Improving your Business Systems – Have a Clear Vision (Part 1)
Following on from our last article: Improving your Business Systems
Like anything in life, the best way to ensure success in improving your business systems is to be clear about your goals and objectives and have a strong plan.
Having a strong guiding hand in this process is extremely important. If you (or someone in your team) are lucky enough to have the skills, energy and time to devote to creating and following through a clear plan you are well on your way to a successful implementation.
Some common barriers to a successful systems change:
- The ‘Forest for the Trees’ outlook – unclear goals and outcomes, focusing on the details and not the overall plan
- The ‘All or Nothing’ mindset – over complicating the features list, holding on to an image of what it should look like and not being open minded and fluid
- The ‘Wing and Prayer’ approach – lack of structure and a plan, underestimating the impact of change, not creating a road map and sticking to it
- The ‘Ostrich’ mentality – staff and/or management resistance to change, no strategies to overcome obstacles, inability to be flexible, easily dissuaded by setbacks
- The ‘Too Hard Basket’ – loss of momentum, side-tracking and not prioritising the importance of the project, getting caught up in the day to day and not pushing forward
Let’s look at the first barrier – unclear goals and outcomes. Never be afraid to spend time asking questions:
- What problems do we need this new system to resolve?
- Why is the current system not working?
- How will the new system improve this?
- What are our expectations of the new system – be specific!
- What features must it have? What features would be desirable but not mandatory?
- What information and reporting will I need to be able to draw from the software?
- Will I be able to make changes and configure it to suit our business?
- What other software will it need to ‘talk to’?
Once you have identified exactly what you want to achieve, you are in a better position to start the process of investigating. Taking the time to ensure that any potential software meets as many of the key features as possible is a great strategy for success.
Next time we will look closer at the selection phase of applications and the key areas you should keep front of mind. >> LINK to Part 2
If you do have questions or want help to evolve your particular vision, give the friendly team at Digital O2 a call or contact us here to discuss what we can do to make the path a little clearer for you.
