The clevermethod project management team took a road trip earlier this month to Toronto to attend the FITC Process Spotlight. We were excited about the opportunity to hear how other companies solved problems like:
How do you make sure everyone at your company follows the process, and not just when it’s convenient?
How do you explain to a client that it will be better for their overall budget, timeline and work quality if you wait to start their project?
How can you make your business development cycles more predictable?
Funny thing is, we didn’t leave Toronto with a check list to solve all these problems, but we left feeling inspired to try. Because what we learned is that we are not alone! No one has this thing called ‘process’ all figured it. But coming together and sharing our experiences, learning how one company adjusted their process to better manage resourcing as their company grew, and how another changed their estimating process to improve accuracy – hearing about these wins in different areas inspired us to come back and try to solve some of our own problems and inefficiencies. And then to try again. To refine the process. Evolve the process. To know that once we do finally have something ‘all figured out’ that we’ll probably need to change it again. But that’s what excites us!
One of the simplest, most profound tips we got was ‘write it down’. Start small and then make it better. Don’t have a process for new employee orientation? Open up your text editor of choice and start making a list of the things you wish someone did for you on your first day. It doesn’t have to be perfect (and it likely never will be), but it’s a start. Because as we were reminded, there is a process for everything, whether it’s defined or not. So you might as well give it shot!