We all know what “corrective action” is, right? If you don’t, it’s really easy. It’s an action you take to eliminate the root cause of a problem (or nonconformance), thereby preventing — or reducing the likelihood of — the problem’s recurrence.

So, define the problem. (Well, see, it’s like this. Our skater was ahead — I mean “way ahead” — in the longest of the long-distance races. It’s, like, six miles. And with nearly three-quarters of the race gone, his opponent’s nowhere near him. He might as well be in another building…or another country.)

Doesn’t sound like a problem to me. (I was about to get to that. It’s at that point that our guy’s supposed to switch lanes to the outside. Only our coach says, “INSIDE!”, and our guy GOES inside, like he’s told. And because he didn’t switch lanes, our man’s DQ-ed.)

DQ-ed? (Disqualified. He had the best time, but didn’t win the race. We had the best man, the best coaches, the best training, best nutrition, best staff, the fastest track…and we have nothing to show for all that. No winner, no medal, no endorsements…nothing.)

And why was your man disqualified? (Like I said, the coach said “go inside” and he went inside. The coach made a mistake. So did our skater, I guess.)

Why did the coach tell your skater to go inside? (He wasn’t paying close attention…he was distracted…he was confused, somehow.)

Why did the skater do what the coach said? (He trusted the coach. He wasn’t paying attention, either.)

Why weren’t they paying attention? (I can’t say for sure. Maybe they were so far ahead, they got a little careless.)

See what we did? Recognize the “Five Whys”? We got down to a possible root cause. I say ”possible” because we rely on an individual’s focus, memory and biases. If we subject several people, including the skater and coach, to the “Five Whys”, we get a somewhat balanced result.

Now that we’ve identified a root cause, how do we eliminate it? Better yet, “What does this have to do with MY business?” For the answer to these and other questions…

…stay tuned.

Thanks to those of you who’ve expressed interest in the upcoming beta test of our policies and procedures management software. We’re making adjustments to the system and expect to release it for testing shortly.

We’re still recruiting testers for the policies and procedures management system. As a beta-tester, you’ll have unlimited access to the system during the test period and you’ll have the option to continue using it once it’s released to the general public.

The application will be web-based, so no installation is required. You’ll be able to set up other users in the test period so you can share policies and procedures. You’ll see firsthand what a great benefit this is. We plan to charge monthly for a certain number of seats, or licenses.

Your web app will come loaded with a set of Bizmanualz policies and procedures. In addition, potential testers have told us they’d like to upload their own procedures and supporting documents. They say they like the idea of a web-based application, because it leaves in-house technology resources free to support other needs. What would you do with Document Management Policies and Procedures Software?

Test Our Software Now - Get the Features You Want Later

Early testers will help us select from a long list of features planned for development. By participating in the test program, testers are likely to get the features they want sooner.

If you’re interested in taking part in this beta test of the Bizmanualz policy and procedure management system, please call (800-466-9953 or 314-863-5079), e-mail, or leave a message on our web site. Let us know:

Q1: Please provide your full contact information, including your name, company name, work title, address, e-mail, phone number, and website address.

 Q2: How do you currently use policies and procedures?

 Q3: Why are you interested in participating in this test?

 Q4. Today, how do you manage your documents; are you using software, network storage or a manual system? If using software, which software by name are you using? Roughly how many policies, procedures and supporting documents might you wish to manage in a software repository?

 Q5: Is there anything about your current policies and procedures software and/ or processes that you wish you could change or improve?

 Q6. What is the approximate number of employees in your entire organization___, and in your department or component___?

 Q7. How many would need to access the system; how many: Authors?___ Editors?___ Reviewers?___ Browsers/View-only access?___

 Q8: What do you plan to do with policies and procedures in the next 30 to 60 days?

When we get your responses, we’ll contact you to arrange for an introduction to the software. Prefer to answer the above questions in survey form? Click here. We hope to hear from you soon. Thanks for your assistance.

As Chris Anderson wrote recently, document management systems (DMS) give you several advantages right away — security, cost savings, easy retrieval, and compliance.

I’d add a couple more advantages, at least in the short run. When you subscribe to the soon-to-be-released Bizmanualz document management system, it’ll come pre-populated with Bizmanualz policies and procedures.

You could download policies and procedures and load them onto your local computer network (for example, locate them on a local server). But, then the documents are organized in a basic hierarchical format. You have to somehow build in the access and version control; otherwise everybody has access to your documents. They can read, write to, and delete them without your permission or knowledge.

You could send an e-mail to “All”, saying that “Manufacturing procedures are on the ‘M:\’ drive, in the ‘Procedure’ folder. Don’t change anything without telling me.”  That’s going to work, right?

On the other hand, when you use our online document management system, you’ll simply send a link with login information.  Procedures, records, and rights to use or edit them would be managed within the web-based system. Deployment — and control — become very easy.

When you use our online DMS, the information comes pre-loaded, pre-organized, and rights-managed. The documents can’t get lost, and you don’t have to pull your hair out sorting through multiple versions.

Why is a Document Management System better than a Shared Drive?

Storing and sharing records on your local network is like having an electronic file cabinet. While that’s easier in many ways than a paper-based file system — because you can access it remotely (saving you steps) and quickly and you can easily back up your information — it’s not a great leap forward. You haven’t improved the process — you’ve merely replicated it in a different form.

True, as long as you can put your finger on your compliance records — the part of your system that proves your company complies with some standard or regulation — you’ve got one aspect of your business under control. Beyond compliance, though…are those records helping you manage your business? Can you easily tabulate information contained in the records and produce visual charts and graphs, showing you and your colleagues unusual behavior, or trends?

In the “shared-drive scenario”, the best you can do is once in a while collect information, dump it into a spreadsheet, and chart it. But, if you keep your information in an online DMS with reporting capabilities built in, you can generate and view reports in real time, as your coworkers are entering data into the system. And, you decide who has permission to enter data, read reports, and so on.

At Bizmanualz, we share the following sales report real time across the company on our on-line system. Everyone can see how sales are doing, and what the most popular products are. We can see trends as they develop while there is still time to react to them to affect real-time improvements.

At Bizmanualz, we can see trends as they develop while there is still time to react to them to affect real-time improvements.

And, when you want to revise policies and procedures, the DMS not only helps you to organize the development and review processes — it automatically performs version control and minimizes risks (like documents disappearing).

Do You Want to Take Part in a Document Management System”Beta-Test”?

Our developers plan to open up the Bizmanualz Document Management System to organizations like yours. Soon, new customers will access their Bizmanualz policies and procedures online, using the DMS.

Would you like to participate in a beta test of this system?  Please post your comments below or contact us at our web site, and we’ll let you know when you can try our online Document Management System for yourself, before it goes on the market.

Thank you for your help.

We sometimes hear from small business owners who wish to replicate their successful business and expand to one or more new locations. They often say that they “…need someone to come and package up (their) business from head to toe so we can expand.” That’s what they say — but is that what they need?

Most companies that expand successfully do so with a combination of:

• Researching and documenting “best practices“;
• Process documentation, in the form of well-written policies and procedures;
• Customized employee training; and
• Implementing a quality management system (QMS)

so they get consistent results across all operations.

After a few e-mails back and forth between the small business owner and Bizmanualz, the gravity of the situation — their “replication strategy” — becomes apparent. The process of documenting best practices, implementing policies and procedures, training employees, and implementing a quality management system is no small undertaking — any one of them alone would be daunting, let alone all four. While the owner’s first inclination may be to have someone to come in and do it, seldom are they in a position to budget for it.

Nor would it be advisable, in most cases. For most of our customers, existing staff — labor — is the largest cost, by far. When you dig down for what the owner really wants, it’s to enable the current staff to achieve the desired growth without spending more money than they’re already spending on employees and related expenses. Given our customer’s practical concerns, our approach has evolved into guiding and enabling growth, not sending in a “hired gun” to do it for them. We guide growth through training and workshops, and we enable growth with our products and services.

Saving Time with Pre-Written Policies and Procedures

Our pre-written materials save you time by giving you a starting point and a framework. But, in the case of the business owner seeking growth, he’s asking, “Which procedures do I need to customize, why are they important, and once I’ve customized them, how do I know they’re working?” These and other questions are answered in our two-day roll-out training.

In our Implementation training, we help you find the answers you need and help select the right procedures to sustain growth. That way, your staff can build the best-practice procedures you need.

But wait! There’s more! With the training, you get a year’s worth of phone consultations. Once you’ve taken the Implementation training, pick up the phone and ask us anything you want. Contact us, or download a one-page flier about the roll-out training.

The training will show your team how to build — and sustain — a system of best practices for growth. We’ll help you select, modify, and apply our procedure templates to improve your current operations, making it cheaper for you to provide your service to your customers. Not only do you make your operations more effective and more efficient — saving you money and increasing your profits. In this tough economy, you’re better able to answer price challenges from competitors.

Supporting your Growth and Expansion with Software

Our customers have taught us that when their businesses expand geographically, they often face challenges in coordinating, controlling, and distributing their policies, procedures, and best practices among their locations. That’s why Bizmanualz is currently testing a new software platform that will help you handle these challenges. Once this platform is available, you’ll be able to rent access to our software platform and upload your procedures so that when you’re ready to expand, all your locations can access controlled releases of policies and procedures, as well as other key documents.

Furthermore, you’ll pay only for what you need! Billed monthly, our web-based software will be particularly cost-effective for our small-to-medium-sized customers. You’ll get the convenience, control, reporting, and smooth operations that you want, with none of the hassles of maintaining the software in-house. It will come pre-loaded with your Bizmanualz policies and procedures. All you’ll need is an Internet browser.

If you want to help us test our upcoming web-based policies and procedures management software release, please comment below or contact us via the Web. Our job is to help you grow efficiently and with as little risk as possible. Share your growth challenges with us, and we’ll reply with ideas and products to help you.

Business continuity management — more commonly known as “disaster recovery”, even in the present day — used to be about worst-case scenarios.  That is:

“What is the worst thing that could befall my company, and how do I ensure minimal to no disruption of the company’s operations if that happens?”

Aftermath of 1906 San Francisco Quake

“What could happen” has traditionally centered on such events as:

• Natural disasters (fire, flood, storm, earthquake);
• Disasters of the human kind (terrorism, rioting, looting, etc.);
• Major utility outages; and
• IT system problems (malware attacks, hardware failures, etc.).

While the likelihood of such a catastrophic event is believed to be very small, its impact - if it occurred - would probably devastate the business, causing it to fail.

As computers have insinuated themselves into every facet of every type of business, and the importance of alignment of strategy and operations has been realized, the scope of “disaster recovery” has broadened.  More complex recovery systems have been devised to address companies’ needs on a more comprehensive basis.

However, we’re still focused primarily on disaster recovery — assuming that only the worst will happen – rather than using a truly comprehensive, risk-based approach to crisis and continuity management.  Instead of dwelling on the most unlikely of possibilities, we ought to be more concerned with:

• What threats are more likely to take shape than others?
• Which of those threats, if manifested, will have the greatest impact on the company, which will have the next-greatest impact, and so on?
• How will the company act to prevent those problems or minimize their effect?

I’m not suggesting that your company has to completely give up on the doomsday scenario.  However remote the possibility of a cataclysmic event, you want to be prepared.

I am saying that your business continuity management plan ought to cover the risks inherent in conducting day-to-day business as well as the remote possibilities…things like the current brittle economic environment, or risks to our business structure and processes (e.g., cloud computing, embezzlement, misuse of company information, swine flu).

What do you think?  Could your crisis and continuity management plan take a more comprehensive, risk-based approach? Are you satisfied with your current plan?  Do you even have a plan?

Or, are you counting on the world to end in 2012?  (In which case, I suppose, the whole crisis and continuity exercise is moot.)

Much has been made about the lean benefits of “5S” — Sort, Shine, Set in place, Standardize, and Sustain — over the years it has been a part of the quality lexicon.  Very little is said about the drawbacks of implementing a 5S system.  5S is an exceptional lean system, in theory.  Where it often falls short is in the execution.  Now, I’m not saying that for every benefit of 5S, there’s a drawback.  As designed, it’s all good.  But like they say, “There are at least two sides to every story.”

The benefits of implementing a lean 5S system are huge.  They include:

• The employer’s concern for cleanliness and worker safety contributing, sometimes significantly, to morale…people take greater pride in their company when the company takes pride in its plant, offices, & people;
• The efficiencies gained by freeing up space, improving layout, and optimizing work flow are enormous;
• The potential for increases in productivity when things are laid out so as to maximize efficiency and turnaround time;
• Less time and motion are wasted when workstation layout is optimized, even in an office setting; and
• A well-run 5S system can encourage employees to think about, and look for, other incremental improvements, or kaizens (”baby steps”, Dr. Leo Marvin* called them) as they go about their daily business.

Read about the Toyota Production System (TPS) if you haven’t already.  There’s much to learn about the benefits of 5S in the TPS story.

The shortcomings of 5S are not in the system itself, but in how 5S is applied.  Most companies that don’t get 5S fall short on the most crucial element of all — sustaining.  To them, 5S isn’t a system — it’s an event.

What they don’t understand is that 5S isn’t a one-time-does-it cure, like a pill or injection for a serious physical ailment.  5S is a system, a cycle.  It’s a habit the workforce gets into, like exercising three or more times a week to decrease the likelihood of a “serious physical ailment”.  The company that doesn’t get much out of 5S probably isn’t incorporating the 5S philosophy in its daily routine.  Perhaps they don’t understand lean thinking.

Clearing everything off of everyone’s desk once a year is not 5S.  Having a place for everything and everything (back) in its place, every day — that’s 5S!

5S is sometimes applied rigorously — to the letter — by overzealous, micromanaging types.  They mistake discipline for tyranny.  Taken to extremes, 5S stifles individuality and creativity, lowering morale and productivity.  (Believe it or not, people aren’t inspired when they’re told, “It has to be this way…or else!”)

Some managers don’t quite get the “standardize” part of 5S, either.  Standardizing is about processes and procedures, not people.  When you say every workstation has to have a uniform appearance, that doesn’t mean you have to rob individual work areas of personality.  Limiting workers to “one or two personal effects, not to exceed a certain size or character”, has nothing whatsoever to do with 5S.

Granted, a small number of coworkers go overboard, with their Beanie Babies and their Star Wars posters, ad nauseam.  But, if my boss said, “Get rid of the hockey puck paperweight…oh, and no baseball calendar”, I’d be much harder to get along with than I already am.  (Ask my coworkers.)

In the effort to optimize work flow, maximize efficiency, and gain productivity, sometimes we forget to “build” breaks into the day.  We can’t possibly keep working at a steady pace throughout the workday, even though our machines and our computers can.  Actually, machines and computers need maintenance and down time almost as much as we do.  People cannot “multitask”, either. (Trying to multitask leads to irritability, sleeplessness, and a greater risk of illness, contributes to short attention span, etc. — as “Yogi” Berra said, “You can look it up!”)

The moral of the story is, “Understand and follow the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law.”  Use 5S as it’s designed and you’ll have increased success and a satisfied workforce.

* “What About Bob?” (1991)

You may have noticed that on some of our web pages, Bizmanualz is soliciting your feedback in “Talkback” dialog boxes. On our consulting pages, we invite you to share your “Toughest Process Challenges” and your “Training and Communicating Challenges“.

By prompting you with the right kinds of questions in the right places, we hope to gain a better understanding of your wants and needs and how we can help.  Your responses will help us update our web site so that it better addresses the issues and questions on your mind.

Some of your questions invite engagement — great!  That’s exactly what we’re looking for! We ask only that you limit yourself to one question per web page and give us your name and e-mail address so we can begin a dialogue.  That’s it! You can tell us what you think without leaving the page…even without scrolling.

To date, your input has been instructive and has helped us improve our site. Some of you have continued to correspond with us by e-mail; we plan to add more Talkback dialog boxes on more pages to serve you even better.

Here’s a list of talkback questions and links as of this week (we’ll update the blog with new Talkback links as we add them):

Consulting Services main page:
What is your toughest process challenge?

Procedure review page in the consulting section:
What is your primary documentation difficulty?

Process implementation page in the consulting section:
How do you train and communicate with your team?

Process optimization in the consulting section:
What is your toughest process challenge?

Thank you for sharing what’s on your mind with Bizmanualz.  For those of you who haven’t yet taken part, check out a recent Talkback inquiry on a process training question and our response, taken from case studies.  And, tell your friends and business associates about us!

Among the top ten reasons that managers give for why their company’s policies and procedures don’t work is that “Employees don’t use them.” When procedures aren’t used, you may wonder why you bothered writing them. Did you waste your time? When procedures are written but not used, lessons that have been learned are forgotten. Mistakes that were corrected on paper long ago are made over and over again. Continuous improvement gives way to continuing problems and waste.

Waste costs money.  Yet, when organizations don’t follow their own core procedures, it’s hard for them to know what works and what doesn’t, so improvement evades them. They risk quality problems and customer disappointment. Customers may defect to competitors. Revenue may suffer.

When even core procedures are not used, you risk not complying with health, safety, and environmental regulations. That can endanger employees and gain unfavorable notice from auditors and regulators, further distracting you from using best practices and making continuous improvements.

Why aren’t your policies and procedures used?

When we hear employees say that procedures are getting in their way rather than helping, we usually find that procedures are too numerous, too long, poorly written, hard to follow, and/or hopelessly complex.  Writing and development problems are the chief reason that policies and procedures suffer such deficiencies. (See our web site for several articles explaining how to avoid and overcome procedure writing and development problems.)

How Bizmanualz Estimates Your Policies and Procedures Project

When companies come to Bizmanualz with poorly written policies and procedures, we typically recommend reducing and simplifying what they have today. Typically, we can cut from 30% to 60% of their documentation load, reducing the cost and complexity which at the same time lessens employees’ objections.

We can recommend an approach for your policies and procedures improvement project based on your answers to the following questions:

• How many procedures do you have today within the scope of the improvement project?
• Send us two or three sample procedures in MS WORD or PDF format. Let us know what format you want for the final procedures.
• What industry are you in?
• List the countries in which the procedures will be used. List each of the languages into which the procedures need to be translated (if any).
• Who is the lead regulator for your industry in each of the countries where the procedures will be used? Provide a link to the regulator’s web site and on-line regulations if available. List any other regulators that are likely to review or audit your procedures.
• Mention any quality standards that you are using or plan to use within 24 months.

Pictures and Graphics Help Bridge Cultural Gaps

If the procedures will be used in more than one country, we typically recommend replacing text with graphics, illustrations and pictures. Graphics are interpreted more consistently across cultures, which drives uniform interpretation and more consistent usage of procedures.

Page for page, graphics are more expensive to produce than written material. But a single graphic may eliminate a lot of pages of written material, mitigating the cost of development.  Most companies consider investment in graphics worth-while because:

• Procedures are used more consistently
• Compliance improves
• Injuries and work disruptions decrease.

Your Budget Considerations:

If Your Budget is Less than $10,000 US:

At budget levels less than $10,000 US, we would typically recommend training for your in-house procedure-writers on how to write more effective procedures. The training is similar to our Well-Defined Processes training, but emphasizes authoring procedures. After the training, your in-house team rather than Bizmanualz would apply the principles and update your procedures. Depending on the experience level of your procedure-writing team, more than one training event may be required.

If Your Budget is $10,000 to $30,000:

At budget levels above $10,000, Bizmanualz relieves your team from the production responsibilities, and provides the man-hours and expertise to update your procedures more quickly than most companies can train and do it on their own. At budget levels in this range, Bizmanualz:

• Evaluates the content and format of each of your existing procedures within the scope of the project
• Provides you with our written critique
• Provides a visual storyboard outlining the specific changes
• Drafts the procedures for your review
• Completes the graphics and reviews them with you
• Provides one revision to text and graphics, incorporates your comments
• Completes and delivers the procedures.

Projects above $30,000 are larger projects in scope; they might require deployment in more than one location, translation, optimization, or a lot of information graphics.

Larger projects may include procedure implementation of your procedures with your employees to make sure that they perceive value and use the procedures.  This may include additional buy-in training for your in-house procedures team on how to build and maintain support for your policies and procedures project.  You may need other communications tools such as job aids or videos that are not strictly considered procedures, but which nonetheless help workers apply the procedures consistently.   Process procedures optimization may require implementing lean, ISO or quality systems.

You can control the scope and budget of your project by:

• Controlling the number of procedures
• Working in phases, and reducing the scope of the current phase.
• Creating fewer language translations and limiting the number of geographies where the new procedures will be used.
• Using fewer graphics and more text.

If you would like Bizmanualz to estimate your policies and procedures project, please send us the information listed above under ‘How we Estimate Your Policies and Procedures Project.’ Don’t forget to send us samples of your current procedures. We will recommend an improvement approach that will increase compliance, safety and communication.

Contact: Dan Davison, Dan@bizmanualz.com, tel. (314) 863-5079 x23, Bizmanualz, Inc.

What would you do if you were set in the middle of the Pacific, on a raft, with no provisions, no motor or oars, no navigational aids, and no way to contact the rest of the world?  It’s just you, the boat, and the unending blue above and below.

If you’ve ever been assigned the unenviable task of writing policies and procedures, maybe you can imagine better than your fellow workers what being cast adrift is like.  How many of you were given an office in a remote part of the building (think Milton in “Office Space”), ostensibly to keep the disruption to a minimum, and instructed to develop a set of policies and procedures for accounting, or IT, or (gasp!) the entire company?

And when they eventually pulled the plug on the project, did you feel relief that the misadventure was finally over?  That is, were you rescued, or were you left adrift, watching the circle of sharks — blame, recrimination, etc. — tighten around your little blow-up craft?

Did you feel this harrowing experience could have been avoided, or perhaps produced the desired results, if only someone had given you the tools, resources, direction, and – most of all – the guidance and support of top management before you spent the last six months marooned with Gilligan and the Skipper?

That’s exactly where our Chris Anderson is going with this month’s series of articles on the Process-Procedure Journey.  If you’ve already been to the first article, you’ll remember Chris’s description and map of the Process-Procedures Journey. I’ve reproduced the process map with one minor alteration.

Even a simple map like this might be a huge improvement over your current procedure development process.  Well, guess what?  We don’t even get this much in all but a few isolated circumstances.  (And to the lucky few who’ve gotten what they needed, please tell us what was it like.)

Like a castaway on the raft, it often seems as though we’ve been dropped into the middle of the sea without a sense of where we came from, where we’re going, or how we’re going to survive the journey, let alone get to our destination, wherever that might be.  Too often, we start our journey somewhere in the middle (Template Design or Procedure Writing) instead of at the appropriate starting point (Project Management).

For direction, advice, and tips on how to make your journey a successful one, keep on reading (or start reading) this month’s articles.  If you’d like more in-depth assistance – something tailored to your unique circumstances – please contact us or visit our web site.

Best of luck to all of you.  Smooth sailing!

Dateline: Utopia, Somewhere in the Near Future

In Utopia, we define our business processes as we develop them.  We plan for the inevitable by formalizing many of our processes.  Granted, there are some processes that are so simple, it doesn’t make sense to document them.  Where it makes sense, we document our processes – we write procedures – so that, among other things, we (a) have a baseline for improving them and (b) can train people, should the need arise.

However, we don’t adhere to our procedures so rigidly that we’re unprepared for change.  We review our processes routinely – as we’re in the midst of them, and on a periodic basis – so we know if we’re getting the results we want. This way, we also know if we’re making our customers happy, if we’re staying abreast or ahead of the competition, and if we’re taking advantage of every opportunity.

Some time ago, we were fortunate enough to learn from some of our mistakes.  One of those mistakes which almost cost us dearly was writing our procedures without knowing where we were coming from or where we were headed.  Basically, we were told to document key processes in order to be compliant, so we jumped in to document those processes without a plan.

We didn’t take a look at the big picture, at first.  We didn’t understand that we were starting a continuous journey somewhere in the middle of it.  It was like being set down in uncharted territory without a plan, let alone the proper provisions and tools.

After several unsuccessful attempts to make deadlines and meet other ill-defined or undefined requirements, we came to the realization that we were starting our journey in the middle without a clear view of where we came from, where we were headed, or how we would get there.  Without a clearly defined project plan, our process journey was always arriving at the same destination: Failure.

How many times have you had to document a process and wished you had a map showing “You Are Here”?  Or, wished you’d started with a better plan?