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Hey there,

When you get back from that first short break, it will be incredibly tempting to get straight back to the way things were - especially if you already know things didn't go perfectly to plan.

Resist that tempation.

Wait.

Give yourself and your team time to take stock.

Use this in-between time to transition yourself and your team one step further towards being able to disappear at will.

In this newsletter we'll cover how you do that:

• Review how things went while you were away.
• Set in train any improvements that need to be made.
• Let go of what you've already handed over.

Here goes:

Review how things went while you were away.

1) Schedule a Review

Start a new team habit, and schedule in over the next week or so, several very short review meetings, one for each Process you handed over. When I say short, I mean short. no more than 30 minutes.

In each Review Meeting, appoint someone to note down the agreed Actions. Then follow this simple Agenda:

2) Capture what went well

Ask: What went well?

• What was easier?
• What was faster?
• What was clearer?

It's all too easy to focus on what went wrong. This step helps everyone to remind themselves that having a process to follow is a good thing.

3) Capture what could have gone better

Ask: What could have gone better?

Get a team member to share one Process Problem Log for this Process.

Ask: What went wrong?

• Explore what happened and why.

4) Identify potential Fixes

Ask: How could we fix this?

Get the whole team to brainstorm how the Process or Checklist could be made simpler, easier, clearer, more robust.

Some prompts that might help:

• Could we re-word something?
• Could we add another Step or Activity?
• Do we need to add what happened as another Scenario? for future training?
• Do we need to schedule in some more practise?

Make sure it's noted down.

5) Agree Fix

Agree the Action to be taken to fix the problem.

6) Assign Fix Action

• Agree who is going to do it and by when.
• Write that down in the Process Review Agenda

Repeat Steps 3 to 6 until you've covered all the Process Problem Logs for this Process, or you've run out of time.

Then immediately go back to Step 1 and schedule the next Review Meeting for this Process.

How soon that should be depends on how many Process Problem Logs you have to get through. If there are lot (and there might be quite a few the first time to do this) perhaps you could review weekly until you've worked through them all.

If you got through them all this time, you could leave it a month, or even two or three.

The important thing is to keep up a regular cadence of Reviews, so that logging, reviewing and fixing problems with your Processes becomes habitual for everyone.

As I hope you've come to expect, here's a Process Review Meeting Agenda Template for you to copy and download: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CluLWD6JTLJw96SqQNwjtz5YyHVMixyxDE6Ma2qiHgo/edit?usp=sharing​

Set in train any improvements that need to be made.

Once you've completed the Review,

• make sure everyone in the meeting gets a copy of the Agenda you completed, including all the Actions.
• make sure each Action has been assigned to one person, or, if you set up a pair of people to run the processes while you were away, to that pair.
• make sure you've allowed everyone enough time to make any changes that need to be made. Improving how we do things must become part of doing the job - not least because it makes doing the job as a whole more efficient and effective.

Let go of what you've already handed over.

Once you've done all of the above, let your people get on with actually making the improvements.

Do schedule in some time for youself to help whoever has been assigned the task of improving the Process/Checklist and it's documentation.

Do also, make sure you're clear about your role here.

Your job is to coach them to find a solution, not to find it for them.

After all, the whole point of designing and writing down these processes is to enable other people to do things instead of you.

If you're the only person who can change things you haven't removed a bottleneck, you've simply moved it.

Finally, realise that reviewing and improving the way you do things in your business is a process, just like any other. The one I've outlined here looks like this:

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Map out your own version and add it to your repertoire, and your shared area. Train your team to use it. And of course to Review it too.

​Book a quick chat if you'd like some feedback.​

And that’s it for this newsletter.

Here’s what I hope you learned today:

• Reviewing and improving your checklists and processes needn't be onerous. Get the whole team involved and you'll get the best ideas.
• Improving how things get done is a process like any other. If you want it to happen consistently, you need to design it on purpose and make it visible.
• Improving how things get done needs to be part of the job, not an extra. But at first, when you're not used to doing it, you need to build the habit. You as 'The Boss',' are best placed to help everyone do that. Practise being an enabler not an instructor.

Now, you have everything in place to start thinking about what you can hand over next.

Ready for that next, longer break?

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Here's the Process Review Meeting Agenda Template again, for you to copy and download: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CluLWD6JTLJw96SqQNwjtz5YyHVMixyxDE6Ma2qiHgo/edit?usp=sharing​

And just in case you need it, here's a link to all the templates and documents I've created so far over this series of newsletters: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KpkT4RjyjJbRLdL_keLF8GyKiYqCxHwn?usp=sharing​

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What else would help you get ready for that short break?

If you're still struggling to get away, what could I do that would help you to actually do it?

​Let me know.​

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Thanks for reading!

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