11 Easy Checklist Secrets to Build a Great Business

11 Easy Checklist Secrets to Build a Great Business

Do you want to

Eliminate lapses or mistakes?
Improve the quality of your product or service?
Create business stability across the generations of your staff?
Train new staff faster and better?
Capture your best practice and experience?
Capture improvements easily?
Demonstrate that you have not been negligent?

If so checklists are your answer.

Here's how to checklist your way to a great business:

1)Take a simple task where things are being forgotten or missed and
create a checklist. Start in a small way and build it up. Don't worry
about getting everything right first time.

2)Make a list of tasks to be done in the correct order on a sheet with
check boxes to mark off that the tasks that are completed. Just write
down what you are doing now as a starter. Incorporate instructions into
your checklist.

3)Break down complex tasks into small manageable building blocks. Try to
break up the task into pieces where minimum or low risk links or
interfaces exist. Keep it simple.

4)Use diagrams. Remember, a "picture is worth a 1000 words."

5)Use checklists to control the interface between a) staff and
departments internally and b) between you and you're customers and
suppliers. Failures often occur at interfaces

6)Involve your staff in the creation of the checklist. Note, in nature,
genes collaborate to survive. Remind staff that checklists mean no loss
of esteem. Airline pilots use them all the time. Checklists permit good
professional practice. Staff involvement will also lead to their
commitment to use the checklist.

7)Maximise the use of experience within and outside your business. Use
other peoples ideas. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Find out what
others do. Beg, borrow and swipe checklist ideas.

8)Request your staff check off the checklist with their initials and
date. File your checklist as record of your good practice. If a customer
challenges your performance, you've great evidence to demonstrate that
you were not negligent in any way.

9)Modify the checklist to close any gap, if mistakes are still
occurring. Keep doing this until you can reproduce the task without
lapses. Checklists just make this so easy.

10)Make sure you use the correct checklist. Introduce a system that
ensures your staff will always use the most up to date version of the
checklist. If not old lapses will recur. Keep the latest master
checklists in a clearly titled folder (paper or computer).

11)Make the checklists readily available. You can use folders for
different areas or processes of your business, so that your staff can
readily find the right checklist for the job.

Simple checklists yield so much power.

Start today, create your first checklist and start the process of
building your great business.

Syd Stewart is the author of "Smiling Owner How to Build a Great Small
Business An Evolutionary Approach". He has been an owner and manager for
over 30 years. He Knows What Works and What Doesn't. Visit his site to
find out how you can 'Build a Great Small Business' at
http://www.smilingowner.com