The resources are the inputs. The supplies, equipment, time, information, machinery, tools, etc. for the system to operate successfully. Continue reading →