Spending time designing how everything should work within your organisation is important. Generally most businesses have a solid idea of functionality and design of their website. They are particular about every aspect, how it works, the customer flow, technical features. Most business owners understand these areas well.
But in an organization that stretches from growth, other parts tend to be less well thought out and designed. And the parts covered, come from a view of need.
There is nothing wrong with this approach, lack of time is the usual cause. But I request my fellow entrepreneurs, to stop for one moment. Take a day from your schedule, just one is required. And sit down and type a design plan. Similar to a business plan, but not for investors, not for the bank, not for customers, but for you personally.
It should be a simple but detailed enough document. No fancy graphics, but a simple to-do with reasons and covering what resources you have available for certain tasks.
There is not a one method to do this. Whatever suits your brain, the way you view a business. The way I approach this is to focus first on customer viewpoint, create an analysis of the underlying processes, with a final assessment of the matching resources.
For example, 3 main areas that I try to cover:
This is basically your entire service. Every aspect that is experienced by your potential and existing clients. From initial communication, to the service and after service care. These also happen to be your core services that actually have an effect on your bottom line.
From understanding every aspect of your presentation, you can now focus on design of each task. Involving breaking down each task, into a subset of processes. A step by step process, given you the birds eye approach, to see what resources are required to make each detail very smooth and easy on the business.
At the time, you may not have the adequate resources in place to improve all at once. Aim to prioritise aspects that are required to improve a task/process. Usually starting with pre-existing human resources, including yourself, are easier on the budget. It just involves slightly longer hours.
In theory, improving an aspect, will allow your business to move forward and grow a little bit more, thus helping you get the required resources for the next improvement.
This plan would allow me to follow a structure, save time by concentrating on only aspects that improve the presentation and service of a company. In an ideal world, logically following a design plan, would move the company into a secure foundation which to scale from.
And once complete, keep adding to the plan and improve. If you start new areas of your business, start with a design plan first. Then follow accordingly. It will show through your business and your customers will be very happy.
