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A Simple Project Management System

Kim Morris — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 05:47:38 +0000

With Kim Morris, Systems Expert, and Business Improvement Coach Issue # 19

In this issue……

A Note From Kim: Stepping out

Business Systemizing Tip: Sill Struggling To Create Systems In Your Business?

Feature Article: A Simple Project Management System

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I'm starting an exciting new consulting project on Monday that will see me working helping a company to roll out a new piece of software that will form the 'backbone" of their business, allowing their customers easier access to services. Projects like this really excite me as this will really make an impact as to how this company not only moves forward in the future, but also how they develop and grow their business to experience better profits and freedom.

Its made me think about what the "core" or the "backbone" of my business is, and how that will facilitate me to achieve what I want. I've come to the conclusion that there is more work to do in that area, because after all, while an employees work may be done at 5pm each day, an entrepreneur's work is all play! I'd love to hear how you recognize what the "core" of your business is and how you stay true to it! Be sure to leave a comment below!

If you're still struggling to create systems in your business, here is an idea you could try:

Choose one repetitive task that you do on a regular basis that you really dislike doing, and doing it just one more time and whilst you're doing it, write the steps down that you take to complete it and make it into a checklist that you can hand over to someone else to follow in your team. If you are your team, this will be a good excuse to get an assistant on board!

When your assistant does the process for the first time, check to see if everything makes sense and importantly ask if they can see where any improvements can be made. Sometimes, all it takes is someone from the outside looking in to help us understand where efficiencies can be made!

My Project Management System

This newsletter article is a little different to the usual and I wanted to include something a bit more grassroots, so, here is an outline of the system I have used to plan my time and to track and manage my business building activities for developing my business.

Project Management Plan

List all activities that you need to do in order to get your business ready to launch.
Identify your project delivery date
Work out how many months you have until your delivery date
For each activity you identified choose the month that you need to do the activity in
For each activity in each of the months, choose the week that you need to do it in
Once you have the activities by month, and by week, you now need to identify an estimated time to complete the activity, and a target date within the week you nominated
Next you will need to identify the milestones, or key activities where you think that it will be a real accomplishment when you have achieved it
On your project plan, highlight your milestones so that they stand out, and now the important bit….
Beside each of your milestone, write what your reward is, for example it might be a manicure, walk on the beach, indulgent food, dinner out etc etc
Next is planning for contingency in your project management plan. For each activity you need to identify if a contingency plan is required in the event that the activity is not able to be delivered.
A good way to do contingency planning is to go through each activity and ask yourself for each one "What would happen if this [your activity] didn't happen", and then rate your answer according to "nothing", "I could live without it" or "I can't launch my business without it". Anything that will prevent you from launching your business needs a contingency plan. A contingency plan, is basically an alternative to what you were previously going to do – a back up plan.
Once you get to this level of planning – I would consider this to be your "baseline" project management plan – your starting point for moving forward.

I did find that several times throughout my building phase, I have had to "crash" my project management plan, because my timeframes were not being met, because I kept adding additional things in, and not getting to the ones on the list.

This is of course good, but what it means is that you must re-evaluate your overall project management plan timeframes, that is, where your activities are sitting in the plan, and whether or not they need to be moved as other things are added in, or perhaps things you had on there initially might even become redundant.

So, in a nutshell "crashing" your project plan is basically stripping away all the tasks and activities that are not critical to the delivery of your project – which is getting your business to a state ready for launching.

So……This is your high level project management plan. As each activity is completed you should cross if off, not delete it. Crossing it off, rather than deleting it is more about the psychology of recognizing how far you have come more than anything. Crossing off is recognition that every time you do it you are getting closer to where you want to be.

Each time you cross something off, include the date it was completed, and the amount of time it took, and compare that to what you had originally estimated. This is just useful to know for future reference in case you have to perform these activities again in another project!

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Kim Morris is a Business Systems Expert and Business Improvement Coach. Kim works with small business owners and entrepreneurs to help them to systemize and streamline their business. The beauty is that Kim uses a unique system that means you as the owner don't have to do all the systemizing yourself. To find out more about Kim's propriety system and learn how you can go from being a stressed out, time poor business owner to having an efficient and streamlined business where you can concentrate on what you love doing and not what you have to do, go to http://entrepreneursystems.

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How To Create Your Master Business System

Kim Morris — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:25:47 +0000

With Kim Morris, Systems Expert, and Business Improvement Coach Issue # 18

In this issue……

A Note From Kim: My Health & Fitness Regime

What's Coming Up: Process Makeover DRIVE System Is Here

Feature Article: How To Create Your Master Business Systems Plan

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This last few weeks has been a series of endings and beginnings for me. I have finished up working with some really great clients as they are now able to manage their systems and business much more efficiently, and new beginnings as I start work with some new clients, and launch the Process Makeover DRIVE System. Its all very exciting and this weekend before it all gets into full swing, I'm getting back to nature with a bush walk up to one of South East Queensland's most beautiful lookouts.

The Process Makeover DRIVE System is here! Keep an eye out in your inbox on Monday 4th July AEST time as I'll be sending out the first official email letting you know where you can sign up for the FREE video training on the Process Makeover System. Here's an overview of this exciting new system:

* Allow you as the Business Owner to find your System Champion easily and quickly which means that you won’t have to do all the systemizing yourself

* Guide you and your System Champion through the process of analysing what is working and what is not working in your business, which means you’ll be able to determine if its a problem or not and assign a priority to fix it

* Establish a link between the Business Owner and System Championwhich means the System Champion will provide regular status reports on the progress of implementing systems and processes.

* Allow you to see where the gaps and leaks are in your business which means you’ll be able to see where there are opportunities for improvement and where you could be saving big dollars, getting more new customers and better focusing on keeping the ones you already have.

* Enable process documentation to be created that will fix the gaps and leaks, which means you’ll have checklists and flowcharts for all your core business processes and you’ll be well on your way to building your Operations Manual

* Give you an at a glance monthly snapshot of your business Key Performance Indicators which means you don’t have to get into the detail of managing your systems ongoing, because your System Champion will be doing it for you.

How To Create Your Master Business System

What is your Master Business System? Well, it is a holistic view of your entire business systems strategy and how all the different pieces of your business fit together. To get started creating your Master Business System you will need to map it out on paper. It will be a strategic document that will help to direct the development and growth of your business. But before we get into the steps to creating a Master Business Systems Plan, it’s important to understand that systems exist in your business at the highest level, and within each system there will be a number of processes. Within each process, there will be a number of steps required to execute it. These steps are your procedures and it’s likely that each step in the process will be a separate procedure and therefore require a separate procedure document, such as a checklist.

First you need to identify the key areas of your business. These could include high level areas such as marketing, operations, fulfilment, finance, and sales.

Once you’ve worked out what the key areas of your business are, you need to identify what things are important to you in those areas – these are called your performance measures. This is where you’re looking to see what you would want to measure and track on a regular basis because it directly impacts the success of your business. For example, some important measurements are: the number of new customers that you get each month, the number of refunds you get each month, the number of enquiries you get each month, the average dollar sales per month, and the average number of transactions per month.

The next stage of creating your Master Business System is to identify the existing processes that you have in your business, followed by the new additional processes you will need to measure the things that are important to your business. Right here what you’re doing is just identifying the name of the processes that you currently have and that you will need. It’s important to note here that a process could have a number of procedures attached to it if there are many different steps. For example a procedure could actually be needed to do each step of the process if it is complex.

After you have you processes identified, you will need to take each one separately and work out the steps for part of the process and determine what procedures you will need. You’ll then need to make a note of all the different procedures required for each process.

Next you’ll need to work out what roles (or jobs) to assign to each of the processes. Its a good idea to work out at a role level who does what so that if the person leaves, that function is tied to a job, not a person. For example you will identify if certain processes are to be done by an Admin Officer, Virtual Assistant, Book Keeper, Purchasing Officer, Marketing Manager etc. This exercise is also useful to clarify if you have things that need doing in your business where you don’t currently have a role (or a person).

Finally the last step is to allocate people’s names to the various processes and to link your performance measures. This way a person will be responsible for performing a role, and the role is responsible for performing certain processes where there are performance measures linked to it.

Creating your Master Business System Plan is not a quick or easy process. But it is a worthwhile one and one that will help you to clarify what you’re actually doing in your business and more importantly, WHY you’re doing it.

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Systems insider Newsletter – How To Create A Marketing Calendar

Kim Morris — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 09:23:49 +0000

With Kim Morris, Systems Expert, and Business Improvement Coach Issue # 17

In this issue……

A Note From Kim: Free Flowcharts

Quick Tip: How to create a Marketing Calendar

Feature Article: Simple Systems To Make You A Better Leader in Your Business

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I'm so excited this week because I have discovered a new tool that has really had a big impact on my business. I have discovered a free flowcharting software that has allowed me to create simple flowcharts that my team can use, which means I can hand over some of my marketing tasks, and customer related activities, allowing me to focus on getting new business and working with my coaching clients. If you would like to check out this fabulous free software click here.

On a personal note, this week has seen me "decluttering and clearing out". I have just loved the feeling of just having what I need and not having all those things around me that I was going to get to eventually. Now I just have at my fingertips what I need – everything else has been retired:-) Clear Desk, Clear Mind! Its worked for me this week!

How To Create Your Marketing Calendar

Some develop their annual marketing calendars near the end of the year, in preparation for the next. Regardless of the time of year, if you're not currently using one now is a good time to start.

To create your marketing calendar you can use an Excel sheet (my preference), a desk or wall calendar, a day planner, or any other tool or system you're comfortable with. How you set it up is less important than that you set it up, and that you use it.

What you might record on your marketing calendar:

1) Specific day, week, or month assigned to each marketing project.

2) Project description.

3) Project cost.

4) Project notes or comments.

5) A rating of the results of each project (A = Excellent, B = Good, C = Fair, and D = Poor).

You don't have to list each task of multi-step projects on your calendar. Instead, you can describe projects briefly on the calendar and list the individual tasks comprising each one on a To-Do list (which you probably keep anyway if you're a productivity minded person).

Or you may assign different tasks of a project to separate consecutive calendar dates. Give priority to proven marketing avenues that pay off best for you, allowing them ample time for completion. Periodically add projects related to marketing avenues you haven't tried before. You may discover some that yield dramatically better results.

Simple Systems To Help You Be A Better Leader In Your Business

To get your business to where you want it to be you simply must be a good leader. You can’t be caught up in all of the day to day activities when you need to be driving your business forward, building it, strengthening it and creating solid foundations that will eventually allow you to extract yourself from it altogether, or to sell it for a handsome profit. Over the years I have seen some great examples of leadership, as well as some not so great examples that left employees directionless, deflated, and without any desire to even see the business succeed. They were there for one reason only – to do their time and get their money.

But this is not enough by a long way. A business will certainly fail if this is all there is. At the core of every great business there is great leadership. So in this article, I’m going to share with youthree simple small business leadership systems I've used over the years that I believe work really well to engage employees in the bigger picture, to make them feel that they are part of something and that they matter – that their work makes a difference.

Small Business Leadership System One:

Ensure that each employee has a position description that contains key performance indicators so that they know what they are responsible for achieving and what they are responsible for in your business. Your employees will be much more engaged in what they are doing if they know what they are trying to achieve. For example, are they responsible for achieving a certain number of sales within a certain timeframe, are they responsible for ensuring every new customer receives a welcome pack within the first week, are they responsible for making sure all quotes are followed up within 24 hours. Whatever the key performance indicators are, there should always be a corresponding procedure so that the employee knows precisely what to do and is then held accountable for making sure it happens.

Small Business Leadership System Two:

Have a fortnightly performance meeting with each of the team members that report to you. These meetings allow an employee to feel valued and important and allow you to stay in touch with what is going on in your business without necessarily getting to hands on. This meeting is twofold. Firstly for your employee to give you an update of what they have been doing, what has gone well, what is outstanding and to discuss any issues and challenges.

This is also the opportunity for you to give feedback on how you think the employee has performed, and to share any comments from customers you have received. This meeting should be a positive experience and if there are serious performance issues these should be addressed more formally through a written warning.

Small Business Leadership System Three:

My third simple system is about rewarding a job well done, and about paying it forward. So, once a month or even once every two months, reward those employees who do a great job and who exceed your expectations. You could even have it tied into their position description, in that if they meet a certain requirement, they will receive a certain reward.

For example, f you operate predominantly online and have a virtual team, each month if they perform to a certain standard, each team member receives one hour of coaching from you to assist with their professional development.

Or if you operate a physical business and have employees on site, it could be that they get to go home early one afternoon, or they get a gift voucher to spend at their favourite store.

Whatever system you implement to reward employees, make sure that they must meet a certain expectation to receive it. To encourage above average performance, there needs to be something to strive for and this simple reward system gives employees the incentive to do more than just the basics.

Key Takeaway:

Create a position description for each employee and ensure that key performance indicators are included. Make sure that a procedure exists for each key performance indicator so employees know what is required.
Hold fortnightly meetings with each of your key team members to discuss the previous fortnight and what has gone well, what hasn’t, and what the issues and challenges were.
Implement a simple reward system to encourage employees to strive to be better that just average.

With simple systems in place you will be leading your team and your business to more profits and a more successful and happy business.

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Simple Systems To Help You Be A Better Leader In Your Business

Kim Morris — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:37:17 +0000

But this is not enough by a long way. A business will certainly fail if this is all there is. At the core of every great business there is great leadership. So in this article, I’m going to share with you three simple small business leadership systems I've used over the years that I believe work really well to engage employees in the bigger picture, to make them feel that they are part of something and that they matter – that their work makes a difference.

Small Business Leadership System One:

Small Business Leadership System Two:

Small Business Leadership System Three:

For example, if you operate predominantly online and have a virtual team, each month if they perform to a certain standard, each team member receives one hour of coaching from you to assist with their professional development.

Or if you operate a physical business and have employees on site, it could be that they get to go home early one afternoon, or they get a gift voucher to spend at their favourite store.

Key Takeaway:

Create a position description for each employee and ensure that key performance indicators are included. Make sure that a procedure exists for each key performance indicator so employees know what is required.
Hold fortnightly meetings with each of your key team members to discuss the previous fortnight and what has gone well, what hasn’t, and what the issues and challenges were.
Implement a simple reward system to encourage employees to strive to be better that just average.

With simple systems in place you will be leading your team and your business to more profits and a more successful and happy business.