What To Do When There's Too Much To Do by Laura Stack Page B

weeks!
    Therefore, a bright sales engineer decided to run a test: He hand-carried a credit application through the entire approval process. He made people stop what they were doing and deal with the application immediately. As a result, he pushed the application through in forty-five minutes, instead of the normal six weeks. All he did was eliminate the bottlenecks in the system.
    Many, if not most, systems have inherent bottlenecks. Unfortunately, we usually can’t see them without taking the time to step back and look at the bigger picture. It’s one of those “can’t see the forest for the trees” situations.
    So how do you identify the inefficient processes in your workplace? It’s actually rather simple. Think about this question: What do you dread because of the length of time it takes? If it’s annoying you, there’s a good chance that there’s something inefficient in the process. Take a good look at it, with the idea of finding where valuable time is being wasted by you or others.
    Remember, no matter how you’re doing it, there’s always a better way. As long as you keep that attitude in mind, you’ll keep analyzing, seeking to come up with that better way. Instead of looking at new technology and new methodologies and saying “That’s nice,” look at them and ask yourself, “How can this help me be more productive?”
    When you find better ways to do things, try them out. Experimentwith your new processes and systems to see if they really work. Sometimes the most ridiculous-sounding things work wonderfully well, and the most logical ones are failures. So don’t let your mind throw something away just because it doesn’t sound as though it will work—test it first. Likewise, don’t become wedded to any particular idea. Just because it sounds good doesn’t mean it’s workable. It may be a lemon.
    The good ideas are the ones that work; ultimately, that’s the only criterion that matters. Even then, don’t assume you can’t improve a good idea. The time to start improving any process is as soon as you have it in place and working.
The Human Factor
    Many workflow bottlenecks are human rather than procedural; all too often, the actions of our coworkers (or lack thereof) cause the process to spring a leak. We frequently need data, additional materials, or approval from another person before we can proceed with our piece of a project. Maybe you can’t begin your task until someone else hands something off to you; however, that person isn’t as worried about meeting the deadline as you are, so yours gets pushed back even further. Or maybe you encounter constant discrepancies in someone’s work that require rework or clarification. In either case, your ability to move forward is dependent upon the other’s person’s performance.
    While some human bottlenecks are beyond your control, you may be able influence others. Ask the person causing you problems, “What can I do to help you get this done?” While you may ask your question in all honesty and with a helpful attitude, you’re also letting the person know that they
are
a problem. Now, most human bottlenecks don’t like being told they’re bottlenecks. Typically, they’ll respond in one of two ways: anger or complaints. Anger usually means they’re the direct source of the bottleneck (hence the bad attitude). Complaints usually mean something else is causing a bottleneck for them. In the latter case, it may turn out that a piece of equipment, a procedural change, or a suggestion is all it takes to eliminate the problem.
    Even if you can’t tweak a particular process into usefulness, it may be possible to merge it with another idea that didn’t quite work and come up with something that does.
    On the other hand, some things just take time to complete. Let those bottlenecks go and move on to others you can fix. But