Operations & Systems
Working harder is rarely the problem. Where the hours go usually is.
Most owners feel their team is busy all day and still behind. Often the time is not lost to laziness but to waiting, searching, redoing and being interrupted. This session helps you find out where it goes in your own business, pick the one or two leaks worth fixing first, and test a change properly before asking anybody to work differently.
Explore this page6 sections
Busy is not the same as productive.
In a small business, a lost hour is felt immediately: an order goes out late, a customer waits, the owner stays on to finish. The usual response is to ask people to work faster or longer. That works for a week and then the same delays return, because the cause was never the speed of anyone's hands.
The causes are usually found in the gaps between tasks: a worker waiting for a decision, a file that cannot be found, a job done twice because the first instruction was unclear, a phone that rings every ten minutes. These are fixable, and fixing them is cheaper and kinder than asking for more effort.
This session is practical. You leave with a method you can repeat on any role or process, and one specific change to try the same week.
What the session works through
35 topics across 7 areas. Seven ways to look at the same working day.
Where the Time Actually GoesGuesses are usually wrong. A log is not.5
- Choose one role or one process, not the whole business
- Note what is being done in half-hour blocks for five working days
- Mark each block as core work, support work, waiting, redoing or searching
- Add up the totals at the end of the week
- Look at the surprises, not the averages
The person doing the work keeps the log and decides what is shared. It is a tool for the owner and the team, not a verdict on anyone.
Rework and Repeat WorkWork done twice is the most expensive kind.5
- Which jobs come back for correction, and how often
- Whether the instruction, the material or the check was at fault
- Who finds the error, and how late
- Questions answered again and again that could be answered once in writing
- Whether the cost of redoing is ever recorded
Waiting and HandoffsTime is lost between people more than within them.5
- Where a job sits untouched waiting for somebody
- Decisions that only the owner can make, and how long they wait
- Approvals that could have a simple limit instead
- Handoffs where information is lost or must be asked for again
- What a person needs in hand before starting, so they do not stop
Interruptions and the Founder BottleneckOften the owner's own diary is the biggest queue in the business.5
For illustration only, with made-up numbers: if an owner is interrupted fifteen times a day and each interruption costs ten minutes to recover from, that is more than two hours. Writing down the five most common answers might remove half of them.
- How many times a day the owner is asked something that has an answer
- Which questions could be handled by a rule or a checklist
- Fixed times for decisions rather than constant availability
- Phone calls and messages that break concentrated work
- What the team can decide without asking, written down
Space, Stock and Set-upPhysical arrangement is productivity too.5
- How far people walk to fetch what they use every day
- Whether tools, stock and papers have a fixed place
- Files on shared drives with names others can actually find
- Set-up and changeover time between jobs
- Whether a tidy-up at day end saves a search the next morning
Measuring Without WatchingA good measure helps the team see progress. A bad one makes them hide problems.5
- Output per day or week: orders dispatched, jobs closed, visits completed
- Quality alongside speed, so haste is not rewarded
- On-time delivery as a simple percentage you work out yourself
- Two or three measures at most, agreed with the team
- Not counting minutes at the desk or keystrokes
If a measure can be improved by cheating or cutting corners, it will be. Pair every speed measure with a quality check.
Testing One Change ProperlyMost improvement efforts fail from trying too much at once.5
- Pick one change and write down what you expect it to do
- Note the current figure before you start
- Run it for two weeks with the people affected, not around them
- Compare the same measure afterwards and ask the team what they noticed
- Keep it, adjust it or drop it, and record why
Try this the same week
- Pick one role and keep a half-hour log for five days
- List every question you were asked more than twice
- Find one job that was redone and trace why
- Write down the five most common answers you give
- Choose one change to test and note today's figure
Common mistakes
- Fixing speed when the problem is waiting
- Buying a tool before understanding the process
- Measuring individuals instead of the process
- Changing five things at once
- Announcing a change without asking the people doing the work
- Forgetting to check that the gain lasted
How the session runs
A practitioner explains the time-log method and the common places time is lost, with short worked examples. Participants then look at their own business, choose one role or process, and draft the time log and a first change to test. In the second half, participants compare notes in small groups and pick the measure they will use before and after. Participants take away their own plan; nothing is submitted to anyone.
What your students leave with
- A one-week time log for one role or one process, kept honestly
- A short list of where time is lost: waiting, rework, searching, interruptions
- The one or two leaks worth fixing first, chosen on evidence
- A change to try for two weeks, with a before-and-after measure
- Two or three simple measures of output that do not turn into surveillance
- A plan to keep the gain once the trial ends
Scheduled sessions
Nothing scheduled yet
Sessions are arranged with a college once a date is agreed. Ask us and we will find the right person for it.
A student rather than a college? See what is coming up, or ask your placement team to host this.
Find where the hours go before asking for more of them.
Tell us who your students are and what stage they are at. Sessions are free for participants.