Managing a small business is not an easy task to complete. As a business owner, you have to deal with problems all the time. There are also market challenges to deal with and business performance to worry about. It is certainly not a task that can be handled on your own. You need a strong team and efficient workflows to support your small business. Still, a strong team and business workflows alone are not enough. There are tweaks that can be implemented in order to boost the performance of your small business to a whole new level. These next several tips and tricks will help you achieve that objective and improve business performance while solving common business challenges.
Limit Interruptions
Interruptions are the primary cause of inefficiency in a business. When team members have to switch from working on their tasks and attending meetings several times a day, their productivity level will go down substantially. If you find your team struggling to complete tasks, interruptions could be the primary cause.
Limiting interruptions is a great way to boost business performance immediately. Set meetings early and make sure team members have large chunks of their time allocated to working on tasks in hand. Avoid scheduling meetings in the middle of the day or at odd hours in the afternoon, especially when there are important projects to complete.
Other interruptions are worth managing too. Email notifications, other team members interrupting with questions, and distractions (i.e. a cute YouTube video shared through Slack) should be limited to a minimum. Let team members collaborate seamlessly with fewer distractions to worry about to see a huge boost in performance.
Sync-Ups
Keeping everyone on the same page is another important thing to do to maintain – and increase – business performance. When all team members share the same vision and understand company goals comprehensively, they are more likely to move in unison in the right direction. The way to maintain that shared vision is through regular sync-up meetings.
Ideally, you want to start the week with a sync-up meeting. The meeting doesn’t have to be especially long. 10 or 15 minutes spent talking about updates and discussing action plans is more than enough to maintain the mood of the office. More importantly, the sync-up meeting is your opportunity to reinforce your ideas and vision effectively.
Sync-ups are also useful for solving issues between departments. When dealing with bottlenecks in business processes or trying to increase work pace of everyone in the business, being able to have direct discussions about the issues really help. You will be solving problems without wasting too much time figuring out the best solution because all team members are involved in developing a solution.
Avoid Multitasking
Avoiding multitasking is easier said than done, but it is still an incredibly effective way to boost business performance. Multitasking does not come naturally to everyone, hence the lower productivity level in some who aren’t able to handle multiple tasks at the same time. Avoiding multitasking solves that issue immediately.
One of the ways to minimize the need for multitasking is by prioritizing tasks correctly. You can implement Agile methodology to manage projects in smaller cycles to allow the entire company to focus on a limited number of tasks at one time. Shortening the cycles is how you complete a large number of tasks in a timely manner.
You can further avoid multitasking by organizing tasks using a Kanban board, limiting work in progress and leveraging an Agile project plan where instead of planning all activities in great detail, you reduce the badge size of work items and thus increase team throughput levels. A Kanban board is now incredibly flexible thanks to services like Kanbanize. Instead of a physical board, you add cards to a cloud Kanban board that can be accessed from everywhere. Features that are offered by platforms like Kanbanize also help with project management.
Refine Processes
That brings us to the last tip on our list: find ways to continuously improve. When projects and tasks are laid out in a visual way – as Kanban cards with details and other elements – you are more likely to find ways to optimize business processes. Switch to continuous improvement mode and begin refining processes across the organization.
For example, you can quickly identify the need for more digital marketing specialists if you see repetitive bottlenecks in your campaigns. You can also see if the bottlenecks are caused by the workflow rather than a lack of resources, making every refinement decision you make highly effective and very targeted.
To complete the set, get all team members involved in identifying bottlenecks and solving problems. With input from team members, continuous improvement becomes an even faster process. It will not be long before you reach new levels of effectiveness and operational efficiency once you start reviewing workflows and improving them.
These simple tips are all easy to implement, so there is no reason why you cannot get started immediately. If you want to stay competitive and flexible on the market, these tips and tricks provide the solutions you’re looking for.
