Ever considered how a simple set of Checklists can help your team and your new hires execute more consistently?
High stakes industries such as aviation and healthcare, where lives are at risk and complexity is high, have been using checklists for decades to manage the basic human tendency to overlook key steps in a given process.
As we shared in our original article covering Dr. Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto …“What do we do when expertise is not enough? And What do we do when even the super-specialists fail?” It happens countless times every day.
Most organizations have their own set of standards, their “way” of delivering on their promise. Your company’s “way” of doing things is what makes you unique and different. It’s why your customers choose you.
Defining your company’s “way” of doing things is essential for long term growth, resilience and ultimately survival. It’s about scaling both your tangibles and your intangibles – your company’s shared values, principles, methods, systems, training, tools, and style – your “x” factor. “Systemizing” your handful of core processes allows your entire team to achieve the consistent outcomes everyone is striving for…without all the reaction, fire-drills and chaos so common in today’s hyper-paced work environments.
Great organizations focus on systems – repeatable processes that allow ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things leveraging and amplifying the company’s best innovations and thought leadership.
It’s a simple truth…people come and go, experience and knowledge goes with them. Products and services evolve, customers change, needs change, the market changes. Your value proposition and your “way” of doing things also changes, yet your core operating principles and your high standards rarely change.
How is your company capturing, supporting, and adapting its mission-critical systems, processes and quality standards that make your business work?
Or, are your processes undefined and your outcomes inconsistent? Does anyone on your team really know “how” any specific process should run every time to deliver the experience your customers want and expect, every time? Is it one big black hole?
Either way, all you need to do is simply decide to get better and commit to building better systems. Carve-out one or more designated roles on your team, your champions of organization and empower them to get to the root, diagnose and make things better – by eliminating waste, streamlining your workflows, automating more, capturing & teaching your company’s “way”.
Many are using powerful work management tools like Asana however tools alone will not save you. How you use the tools can – the ‘way’ you define projects & assign tasks, the way you communicate, the way you plan and run meetings, the way you manage feedback and hand-offs, the way you document your requirements, the way you report. It all matters. The good news is, you can start small and expand. One fundamental change can make a massive difference. Simply start…with clear intention.
Back to Checklists. One process and one checklist is all you need to get started.
Steps for creating more consistency and predictability in your organization:
- List the handful of core processes that make your company run consistently. Give each process a name.
- List the key steps and substeps of each process. Keep it simple. Don’t over-document. Focus on the outcomes and allow flexibility for others to improve.
- Gather input and decide this the “right” way we should do it every time until someone comes up with a better way. And they will, then edit accordingly.
- Compile your checklists into a single place, add short tutorials, scribes or any other support material. This becomes your company’s internal Checklist Hub. – Source: EOS Worldwide
You can use our simple Checklist Worksheet and Checklist Template as a starting point. We’ve included a short video walk-through on how it works. Then, once you’ve built-out your checklists, migrate them to your workflow tool of your choice and layer-in the automations after you’ve done the foundational work of defining your “way”.
“Checklists can help defend against failure in complex tasks, even for experienced professionals. They act as a cognitive safety net.”
– Dr. Atul Gawande
