Producing document reviewing procedures and tasks

antw23uk

Hi All

Ok so i have been given a job/ task to produce a document reviewing the procedures and tasks undertaken in my role.

I then need to make suggestions on improvement and work practices to include measurments on surveys and implementation plan.

The thing is i havent got a clue what this actually means or how to go about making this document, what format/ layout it should be in ect

So any help would be much appreciated ... and telling me to ask my boss is not helping

What happened to the good old days where you just turned up to work, did your job, got paid and went home? :mad:

saintjammyswine

Having written procedure manuals for tasks in my job for cold handover to someone else, it is a pain but quite straightforward.

Best way to do it is to set aside some time with no disctractions to go through the normal tasks in your role.
Whilst doing each task, imagine you are doing it for the first time and break it down into smaller tasks. (this is the pain bit BTW) You can then document each of these tasks meaning that anyone, regarldess of prior knowledge can follow the steps and repeat the task.
Once this is done, it should become very clear where the areas for improvement are (the straightforward bit).


Good luck.

InsideInsurance

antw23uk wrote: »

What happened to the good old days where you just turned up to work, did your job, got paid and went home?

There are plenty of jobs that are like that.... my very first project was designed to try and find more people that wanted that rather than wanting promotions or careers etc as they get bored and leave the company which costs a lot in terms of agency fees, recruitment time/ effort, overtime to back fill etc

include measurments on surveys

I am not sure what you mean by this bit?


As to how to do it, well that depends on how detailed you want to do it, how much time you have to complete it etc.... I have had the misfortune of doing a fair number of "organisational efficiency" type projects and courses such as Lean and so it can be done fairly simply or in a lot of depth.

Personally would start listing the processes you are involved in and for each of these produce a little diagram known as a SIPOC (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIPOC). In reverse order it shows for each processes, who the Customers are (ie who you are doing the task for), what the Output is (ie what do you actually give them), the process that you actually do (normally 5-7 box simple version), what Inputs you need to be able to start the process and who the Supplier is for those inputs.

Below is a simple one for making a cup of tea:


This provides your As Is document of what you do at the moment. The next step is to look for inefficiency in the process. One of the best ways to do this is to speak to the identified Customers about what they actually NEED.

After you know what is needed you can then identify the steps that go towards delivering that need and which ones do not give the customer anything

In many cases organisations do the same thing for decades because its whats they've always done and the reason why its done is lost in the annals of time. To take the above example it could be the wife doesnt like milk in her tea any more but because no one has asked her for years she keeps on getting milky tea. If she was asked though you could remove a step from the process and remove an input (dependency)

Once you know what you want to change you can then plan how to do it. That will depend on a number of factors but may require others to agree the process/ input/ output changes. In a large office it may be worth testing the proposed changes with just a few doing it for a few weeks and then measuring the outcome etc before rolling it out to everyone.


TBH this is a very big subject and many dedicate their whole career to doing nothing but operational improvement

paddyrg

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Below is a simple one for making a cup of tea:


...

TBH this is a very big subject and many dedicate their whole career to doing nothing but operational improvement

My first operational improvement would be adding the milk after the boiling water ;-)

Useful post, thanks II

InsideInsurance

paddyrg wrote: »

My first operational improvement would be adding the milk after the boiling water ;-)

Useful post, thanks II

I'd tell her to make it herself

Didnt create it but was the first basic one I spotted on Google Images - personally would dispute that Husband is a supplier given it was presumably him following the flow.