You’ll hear that a successful business is built on a foundation of clearly defined values and goals, as well as the ability to follow through on these goals within the constraints of a determined time and budget. This concept has been a crucial element to business success since the advent of industry and manufacturing.
As the nature of business shifts to more agile businesses (such as small manufacturing job shops or creative agencies), or freelance gig economy workers, the idea of process engineering has started to go by the wayside.
We get it. In the moment, it’s easier to just do it yourself. It’s too time consuming to write down procedures and work instructions. For that matter, what’s the point? You might only do this process once.
Oh, and don’t forget the generational change. The rise of the millennial generation (and now, generation Z) as the predominant percent of employees is bringing big change to the old methods of business and project management, too. We want flexible hours, more creative license, looser job descriptions, and increased responsibility.
So, rather than adapting the old styles of business management to fit the changing work dynamic, younger organizations seem to be all but aborting a sense of process design (or building a Business Management System) in favor of ‘winging it,’ ‘leaving space for creativity,’ or the excuse that ‘yeah, we know we should do that, but we don’t have time.’
Then you have local government, which, as an ‘industry,’ never really adopted business management systems to begin with. When presenting the concept of what we call a GMS (government management system) to local governments, they’ll most commonly nod their heads and totally understand the benefits, but respond, “we need to do this, we just don’t have the time to do it right now.” So, government continues to rely on institutional knowledge which may or may not be based on law, efficiency, or effectiveness. (Hint: Often not.)
That’s why I often say: You’re too busy not to take the time to build processes. Even one person managing a single project probably needs a system, let alone if you work in a team of any size.
What is a Business Management System? Just to name a few elements, here’s some fodder:
- Documentation Systems
- Documented Procedures & Work Instructions
- Documented Roles & Responsibilities
- Code of Conduct
- Project Management Solution
The fact is, your organization will have a culture. The question is whether you’re going to take an intentional step towards managing what that culture becomes. I’m encouraging you to take an active role in shaping it into what you want, rather than continuing to wing it, or base current practice on yesterday’s practice.
What are the Advantages of a Business Management System?
- Records – for customers, future employees, institutional memory
- Scalability – allows future staff to do tasks otherwise limited to those with institutional knowledge
- Clarity – no misunderstandings when it comes to what and when things are supposed to be done
- Time Management – spend more time up front documenting something so that in the future it takes less time for you and/or employees
Process is absolutely critical for organizations that are either spread out or use a lot of contractors or part-time employees because it takes too long to teach them the culture of your organization.
The Hard Part
It’s hard to motivate people to actually implement and stick with a management system, particularly for small companies or old institutions like government. Our hats are off to anyone that attempts it.
Make no mistake. It takes a lot of discipline and hard work up front to get the procedures in place and people acclimated to the new culture. Whenever a company changes the culture, it’s hard to discipline and hold others accountable at first. Things seem to keep getting put off. But take it from someone who has started a half dozen organizations and has had hundreds of employees: It’s well worth it.
