Procedure Development When Scaling

When the time comes for your business to start scaling, procedures are usually one of the first things that get messed up. This is because as you scale, you introduce new people, new technologies to your tech stack, new equipment, and possibly new locations. New vendors will likely come into the picture. In short, there is a good chance that some of your carefully developed procedures will be shredded.

What makes things even more complicated is that some procedures might have no changes to them. Others might be still the same, but the volume or number of people involved in carrying them out has changed. In fact, it is possible that some of these people will actually go from being responsible for a set of procedures to possibly being responsible for only a segment of the procedures.

Thankfully, there is a very simple process for revising your procedures as you scale. This process is four steps and is laid out below.

Plan: as you get ready to scale your operations, the first step is to have a very detailed planning session. Don’t hesitate to go to the location and put yourself in the place of your employees. Think through everything slowly and carefully, making sure that you can account for all of the changes that you know need to occur.

Implement: Once you have everything planned out, pull the trigger. Obviously, there might be variables (start dates for new employees, vendors, etc.), but the key here is that as soon as you are set, do not hesitate to pull the trigger. The sooner you can move forward here, the better off you will be in the long term.

Analyze: As soon as you have implemented your plan, immediately collect as much data as you can. From gathering the input of employees to observation of the process itself, try to determine how effective the plan is, identifying any potential bottlenecks that are hampering progress.

Revise: if you believe that you made some miscalculations, start discussing ways to better improve the process. Talk with management and front line employees, get their perspective on the situation, and try to develop a plan that takes everything into consideration. As possible revisions begin to emerge, go back to these individuals, discuss these changes with them, and see where things stand. Ideally, a plan should begin to emerge that will gain general consensus. You might have some who might not be sold on the plan, but if you are seeing a clear path moving forward, revise your procedures accordingly. Once this process is done, go ahead and implement (repeating step 2 above). Keep going until you have the procedures as efficient as practical.

It is quite possible that you will not need to do Step 4 on the first try. It is also possible that you might need to go through multiple cycles. While the number of repetitions of each step will likely vary, one thing is crucial (stated at the end of step 4): focus on getting your procedures as efficient as practical. While it is very true that you can always find a way to improve, focus on the sweet spot. At the end of the day, you have a lot of other things that need to be done. 

One good thing to do regardless of the stage you are is to have a periodic review of procedures. I would recommend annually, but it is possible (especially if your business is in a fast developing industry) that a semi annual review is necessary. (That would be the shortest time frame I would go, since quarterly revisions begin to look like you just can’t figure things out properly.) From technology updates that open up new possibilities to your staff devising new ways to do things efficiently, there are many reasons why your procedures might become outdated. What is important is that you review your procedures and revise accordingly.