A process rarely breaks all at once. It wears out, and the company gets used to it. These are the signals we hear most often when we walk into an SME.
- The same data is entered two or three times, in different places.
- Decisions wait on one person, and when that person is away everything stops.
- Nobody can say what a single job actually costs.
- Controls were created after a mistake years ago, and nobody has removed them since.
- Exceptions have become the rule.
Where to start
Not with a six-month programme. Take one flow — the one causing the most friction — and map it as it really is, with the people running it. In most cases two or three steps can go straight away, without buying anything.
Before you automate a process, ask whether that process should exist at all.
Only then does it make sense to talk about tools, data and automation: on a clean flow they pay back far more.
Want the tools we use? Download the canvases or look at our paths.