By Charles Blakeman
An Operations Manual (small, simple!) is a necessity for every small business. If businesses spent a few hours putting one of these together instead of spending weeks on Business Plans that never see the light of day again, they would be much more successful.
Edward Deming, the father of modern quality and customer satisfaction had an 85/15 rule "85% of a worker's effectiveness is determined by the system he works within, only 15% by his own skill."
This is just as applicable to a one person company as to a 50-500 person company. If I'm operating without systems, I'm being as ineffective as possible.
Why Don't We Create Systems for Ourselves
Only big businesses need systems — My company is small enough to not need all that "organization". See Deming's statement above: we couldn't be more wrong. Operating without systems makes us reactive, but most importantly,when we're "winging it", we create inconsistent experiences for our customers, ourselves, and our family. Inconsistency is one of the keys to failure. Operate without systems and you are putting your business, your family, and yourself at great risk.
Creating systems sounds too complicated — I don't have the expertise. If the system you create is not simply a reflection of what you do every day to create the best result, your system is not a system, it's just a manual sitting on a shelf.
Keep it Simple! The simpler the better. One page of written step-by-step procedures for each process (Business Development, Operations, Purchasing, Accounting, etc.) should be good enough for most businesses to start with. You can add things you are doing as you find them missing from the System. Simple, Simple,Simple it has to be usable on a daily basis.
