Why Multitasking is Not Your Friend
Multitasking means doing several things at once. Individuals and leaders sometimes think this is a good thing because you are “busy”. However, it can be clearly demonstrated that multitasking is an inefficient process that can contribute to waste in any business. Learn more about the problems with multitasking and their solutions. Yellow Belt Table of Contents […]
SM2.4 80/20 Decision Making
Smaller business operators are constantly making decisions – large and small. The 80/20 Rule suggests some tools that might help with faster, better, smarter decisions.
How to Prioritise Business Plans
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 Sustainable 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. This article provides a method for you to work out which is the best next step. Yellow Belt
Introducing the GamePlan System
Business Owners are Busy People! Dump “Pie in the Sky” 5 Year Business Plans We developed a routine for getting more done faster using the “Work Smarter, not Harder” mantra We were “National Small Business of the Year” and appeared 4 times in the “National 100 Fastest Growing Businesses” list using this approach This is […]
How to use Adwords to Test your Business Strategy
Adwords for Strategy An alternative and very useful way to use Google AdWords is to test the viability of proposed new business directions on the internet. Properly used, AdWords can bring buyers to test pages where you are testing new products, methods, prices and any other variable that you are uncertain about. Blue Belt Having […]
How to Prioritise Tasks
Business Owners face a problem of many tasks they COULD do. What they need to know is which they SHOULD do. This Catalog lists selection methods for every type of task and skill. Like in the Martial Arts, begin with White Belt. Yellow Belt is the first step. Blue Belt is for the more experienced […]
How the Plan/Do/Check/Act (PDCA) Cycle Builds Important Routines
The business world is full of uncertainty. Many managers cross their fingers, build the planned addition to their business in its entirety, or their start-up, then launch it and pray. The most common outcome from this approach is – failure or, at best, mediocre success. Starting with the auto industry and then moving to the start-up industry, smart managers are dramatically reducing their risk by doing a series of experiments that let them “fail fast” and cheaply if their idea does not have legs. This approach substantially speeds up the migration to a profitable new avenue for the business. Learn the process of the PDCA Cycle This is a Yellow Belt (Introductory) article.
Business Success With Sprints
Speeding Up Success Business success is about innovating and reducing problems as quickly as possible. Traditionally, this has just been a journey with no clear end and no intermediate points where you check progress and reconfirm the direction is still correct. The software industry found this approach led to frequent delays and over-budget problems. They […]
Take Advantage of Agile / Scrum / Kanban to Increase Productivity
In a smaller business there is always plenty to do and many demands on a managers most limited resource; time. Often the owners time is the major bottleneck on the growth of the business (see the introductory article to Theory of Constraints). Plenty of other businesses have struggled with prioritising time before you and several techniques that are very similar have evolved. The three best known of these are named Agile / Scrum / Kanban. Various references cite improvements in team productivity ranging from 25% to 300% by using these methods. This article introduces these concepts and a way of using a free software app named Trello to manage the process. A mix of Yellow and Blue Belt introductory material.
How to Use Our Business Tune-up Menu
This Tuneup Menu is a periodic review of the state of your business with a view to streamlining and removing poor practices that have crept in over time. A good Tuneup will lead you back to best practice, better productivity and higher profits. Yellow Belt