Comments on: Streamlining your business http://www.productivity501.com/streamlining-your-business/71/ Pieces of the productivity puzzle. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:02:23 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Paul Singh http://www.productivity501.com/streamlining-your-business/71/comment-page-1/#comment-97324 Paul Singh Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:14:05 +0000 http://x.xeric.net/productivity501/?p=71#comment-97324 Great points -- though, I usually advise my clients to start with #3 first. Before you start making any changes to the business, it's worth spending a small amount of time to measure what you're currently doing. Without that baseline, you've got no way to determine if your changes work better... or worse. For most businesses, "man hours" is a great generic metric that you can measure with almost no work. (e.g. "my sale to cash process takes about 3 hours per deal.") With that number in hand, you can start working backwards to bring the number down to something on the order of 30 minutes or better. Great points — though, I usually advise my clients to start with #3 first.

Before you start making any changes to the business, it’s worth spending a small amount of time to measure what you’re currently doing. Without that baseline, you’ve got no way to determine if your changes work better… or worse.

For most businesses, “man hours” is a great generic metric that you can measure with almost no work. (e.g. “my sale to cash process takes about 3 hours per deal.”) With that number in hand, you can start working backwards to bring the number down to something on the order of 30 minutes or better.

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