What is Continuous Improvement?
More than anything, continuous improvement is a mindset. It’s a way of thinking that means accepting that you can always get better at the things that you’re doing. Once you’ve accepted this first point, the next thing continuous improvement requires is an approach to actually perform continuous improvements on the things you do. This is
Aligning Key Attributes to System Outcomes
Aligning key system attributes to system outcomes is one of the most important parts of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of your business systems. Once you’ve identified the desired ultimate outcomes of your business and have broken your business down into systems, you can start aligning the pieces within a system to the desired outcomes
System Alignment in Your Business
One of the biggest sources of waste in a business is the misalignment of process steps, system outcomes, and desired outcomes. When things are misaligned, everything takes longer than it should. This costs you more money to get things done, makes things slower, and reduces the ability to scale your business. Alignment of process steps
How Can a Business Make More Profit?
I talked earlier in the week about when to use systems thinking in business. One of the outcomes you can achieve by paying systems thinking is to increase profits. I want to dive deeper into that today. Profits is a word that is used in different ways, so let’s start by defining profit. Profit is
When to Use Systems Thinking in Business
After folks start to learn the ins and outs of systems thinking, one of the next questions asked is “When can I use systems thinking in my business?” Before I get into the answer, let’s do a quick recap of what systems thinking is and what a system is. Systems Thinking is using a “systems”
The Four Most Important Systems for All Businesses
This week we’re looking at the Framework for Systems Thinking in Business. I want to highlight the four most important systems for any business to have. As you might have heard me say before, these systems are in every business, no matter what industry or what size. If you don’t have these systems, then you
A Systems Thinking Approach to Business
When I first started working in the corporate space as a sales engineer, I realized quickly that I would need a common way to look at very different businesses. As a sales engineer, it was my job to go in and close deals while laying the technical foundation for the project management work that followed.
Connecting Accounting Systems with CRM Data
As your business continues to grow in complexity and your systems grow with it, you want to consider how your systems connect to other systems. In the case of accounting systems, one of the most important connections you’ll want to ensure happens is connecting accounting data with the data in your CRM (Customer Relationship Management).
Accounting Systems for Entrepreneurs
Happy 4th to all my American friends! This week, I’ll be covering accounting systems. This is one of those topics that, depending on where your business is, will make your accounting system look very different. If you’re just starting out, it shouldn’t take you more than a few hours to get completely sorted with accounting.
Using Trello for Process Management
Earlier this week, I mentioned using Trello as the core of a system to manage processes. Today I’m going to cover how to set up Trello in a way that helps you manage processes. If you want a refresher or need to catch up on this week’s topic, go here. Before You Open Trello You’ll
Small Business Process Management Systems
This week I’m going to cover another subset of Knowledge Management: Process Management Systems. Process management is about setting up the right system or systems to manage the information about your processes. This includes documentation of how processes work (or should work), the development of new processes, tracking of process instances “in flight”, and business
Using an Impact Effort Matrix for Prioritization
I’ve got another matrix for you today that you can use to help prioritize what you should be working on – the Impact Effort Matrix. Just like the Eisenhower Matrix, the Impact Effort Matrix can be used to prioritize work on any level. Use it to prioritize your day, week, or month. Use it to