What would happen to your business if you became ill for an extended period of time? Could someone else man the shop for you easily? Would you be more relaxed on vacation (or at the very least, take a vacation!) if you knew that the business could be better taken care of while you are away? Have you ever thought about hiring an employee or assistant, but are overwhelmed with the thought of training someone in all of your business systems and processes? Are you holding onto too many tasks that you know you could be delegating, but don’t have the infrastructure in place to effectively delegate without taking up too much of your precious time as the business owner? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you are in need of a business blueprint! It’s time to create an Operations Manual.

What is an Operations Manual and Why Do I Need One For My Business?

Before you started your business and in the early stages, you probably did a lot of planning. Most likely, you were told to draft a business plan, and you may have even done so. Unfortunately, most small business owners rarely look at their business plan after creating it, thereby rendering it meaningless on a daily basis. A business plan is a static document, as opposed to a living and breathing one that serves as a guide to your business systems and processes. Developing systems and taking the extra step to document them is vital to a business running smoothly and automatically. Unfortunately, most businesses are lacking in this area. Business owners get caught up in the daily activities of running the business, and do not take the time to document or blueprint the systems in place. In the E-Myth Revisited, author Michael Gerber sets forth the idea that all businesses need to be “franchised” in the sense that they can run automatically, deliver a consistent experience to customers, and can be maintained, at least to some extent, without the owner’s hands-on involvement. While you may not literally be franchising your business, Gerber’s concept broadly translates into developing an Operations Manual for your business.

What Are the Advantages of an Operations Manual?

An Operations Manual makes it easier to delegate and run your business. However, even if you have no employees, independent contractors, or assistants of any kind, the importance of an Operations Manual should not be overlooked. It provides structure and clarity by helping you examine the big picture and how each part fits into the whole. It is also a handy tool for reminding yourself of your business systems when things get busy and you are overwhelmed. The manual serves as a central location for vital business information, making it easier for you to find what you need in one fell swoop. In a nutshell, an Operations Manual helps promote a consistent experience for your clients, and helps you avoid reinventing the wheel.

What Format Should an Operations Manual Be Stored In?

An Operations Manual can be hand written if that is your absolute preference, but I would not recommend it. As this document is so vitally important to your business, you should maintain it in electronic format. It is easier to revise, send as an attachment when necessary, and be backed up to avoid loss of data. Some clients prefer to create their Operations Manual using a 3-ring binder approach. While this may be tempting, if that binder is destroyed or lost, there goes all of your hard work in creating an Operations Manual. Do yourself a favor and store the manual on a computer (and back it up!) or online at a secure site.

What Should an Operations Manual Include?

An Operations Manual is the manual of all manuals. It can be as comprehensive as you want and need it to be. It should serve as a blueprint of your business for you, your employees, assistants (virtual or on-site), and anyone else that is on a need-to-know basis. The Operations Manual essentially covers everything that goes on behind-the-scenes of your business. Here are some examples of what an Operations Manual may include, but as you develop one for your business, you will undoubtedly think of many more items to include.

* Passwords to all of your online and offline business accounts (be sure to give some thought to maintaining proper security measures);
* List of frequently used business supplies with purchasing/ordering information;
* List of business documents;
* Prospects intake process;
* Client intake process;
* Sample email templates;
* List of all team members and their contact information;
* Procedures for hiring new team members and training them;
* Preparing for client sessions, proposal pitches, speaking engagements, professional association meetings, etc.
* Client follow-up process.

Take the time to draft an Operations Manual. It will be time well spent, and you will reap the benefits of it long after you finish the blueprint.

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Copyright 2009. Lisa Montanaro, “The Solutions Expert,” is Principal of LM Organizing Solutions, LLC, a professional services firm created in 2002 that offers professional organizing, business and life coaching, and motivational speaking to individuals and organizations. Lisa publishes the monthly “DECIDE™ to be Organized” e-zine for the general public, and “Next Level Business Success” e-zine for professional organizers and entrepreneurs. Subscribe today at http://www.LMOrganizingSolutions.com Lisa also publishes the DECIDE™ to be Organized blog at http://www.DecideToBeOrganized.com Through LMOS, Lisa helps people deal with the issues that block personal and professional change and growth. To explore how LMOS can improve your home or work environment, or help take your business to the next level, contact Lisa at (845) 988-0183 or by e-mail at Lisa@LMOrganizingSolutions.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lisa_Montanaro

Here’s a step-by-step guide to the postseason analysis.

1. Form a postseason review team. Because your efforts are directed at customer service, process improvement and potential cost reduction, form a team that can bring different disciplines to the process. While much of the work will fall to contact center management (managers and supervisors), broaden the group to involve a few good reps. Also include general training and quality training, human resources, center scheduling, telecom traffic, IT, marketing, and returns and replacement if all of these areas are within your responsibilities.

Clearly, contact center management drives the process. But this effort should draw on the opinions and input of all. Challenge them to assess how things could be done differently, and make them answer the question, “How can costs be reduced without lowering customer service?” These meetings should occur sometime between mid-January and mid-February, giving you enough time to plan and achieve early results.

2. Review your metrics. Begin by reviewing your key performance indicators and how performance measures up against your standards and plans. The major metrics include contacts per hour; service level; abandon rate; attrition/turnover rate; call-handle time; talk time; after-call work time; contact-to-order ratio; transaction volumes for Internet, phone and mail; non-phone volumes and others. How accurate were marketing’s projections and your projections for calls?

Labor is 50 percent to 70 percent of the contact center’s costs. So it’s important to see how well you performed in terms of staffing-level accuracy, schedule adherence and occupancy percentage.

3. Review hiring and training practices. Labor’s cost, quality and availability is becoming an issue for many call centers, particularly in seasonal businesses where the selling curve is more compressed. Review your advertising media costs and results, and exchange information with other human resource departments. Review your prehiring testing, employee selection criteria and practices. Is there a place for temporary agencies rather than relying completely on in-house hiring? Should more calls be shunted off to outsourced call centers?

From a training perspective, how well did you train the CSRs to take orders and provide customer service? In our experience, there’s a considerable cost ($3,000 to $10,000 per new hire) and loss of time by senior associates to hire and train new CSRs before they’re productive. How can this be improved (number of classes and trainers; develop better training approaches such as e-learning, post-training surveys, length of training)?

4. Evaluate revenue generation. As part of their mission, many contact centers are charged with becoming revenue centers in addition to taking orders and providing customer service. What do your reports show about your success with cross-selling, upselling, outbound selling and increasing the company’s average order?

5. Consider process improvements. What does your quality and call monitoring show about your operation? As you walk through your system and operation, where are the bottlenecks? How can systems be streamlined? What functions and types of information can your system do more easily online? If you’re still processing batches of mail orders, can scanning reduce costs? How can live chat and e-mail management systems improve your operation? Do you need to move to the next level of call-scheduling software?

Curt Barry is president of F. Curtis Barry & Company, a fulfillment consulting firm for catalog, e-commerce, and retail businesses. They offer their clients expertise in business process and order management systems, inventory management systems, warehouse management systems; warehousing and distribution and call center services.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Curt_Barry

Frequently, we make a mess out of criticism. Why? Perhaps nobody ever taught us how to handle it. Perhaps we’ve been on the receiving end of criticism delivered with cruelty or at least minimal tact. We could probably cite many examples of being shredded as the result of somebody’s need to offer us what they called “constructive criticism”. Between lack of acquired skill and a lifetime of poor role modeling we may feel inept in the criticism department. But we don’t have to stay stuck in the quicksand. We actually can learn the ingredients that lead to good, even great outcomes. Here are six essentials:

Clear communication of whatever needs to be criticized:

You must be clear within yourself about what needs to be criticized before you can possibly communicate it to the other person. One way to get that clarity is to focus on actual behaviors, verbalized choices, and/or stated ideas. Avoid the fog associated with your feelings. Criticizing someone based on feelings typically doesn’t yield positive results. Acknowledge your feelings privately first, then deliberately move to the facts. Talk specifically to the person about what he/she said or did and how it is impacting you, the company, and/or others. Be sure to express your concerns directly, in a way the person can understand. Don’t talk in meaningless circles that dodge the issue.

Non-emotional approach:

When in the process of providing criticism to an employee, peer, or stakeholder, steer clear of showing strong emotions. Yelling in anger or crying in frustration is totally unacceptable and shows the other individual that you are out of control. Stay calm. Appear stable. It is okay to tell the person in a reasonable tone of voice that you are angry because he/she went over your head to discuss a certain problem. It is okay to let the person know you find his/her constant laughing during meetings highly annoying. Sharing your personal emotional responses is fine as long as you do it with a level head. It is never all right to use emotion as power over someone else.

Input from the other person:

Begin the conversation by stating your criticism and the reasons for needing to bring the issue to the person’s attention. Then give that individual an opportunity to talk. Invite him/her to explain the situation or behavior as well as additional details related to it. Resist the temptation to interrupt. Avoid arguing against what you hear. Consciously choose to wait until the person finishes his/her side of the story. This takes considerable discipline on your part. Why is it necessary? You could end up learning some fact, some tidbit, some nuance you didn’t know previously that alters your perception of things. At least be open to the possibility. When criticizing somebody’s actions, it’s important to grasp the whole picture before making a final judgment.

Careful choice of language:

Your choice of words during this delicate conversation matters a great deal. How you frame your viewpoint matters too. Stating or implying that the employee is a bad person is inappropriate. Any sort of demeaning language merely belittles you in the other’s eyes. Use “I” statements to start many of your sentences. Say something like: “I am frustrated because you apparently lied to Tom about the status of the project.” Avoid starting sentences with “you”, because immediately this puts the other person on the defensive and the conversation will deteriorate quickly. Through careful word selection and proper framing of your message you can keep the dialogue open. You’ll accomplish a lot more in the long run by doing so.

Preservation of all parties’ dignity:

This can be done by first acknowledging the positive contributions the other person makes to the company before you launch into the criticism. You may say something to the effect of: “I have valued your attention to detail and your willingness to function as a team player over the five years you’ve worked here. These have added much value. It’s unfortunate that today I need to question your judgment about the way you handled the sticky situation with Susan last week.” This approach allows the other individual to hear all of what you have to say, and it demonstrates to him/her that you are fair-minded and not just hyper-critical. There are times when a supervisor has to confront even the best of staffers about something. Shredding outstanding employees in the heat of the moment-or any employees-only works against you. By attempting to preserve the person’s dignity you also preserve your own.

Action steps to move forward:

After you have expressed your criticism and your reasons for doing so and after you have listened to the other person’s point of view, you need to take the conversation to the next level. It’s not enough to stop after each party has shared. You must do something with the information that is now out on the table. Be clear in your own head about what you want to see happen next, but you may want to ask the other person what he/she thinks should happen before you show your hand. Solicit his/her ideas about how to remedy the situation, solve the problem that exists, repair the damaged relationship, restore your confidence in his/her behavior. If you can live with what you hear, consider accepting it as the mini action plan. Don’t insist on your own unless what the other person puts out there is completely outrageous and simply not possible. Why? Getting employee buy-in ultimately creates the bigger win for everyone.

By Sylvia Hepler

Sylvia Hepler, Owner and President of Launching Lives, is an executive and career coach/advisor based in South Central Pennsylvania. She connects with clients primarily by phone with in-between emails if desired. Her ideal clients are senior level corporate executives and nonprofit executive directors who are willing to commit to working steadily and diligently to move from their current status of stuckness to greater clarity, improved self-confidence, increased skill, and deeper sense of purpose. Her mission is to support executives as they get unstuck, reduce unnecessary suffering, and increase balance in their lives.
Ms. Hepler’s background includes: teaching, public speaking, retail sales, freelance writing, and executive leadership of a 14 county nonprofit organization. She has a working knowledge of staff supervision, Board development, Quality Management, SWOTT Analysis, the hiring and firing of employees, mission/vision development, networking, and organizational collaboration. Ms. Hepler demonstrates keen insights into human behaviors, exceptional ability to prioritize projects and tasks, and bulls eye skill around matching appropriate communication strategies with particular situations. Her deep empathy coupled with a no-nonsense approach yields swift, noteworthy results with most coaching clients.
PRODUCTS: Ms. Hepler has written a “Special Report” entitled, “FIVE FATAL FLAWS in EXECUTIVE THINKING”, produced an audio CD on “making change”, and launched a monthly tele seminar series called “Solutions By Sylvia”.
CONTACT:
Sylvia@launchinglives.biz
717-761-5457

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sylvia_Hepler

In other words, the overall mission must be translated into a strategic action plan that is then implemented. It is particularly at the implementation stage that leaders have an outstanding opportunity to build a cohesive team of employees that see themselves as strategic partners no matter what job they hold.

The term “operational responsibilities” can actually be considered the same as “organisational readiness”. The ability of the business to respond to the external marketplace or competition is directly tied to its leadership abilities internally. Leaders can be found at all levels of the organisational structure and play key roles in “getting things done”.

What are the operational responsibilities in question? The reality is they include everything from managing the mail system to reporting final results to the governing board. The specific responsibilities any one business member has depends on their position, whether it is as a project team leader, a department supervisor, or an executive manager.

Taking Responsibility

The overriding operational responsibility is the ability to choose people who can carry out the mission of the organisation. Leaders often are responsible for hiring those who will get the work done on the day to day basis. But it is the leader’s ability to communicate the mission of the organisation in a way that encourages each team member to take personal responsibility for their contributions to the organisation.

Other organisational responsibilities include the following.

* Establishing effective reporting lines
* Delegation of responsibilities and job functions
* Clear identification of goals and objectives
* Crisis management
* Finance and budgeting accountability
* Staff training
* Monitoring of progress in relationship to assigned goals
* Integration of internal functions with outside suppliers
* Resource management

In other words, operational responsibilities begin with team development and then establishes and monitors the processes with best utilise team talents for the purpose of meeting goals. The leader responsibilities can cross multiple functions including marketing, finance, sales and production.

On-The-Job Decision Making

One of the signs of well-trained leaders is the existence of teams with members who are capable of decision making which supports the goals of the organisation. It means the leaders have mastered the skill of being able to fully develop team talent. People are strategically trained to perform their operational duties in a way that always propels the organisation forward as it meets competition head-on.

The ability to strategically manage operational responsibilities is much different than just “getting the job done”. This is why professional training of business leaders can become the critical function which sets one company apart from another. Market leaders do not achieve that rank in the marketplace by accident. They achieve their prominence and success through strategic leadership training to insure operational responsibilities are managed in a way that reflects their importance to meeting the corporate mission and goals.

Timothy Millett, head trainer at i perform, has extensive expertise in performance training, sales training and customer service training. Tim has helped participants from organisations such as SWIFT and UBS achieve peak levels of personal performance. For more information please visit Leadership Training.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tim_Millett

Here are some points to keep in mind when utilizing Six Sigma to improve any product design.

Evaluate Needs

In order to design a better product, companies should concentrate their research on finding out their target customers’ needs. They should also learn to separate customer needs from wants.

Surveys should also include the target market’s views on current products available in the market, their outstanding features and their shortcomings. This data can then be placed in a matrix where the various features of different products along with their corresponding reviews are placed together to ultimately decipher the impact of each product on the target customers.

This will enable the business to achieve specific rankings, which can then be used during the design process.

Some important points to keep in mind during the research phase is to interview people who have used your products along with those of your competitors and ensure that these people are asked the right questions in the right manner and at the opportune time.

Keep It Neutral

Research should not lead but should instead follow. Businesses should ensure that they only interview individuals and note down their views instead of interviewing groups where some views might be twisted due to peer pressure.

Asking the target audience on their views based on the recollection of previous product usage instead of only asking for new ideas is essential, as is trying to establish a pattern by analyzing the conduct of target customers over a specific period.

This will provide an insight into the mindset of the target market – and companies will be able to paint a picture the ideal customer based on this data.

Reduce Defects

As the original mission of Six Sigma is to reduce product and service defects, ensure that your research ends with a resolve to reduce defects and increase the ease and reliability of the product combined with an efficient service backup.

This will result in fewer complaints and will positively impact sales and profits. However, this will also set a new bar for future products, which means that you will need to surpass heightened customer expectations every time you improve on an existing product or launch a new one.

Unfortunately, even though many companies launch detailed research programs and put their products through strict tests, many products do end up in the market with multiple defects and this has resulted in many customers waiting for the market to respond favorably before deciding to buy it for themselves.

This is especially true in the automotive and electronics sectors. Ensure that the new or redesigned product addresses all the issues in research before launching it.

Six Sigma can play a very important role in determining the needs the target market and ensuring that companies bring out the right product at the right time – and that too with the least number of defects, enabling the business to achieve immediate success.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions – Six Sigma Online (http://www.sixsigmaonline.org) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tony_Jacowski

Here are some simple tips to follow in order to avoid a disaster. Be forewarned: these tips sound simple and straightforward but can be very tricky to implement. This is not meant to be a complete set of instructions for managing requirements on any project, it is meant to help you avoid some common pitfalls.

1. Identify the right stakeholders to contribute requirements. The key stakeholders are the ones that will be using the software to conduct their business, the ones who will be maintaining it after deployment, and the business sponsor. Exclude those who wish to influence the outcome of the project but who don’t have a stake in the success of the project. If you’re given a list of stakeholders who should be included, verify that the list includes all the stakeholders.
2. Identify the right requirements capture tools and techniques. You should choose techniques that are a fit for the stakeholders who will be defining their requirements and are suitable for the organization’s makeup. For example, if your stakeholders are a geographically diverse group, techniques such as storyboarding or brainstorming will not work.
3. Work with your stakeholders to capture requirements in plain English. Requirements should speak to some aspect of the business benefit to be derived from the project. The requirement should be feasible (that is they should be possible to code by the development team). They should also be verifiable. To ensure a requirement is verifiable, ask the question: How are you going to test the requirement? If you don’t get an answer to that question, you need to work on the requirement to convert it into something that is verifiable.
4. Define a schedule for the requirements gathering exercise that will allow building to start on time, and then stick to the schedule. Hold the stakeholders responsible for meeting their scheduled deadlines. Make sure the team understands that delivering requirements late will delay the project end date.
5. Identify the approver, or approvers, for the requirements; this is the person, or people, who your business sponsor empowers to speak on their behalf, if the sponsor is not to be responsible for sign off. You will have to hold these people accountable for meeting the schedule deadlines. Don’t proceed to the build phase without the requirements having been approved.
6. Identify each requirement with a unique id. This is the key to traceability. The id should be tracked in the functional specs, design specs, and tests.

These six simple tips build on the project management knowledge you will acquire with your PMP certification.

Now there are correct and incorrect ways to fill in Project Management Reports. Some Project Managers like to fill in the bare minimum of information, whilst others go for incessant detail and write reams. However it doesn’t matter how much is written, so much as what is written.

Where projects are concerned, Organisations need an update on the following:

* Milestones
* Key Issues
* Risks
* Dependencies
* Budget

Now this might appear to be extremely straightforward, but project management is an art, not a science. Sometimes being economical with the truth can be an extremely good idea as it allows time for the issues to be resolved without unnecessarily raising the alarm bells with Business Stakeholders.

The problem is that this often gets taken to extreme lengths by Project Manager’s who are simply after an easy life. With these individuals, being economical with the truth becomes a way of life and soon the problems mount up with the project becoming unachievable, but no-one understanding this until it is too late. After all it is far easier for everyone if Project Management Reports contain only good news to stop Business Stakeholders asking awkward questions.

You might think that this is a far fetched situation, but it is far more common than you may realize. Take the UK’s £234 million public sector C Norris IT System. A recent report by the National Audit Office reported that bad news about this project failed to go up the ladder and that in the early stages, the project was consistently rated as green. By the time it was finally reported as being in Red it was too late to rescue.

Of course it doesn’t have to be like this. Consistently hiding bad news from Business Stakeholders in Project Management Reports is a sure fire way to bring a promising career in the profession to an ignominious end. Thankfully it doesn’t have to be that way.

Learning how to properly complete Project Management Reports, which enable progress to be accurately reported, whilst ensuring the Project Manager is perceived as being in control, is a real art which is hard to learn. The key is knowing what to report, what to highlight and what to focus on. Remember there is no point in sweating the small stuff. The big picture is what counts; not how it was created.

Without their support, belts can quickly become disheartened.

The scepticism that can be found with the announcement of Six Sigma implementation is not limited to employees alone. Upper management is often wary of claims that Six Sigma can radically increase the bottom line of a company; it is hard to believe that a company can save $250,000 per project.

It is even harder to comprehend the savings as the worth of these projects are calculated over a decade, and begin to run into the billions of dollars.

Often management has trouble believing that Six Sigma is any different than other error reduction strategy, or that it will fit in with their corporate mission. Another objection is the cost of black belts and the expertise that they bring to the implementation process.

Well, the only way to address these issues is to have a cultural makeover from the top down. It is imperative that management wholeheartedly embraces Six Sigma and every procedure that will serve to indoctrinate its strategies within the business.

It’s a strategy that is designed and proven to work regardless of industry or company.

Here are some ways you can “sell” Six Sigma to employees and management alike.

• Results will be visible as milestones. First companies will notice financial gains, then employee satisfaction, and finally satisfied customers. These changes are measured by the conventionally perceptible barometer and will generally satisfy even the most cynical skeptics.
• Begin by assessing the corporate culture before deployment of Six Sigma strategies. Understanding where everyone is coming from will help you measure results afterwards.
• Accept that with time, people will become used to the changes. It’s likely that most people will forget they were ever leery about the process in the first place, as things begin to go well for the company.

In order for the deployment to be successful, it must be embraced within the corporate culture. Using the strategies above can decrease resistance and give Six Sigma deployment a good head start towards success.

Look at the FACTS!

Just because something was working before, does not mean that it will work today – particularly in a tough economy. The business climate has changed and business decisions are now being made using a completely different formula. You might call it “survival mode”! Most of the companies I consult with either want to conserve cash, cut costs and minimize expenses.

Every business needs two strategies to thrive in a tough economy. You need a plan to grow your business with new accounts and opportunities that will mature in a sales pipeline. You also need a plan to keep the customers you have so they remain loyal to you and will generate referrals.

The Business Development Plan

In this economy, if you are not growing, you are falling behind. Businesses need a sales and marketing strategy that will bring in new accounts to replace the ones that will either leave or go out of business for one reason or another. You should be evaluating why new customers join your company and what you can do to bring more in. If you are not measuring your results, you need to be. If you are not testing new methods of bringing in new business, you should be. The important strategy is to be proactive and determine what is working and duplicate what works more aggressively.

The Business Retention Plan

Some customers will leave you in a tough economy because someone will lure them away. If you are not taking care of your current customers, they may find someone else to be more helpful. Now is the time to strengthen your business relationships and use your network of customers to develop referrals. Customer loyalty programs and incentives to generate referrals are some possibilities. You should survey your clients to learn how clients rate your services. If your quality standards are high enough, you stand a better chance of retaining your best customers.

Lastly, you should consider new technology to perform routine sales tasks that can be automated more effectively to streamline and cut your sales and marketing dollars.

The following steps can be used with each member of your team, in each and every functional area:

1. Pick a single topic – Work with each person to identify some aspect of the business, be it products, services, or processes, that they are effective at.

2. Tell team member that you’re going to work with them to develop a talk on that topic and the time and date for it.

3. Coach them into outlining 10 to 20 things they know already.

4. Have them send a quick survey to their ‘customers’ (others in the company) asking them what their “Single Biggest Question Is” about that topic.

5. Have them compile the answers and identify “The Top 10 Questions”.

6. Have them develop their answers to those questions into a 20-minute talk on that topic that can be shared at a team meeting, a company-wide brown bag lunch talk and so on.

7. Have them deliver their presentation at least 3 times. This can be to their peers, to the entire company, and even to customers.

Bonus Tip 1 – Have each person create a tip sheet on the topic for people to refer to. This might be other employees, or as a customer download from your web site.

Bonus Tip 2 – Record the presentation and make the recording available on your web site.

Bonus Tip 3 – Send an email to your customers and prospects letting them know they can ask their questions of your expert on the topic.

Each of these steps boosts your team members’ expert status, not only in their colleagues eyes, but also in their own. Once you’ve used all these steps on a single topic, you can now ask each member of the team identify if there is another angle on their topic that they can use that will increase their expertise further.

You can make this cycle an annual process and repeat all the steps.