Step 18 to Build a Better Business – Document the Basics

Back in Step 5 of 30 Steps to Build a Better Business, we looked in detail at the steps involved in your production process. But what about all other processes you perform reguarly? Shouldn’t you document those as well?

If the way you perform your most common tasks are stored only in your head, it may be difficult for you to repeat them in a consistent, efficient manner. This is especially true if you have employees. By taking the time to document your company’s processes, you’ll have a go-to resource for yourself and your existing and new employees to use as a reference.

Here are the processes you should consider documenting:

I recommend one or a combination of the following three approaches when documenting your business processes.

Approach 1 – Process Chart

We used a version of this in Step 5, when we documented the steps in your production process. At a minimum, the process chart should contain each step of the process, along with a brief description of what occurs in that step, who performs it, and what tools or systems are used. 

Approach 2 – Process Diagram

A process diagram provides more of a visual representation of the steps in a process. A process diagram shows how each step in a process in connected to the other steps in that process or other processes in your business. You can create a process diagram by hand, or you can use a tool like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Visio to create the boxes and arrows for your diagram.

Both the Process Chart and the Process Diagram are pretty high level, so if you want to capture more of the details and different scenarios related to a particular process, I suggest using the next approach in addition to one of the other two.

Approach 3 – Process Narrative

A process narrative is a story-like version of a process, using short sentences or phrases to describe what happens in each step of a process. It is more detailed and descriptive than the other two approaches to process documentation. For ease of reading, it’s best to create a bulleted list of these sentences or phrases in your process narrative.

While it may take a lot of time to go through documenting your processes, the effort will be worth it. By doing so, you get a chance to take a detached look at those tasks you perform most often.  You may see connections or identify inconsistencies in these processes that you may never have recognized before. Most importantly, you’ll have the beginning of your company’s operations manual, which will continue to serve as a valuable reference for as long as you own your business.

Using and Maintaining Your Process Documentation

After you’ve documented your processes, you’ll need to organize them in a way that’s easy for your and your employees to access. The easiest way to do this is to print out all of your process documentation and arrange them in a folder or binder. Use tabs to label the folder or binder section by the name of the process. You could also save each of the documented processes as read-only PDF files, and provide them electronically to your employees via email or by posting on your company’s website or intranet. If you have any proprietary information or ‘secret formulas’ you want to protect from being inadvertently exposed, keep those out of the file and just review them verbally or on-screen with people in your company who absolutely need to have that information.

Once a twice a year, you will need to review the process documentation you’ve created and update it to reflect any changes you’ve made or any new processes you’ve added.