Archive for November, 2009
Many business owners think the epitome of a smooth operating office is a paperless one. They want to throw away their file cabinets and storage facilities in favor of keeping everything on computer disks. While this sounds like a wonderful way to run a business, you have to decide if going paperless is right for your company?
Going paperless is a big step for any company and requires a lot of planning before you start. One of the most important things to remember is when you go paperless you must backup your files regularly. Daily backups should be done, without fail, to insure your records are safe. Not only should you have a backup on-site, but you should also keep a copy off-site. You do not want a fire or other disaster that destroys your building to ruin your records as well.
Before you make the decision to go paperless, you will need to consider some things first.
A paperless office will not happen overnight. Unlike changing the type of copier you use; changing your office dynamics to a paperless one is not as easy. You have to plan carefully. You will need to purchase the proper equipment, such as scanners and backup systems, to facilitate your change. You will need to train your employees in using this equipment. In the beginning you will have more work until your new system is running smooth.
Decide how much past information you want in your computer backups. Depending on the type of business you have, you might be able to go back to the beginning and scan in all your old invoices, payment records, etc into the computer. Small businesses are better able to do this since their records are not as abundant as a larger corporation. It is really up to you how far back you go, but make the decision prior to starting the transition, so the change easier to manage. Also, take state and federal record keeping rules into consideration when you make this decision.
All of your employees must be willing to make the change. It will only make your decision to go paperless more difficult if only a percentage of your employees are willing to make the changes required. Everyone must do their part to make this change happen. You probably will have some employees who are change-resistant. Those are the employees you will have to work the hardest to convert. You must be firm that this is the company’s new policy and you expect all employees to follow it.
Your office will not be totally paperless. You are going to have customers and vendors who will not deal with electronic transactions. Do not throw out your old forms. You can use them for those few hard-copies you will have to print out. Also, some government offices, both state and federal, require keeping a paper hard-copy of certain records. Double check your local, state and federal requirements for proof of your business records. But even if you have to keep some hard copies of your records, the amount of paper stored will be minimal in comparison to what you were keeping.
Rearrange your office. Once you have the system in place, you will find you need less storage space. As you scan documents into your computer, you can start disposing of the paper versions, thus freeing up not only file cabinet space but floor space. Getting rid of those space stealers will make your office appear less messy and more professional to your customers and employees.
In the end, going paperless does more than help the environment. It can help your business environment by having your paperwork at the push of a button instead of the opening of a file cabinet. It will give you this access anywhere you have internet access. You will spend less time shuffling paper, less time trying to find something important and more time building your business
How many times have you been to a business meeting and wondered just what it was all about or why they had bothered calling it in the first place? Unproductive and unnecessary meetings can be aggravating for everyone involved. They can also be a spectacular waste of valuable time and man hours if not approached and managed appropriately. Most unproductive meetings fail before they start, through a lack of preparation. By making sure you prepare for the meeting and then managing the gathering, you can ensure that your meetings are much more productive.
Firstly, before calling any meeting, decide whether a meeting is appropriate at all. Meetings should really only be called if there is a defined objective. If you have no objective, then think twice about calling the meeting. Your objective could be one of many things though, like:
- making a decision
- gaining agreement
- gaining information
- reviewing progress
- building a team.
Make sure you know why you’re calling the meeting and that a meeting is appropriate. Ask yourself, ‘how else could I do this?’ and ‘what will this cost?’.
Secondly, as with most things in business, proper planning and preparation is essential.
- Decide your objective in advance.
What is it that you want from the meeting and the attendees?
- Plan your discussion topics.
What will you be talking about? How will the discussions go? What are the likely ‘rabbit-holes’ or off-subject distractions that will arise. What will you do if the discussion gets side-tracked?
- Decide who should attend.
Once you know what you’re looking for you should be able to decide who should be there and what they will bring to your meeting. Try not to make it a cast of millions. Meetings with more than seven or eight people in active discussion will rarely be productive. If you need to invite more than this, try approaching the subject matter differently. Could you target smaller subject chunks allowing several smaller, more focused meetings to address the larger issue?
- Book your venue.
Getting the right venue can be crucial to your meeting and shouldn’t be underestimated as a potential success factor. Make sure it sets the right tone, is in the right place and will allow for a comfortable meeting with all necessary utilities or resources at hand. Allow time for any attendees that may need to travel.
- Set your agenda.
Decide in advance what will be discussed and publish it. Keep the number of topics under control and to a minimum. Too many topics for discussion in a short time will result in a vague and indecisive meeting.
- Inform the attendees.
Invite the attendees and let them have the agenda as early as possible so there’s no doubt what the meeting is for. Allow time for you and your attendees to prepare. Inadequate preparation on the part of your attendees could sink your meeting just as quickly as your lack of preparation would.
- Keep your meeting as short as possible.
There’s nothing worse than a six or eight hour marathon that leaves everyone exhausted and wondering why they bother. If you can’t discuss it all in a short period, then decide whether the topics should be limited to allow for more focus. If you do need a long meeting, make sure you schedule comfort breaks so that the discussion can stop periodically to allow people to get fresh air, go the toilet, get a coffee and generally refocus themselves for the rest of the meeting.
Finally, think about laying down some ground rules at the start of the meeting. Let everyone know who the chairperson is and what their role will be. Tell everyone who will be taking the minutes and recording actions. People will then be able to ensure that this person understands what has been decided and can record appropriately.
A good meeting will stand or fall on the behaviours of the people involved. Why not outline your expectations of everyone in terms of how you would like them to behave in the meeting and why. Just making sure people are willing to be open, receptive to ideas and opinions as well as co-operative in meetings, will go a long way to ensuring that the discussions are as productive as possible.
Definition of the 80/20 Principle
The 80/20 Principle is based on the fact that in most cases 80% of the results come about due to 20% of the effort. The same is true in reverse 80% of failure is due to 20% lack of effort or effort in the wrong direction. The relationship between effort and results are unbalanced.
When actually measured it may turn out that only 15% of the effort resulted in 80% of the result or 25% of the effort resulted in 73% of the result, but it will hardly ever be 50% of the effort resulting in 50% of the result. In other words it will never be balanced.
If you are looking at products, you will find the about 20% of any given number of products in a company account for about 80% of the profits. The flip side of this would be that 80% of the products make only 20% of the profits. Nearly always, a small proportion of the total products produce a large proportion of the profits.
How to use the 80/20 Principle
There are two applications of the 80/20 Principle, 80/20 Analysis and 80/20 Thinking.
80/20 Analysis
Precise
Quantitative
Requires investigation
Provides facts
Highly valuable
80/20 Thinking
Fuzzy
Qualitative
Requires thought
Provides insight
Highly valuable
80/20 Analysis looks at the relationship between two sets of data. One set is always people or objects, usually a large number of 100 or more, that can be turned into a percentage. The second set of data relates to some interesting characteristic of the people or objects that can be measured and turned into a percentage.
80/20 Thinking is a hypothesis about a possible imbalance between inputs and outputs. Instead of collecting data and analyzing them, we estimate them. 80/20 Thinking requires us to spot the few really important things that are happening and ignore the large number of unimportant things.
When we are using the 80/20 Principle, we do not assume that its results are good or bad or that the powerful forces we observe are good. We decide if they are good and if so encourage the minority forces in the right direction.
The 80/20 Principle turns conventional wisdom upside down
Application of the 80/20 Principle implies that we should do the following:
1. Celebrate exceptional productivity, rather than raise the average efforts.
2. Look for the short cut, rather than run the full course.
3. Exercise control over our lives with the least possible effort.
4. Be selective, not exhaustive.
5. Strive for excellence in a few things, rather than good performance in many.
6. Delegate or out source as much as possible in our daily lives to specialists, instead of doing the work ourselves.
7. Choose our careers and employers with extraordinary care, and if possible employ others rather than being employed ourselves.
8. Only do the thing we are best at doing and enjoy most.
9. Look beneath the normal texture of life to uncover ironies and oddities.
10. In every important sphere, work out where 20 percent of effort can lead to 80 percent of returns.
11. Calm down, work less and target a limited number of very valuable goals where the 80/20 Principle will work for you, rather than pursuing every available opportunity.
1 2. Make the best of the few times in our life when we are at our creative peak and things are working really well.
No boundaries
No activity is immune from the influence of the 80/20 Principle. If you want the benefit from 80/20 Thinking, you have to do it!
When I was attending tech school and had taken all the courses offered in electronics, I unknowingly used the 80/20 Principle by applying for a teaching job at the same school. That small step was the tipping point in my career and eventually landed me a job with Eastman Kodak Co.
When Jesus called Simon Peter to follow him and become fishers of men, he was using the 80/20 Principle by choosing a few to touch millions. Jesus concentrated on the twelve, teaching them so that the world might be reached.
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