When you are planning the next steps for your business improvement, there are usually several changes that you could choose from. You believe all these steps will improve your business on your path to Repeatable Business Success. The problem is, it can be very confusing to decide which, of the many things that you could potentially do, is actually the next best step to do. That is what we consider here.
The chosen steps become your priority and everything else comes second to your priorities
This article provides a method for you to work out which is the best next step. This is Yellow Belt
Table of Contents
Why Prioritise
Business owners always have more work they COULD DO than they CAN DO in their available time. Hence the need to have a prioritising routine that offers a systematic approach to choosing “What’s Next”.
Prioritisation techniques outlined here can be applied to any situation requiring you to make a choice between alternative priorities;
- It is an essential stage in the 12Faces GamePlan strategy for identifying the primary focus of the Quarterly GamePlan
- it also is applied to choosing what to do for the Kaizen (incremental improvement) parts of your quarterly planning cycle
- it can be used to prioritise the several Sprints within any quarterly GamePlan
Our approach can also be used when considering innovation and start-up aspects to your business. In these cases, the system can help to work out which innovations are the ‘best’ for your business to experiment with into the future.
The GamePlan System is not well suited to planning repetitive, routine work like (e.g.) billing. To manage those processes, see our resources on building and benefiting from great Routines.
A Short Recap on the 12Faces GamePlan System
To put the material covered in this article in context, here is a short recap on the components of the 12Faces GamePlan System;
- The components of each Quarterly Planning Cycle are outlined on this link. They are
- have a 3 year Destination in mind,
- set a Quarterly Goal and then
- move towards the Quarterly Goal and the 3 Year Destination with a series of 1-2 week Sprints.
- Develop a list of possible projects in the financial quarters which we call the GamePlan Candidates
- Prioritize the GamePlan Candidates to focus on in the Financial Quarter.
- Execute efficiently to carry out the priority tasks that will take us to our Quarterly Goals and 3 Year Destination as fast as possible.
Grow your Skill
Every Owner starts with a low level of business skills and experience. Over time, you gain more experience and get better at what you do.
12Faces relates this to the concept of “belts” in the Martial Arts.
Everyone starts at the white belt and progresses up the various grades to eventually reach black belt.
It is the same with making choices about how to progress your business. It is perfectly acceptable and normal, when you are comparatively inexperienced, to start with simple decision-making techniques and over time, as you gain more experience, move into more powerful techniques.
In our system “Yellow Belt” techniques are simpler than “Blue Belt” and higher belts. We have marked the various techniques with “Belts” so you have an idea of their level of difficulty.
Start simple with your decision-making techniques and move into more complex and more powerful techniques as you become more experienced.
Use your Destination to Focus next Step
When prioritising next steps, be clear on the Goals for the next planning periods; monthly, quarterly, annual and longer.
Until you have a clear sense of the direction your business changes should take to reach these Goals, you are pretty much a rudderless ship and will not get too far in any direction; let alone the right direction.
We write about setting a Destination on this link.
Focus on the Important Few Tasks
There is often a number of possible choices available at any decision point.
It is comparatively easy to become overwhelmed by this wide range of choices (multitasking woes) and spend all your time considering what choice to make and not progress very far in the actual process.
The following are a few truly critical things 12Faces believes are to be considered at the start of your decision-making process.
1. Theory of Constraints (TOC)
It is vital to understand the importance of the (generally) one or two “Bottlenecks” or “Constraints” in your business.
Until these are overcome, a change in any other part of your business will not improve the overall productivity of your business.
Consider an hour glass. This has a container at the top that holds the sand, a narrow neck through which the sand runs and a container at the bottom to hold the sand that has gone through the mid part of the hour glass. The narrow, middle part of the hour glass is the Constraint or Bottleneck in an hour glass.
No matter what you do, the sand will not run through that Constraint any faster. Therefore, the only way to make your hour glass run faster, is to relax the Bottleneck by increasing its size (if that is possible). Trying to do anything else other than reduce the effect of the Constraint is a waste of time.
The same is true of your business. The relatively few Constraints will control the throughput of your whole business.
Therefore, the first consideration, on any area to improve, is to find the Constraint and work on it.
Learn More: SM5.0 Theory of Constraints (TOC) Find and Remove Bottleneck
2. The 80/20 Rule
Back in the 1890’s, Wilfredo Pareto found that just 20% of issues accounted for 80% of the results.
If you concentrate your efforts on the 20% of issues in your business that make 80% of the most difference rather than spending 80% of your time on things that don’t count, you will be a whopping 16 times more productive. And you are working less, not more. What a great lesson to learn!
Learn More: The Amazing 80/20 Rule
Choose your Prioritisation Technique
- You have considered how to determine which are the comparatively few important things to do.
- Now decide what techniques you are going to use to prioritize these.
- Then apply the chosen technique to prioritise which ones to focus on
- Review your selections by testing they address both the current Constraint (TOC) and are in the important 20% not the time wasting 80% of things to do
We have grouped a number of possible prioritising techniques on this Catalog of Prioritising Techniques. They are ordered by White, Yellow and Blue Belt so you can start with the simpler ones (White Belt) and move up the list as your skills improve.
FAQ
Is it OK to use my gut to prioritise?
Yes it is. And as you get more experience in your business, your intuition will also get better.
But the risk is that you get bogged down in a routine that is less than efficient so your growth is less than it might be.
It is particularly important to break away from using the gut when your business is not doing well. Einstein once said “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”!
Why do I need a Goal before I can Prioritise?
If you don’t have a Goal or Destination for your business operations, you can’t possibly prioritise because you can’t test “what is the best”. Without a Goal, you’re the equivalent of a rudderless ship. You might be powering along but eventually you’re going to run out of fuel without reaching any port.
Is AI the right tool for prioritising?
AI is a marvelous Research Assistant. But it has nothing like the power of decision making that you have. And it doesn’t know your motivations, preference, insecurities and skills so can’t prioritise to suit them.
The prioritisation process might be helped by AI but you should not rely on it to make decisions.
Prioritisation is too complex for me!
That ain’t necessarily so! We can take a lesson from the Martial Arts. They start everyone on a White Belt. As they become more competent, they move up Belt grades to Yellow, Blue and beyond.
Our Catalog of Prioritisation Techniques is ranked the same way. Start with the White and move up as you gain confidence.
Is there a way to know I have the best action plan?
While you may not know if you have the “best” strategy, you can certainly test if you have a “good” strategy.
First, check that the strategy addresses the main Constraint in your business. See the text above for more on the Theory of Constraints.
Second, check that the plan incorporates the 20% of steps that will generate 80% of the improvement. That makes you 16 times more productive than just doing “lots of stuff”. See more in the text above.
Is Prioritisation a one person job?
It certainly can be. But keep in mind you “don’t know what you don’t know”. Involving mentors or staff in the process might give other perspectives you have not thought of. It might also mean staff feel more engaged with the results if they helped in the process.
Wrap Up
In this article, we have identified;
- several techniques for short listing those comparatively few items that you could change to improve your business.
This lets you focus on those likely to have the greatest impact. - several different decision making techniques to choose what changes to work on that can be used in various circumstances and
- the benefits of making frequent small steps down the improvement path as the most effective way to progress
As you move up the “Belts” from White to Black, you are likely to use increasingly sophisticated decision-making tools for your Business Changes Planning.
But, even when you are first setting out to learn and apply decision-making, following the guidelines in this article is likely to make it as simple and successful as possible.
If you haven’t already, next look at the range of prioritisation techniques outlined on our Prioritisation Tools Catalog and begin choosing the ones to use for your next prioritization round.
If you think you need a hand with this process, you can seek advice from others in our Community. You can also get broader mentoring help through our sibling volunteer business mentoring website MentorSME
This article was provided by Scott Williams AO FAIDC. It describes the way best practice in many management areas has been brought together in the 12Faces GamePlan System. The Goal is to provide an easy to use and repeatable “flywheel” to improve small business owners’ outcomes. Scott is the Founder of NFP small business support services 12Faces and MentorSME and has a Philanthropic Foundation supporting students in education. Scott’s business Petals Network was National Small Business of the Year and 4 times in the Top 100 Fastest Growing Australian Businesses LinkedIn