■ · Operations
Systems and procedures: make good work repeatable
If the right way to do something lives only in someone's head, the business depends on that person remembering, being there and never leaving. Written systems turn good work into the normal way work gets done. Write it down once, and everyone wins, including you.
Work on the business, not just in it
In The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber describes owners who spend all their time doing the work and none building the business that does the work. His advice is to build the business as if you were going to copy it many times, like a franchise: every important task documented so anyone trained could do it the same way.
You don't have to franchise anything. But writing down how work gets done is what lets you hire, delegate, take a vacation, use technology and eventually sell.
What's worth documenting first
- Anything done every week or month, like invoicing, the monthly close or payroll.
- Anything that goes to clients, where mistakes are visible.
- Anything only one person knows how to do.
- Anything that has gone wrong before.
■ Find the slowest step
Fix the bottleneck, not everything
Eliyahu Goldratt's business novel The Goal makes a simple point: any process is only as fast as its slowest step. Improving every other step doesn't help if work still piles up at the bottleneck. His approach, in plain terms:
- 1
Find it
Where does work pile up and wait? That's the bottleneck. Often it's an approval, a review or one busy person.
- 2
Use it fully
Make sure the bottleneck never sits idle or works on low-value tasks.
- 3
Line up the rest
Pace everything else to the bottleneck, so you don't pile up more work in front of it.
- 4
Expand it
Only then add capacity: training, software, another person.
- 5
Look again
Once it's fixed, the bottleneck moves somewhere else. Find the new one.
■ Tool
Procedure writer
Write one procedure at a time. A good test: could someone new follow it without asking you a question?
A procedure is a checklist with a reason
Written procedures are how you stop drift. When the right way is written down, a shortcut is visible as a shortcut, not quietly becoming the new normal.
Write each procedure for a stranger. "The office manager opens the client list…" It forces you to include the steps you do without thinking.
When something goes wrong, check the procedure first. Was it missing, unclear or not followed? Each answer has a different fix.
Start with the procedures that cost the most when they go wrong. You don't need fifty on day one. You need the five that matter most.
Go deeperCase file, step-by-step how-to, common mistakes and questions to work through
Case file: The two-week vacation that finally happened
A fictional example
Elena owns a property management company that looks after 120 rental units. She hadn't taken more than three days off in six years. Every lease renewal, maintenance request and move-out went through her, because "it's faster if I just do it."
She decided to take two weeks off the following summer and worked backward. Over four months, she wrote down the eight processes that came up every month: new tenant move-in, move-out inspection, maintenance requests, rent collection and late notices, lease renewals, vendor payments, owner monthly reports, and emergency calls.
She wrote one procedure every two weeks, using the procedure writer. For each, she had her assistant, Rob, do the task while following only the written steps, without asking Elena anything. Every time Rob got stuck, that was a missing step. The move-out procedure went through four drafts before Rob could do it alone.
She also found a bottleneck. Maintenance requests all waited for Elena's approval, even small ones. She set a rule: Rob could approve any repair under $300 on his own and tell her afterward. Requests that used to wait two days were handled the same day.
In July, she took her two weeks. Rob called once, about a burst pipe, which was already in the emergency procedure, so the call was to tell her it had been handled. When she returned, she wrote one more procedure: "How to hand off when the owner is away."
How to write a procedure that actually works, step by step
- Pick the process that runs most often or costs the most when it goes wrong.
- Do the task once while writing down every step, including the ones that feel obvious.
- Write in short, numbered steps, each starting with an action word: open, check, send, record.
- Add what "done right" looks like and the common mistakes.
- Test it: have someone else do the task using only your written steps. Every question they ask is a missing step.
- Store it where people will find it and assign an owner to keep it current.
- Set decision limits so routine choices don't wait for you, like "approve repairs under $300."
"I'd like you to do this task using only these written steps. Please don't ask me anything while you work. Instead, mark every place you got stuck or had to guess. Those marks are exactly what I need to fix."
Common mistakes and how to fix them
| Mistake | Fix |
|---|---|
| Writing procedures from memory at your desk | Write them while doing the task, step by step. |
| Trying to document everything at once | One procedure every week or two. Start with the most important. |
| Procedures nobody reads or updates | Give each one an owner and review it when something goes wrong. |
| Keeping every approval with the owner | Set clear decision limits so routine work keeps moving. |
Questions to work through
- Which three tasks would cause the most trouble if the person who does them left tomorrow?
- Where does work pile up waiting in your business? Who or what is it waiting for?
- What decisions could you hand off with a simple limit, like a dollar amount?
- When did you last take two weeks off? What stopped you?
- Which procedure, if written this month, would save you the most time?