In a previous post, I have highlighted that efficiency is better than conformism. In this post, I will expose what tools that you can use to work efficiently in your business.
Definition
First it is important to understand the definition of efficiency. As explained in this post, a system is considered as efficient when it uses the smallest amount of input to produce the highest amount of output.
During my time as a Quality Engineer, I have acquired several skills and worked with a number of amazing tools. Those tools were meant to ensure the Quality and the efficiency of the service and products to our customers.
Some of these tools are as following:
Your brain
The most powerful tool one can use whilst working their business (or a project) is the brain. The best way to be efficient is to think forward, ideally before the kick-off.
Alone, the brain can be powerful. But when several brains are used for the same project or business, the results can be amazing. Indeed, people have different backgrounds, different personalities, different experience that would lead to different ways of thinking.
In another post, I recommended to use your brain to foresee the obstacles and difficulties you may encounter whilst conducting your project. Doing that exercise beforehand will enable you to:
- think of how to tackle those obstacles
- Start your project with the tools you need to fix the issues
- kick-off your project with solutions
- be ready if the difficulties show up
- gain some time in solving the problems
- have a better control of the risks associated to your project or business.
This is called the FMEA: Failure Mode & Effect Analyses.
Another way of doing this exercise will be to use the past data and/or experience to anticipate any difficulties coming your way, which brings us to the next point.
The Pareto, also known as the 80/20 Law
In a previous post, I have exposed another powerful decision-making tool, which is the Pareto’s Law. This Law is amazing because it makes you realize that most of your difficulties will be the direct consequence of a handful number of problems. The right decisions are based on the data you have.
Knowing that, it will be easy for you to figure out on what causes to focus on. It is important to focus on the actual root causes of the obstacle you may encounter: otherwise, the same problems will keep arising.
Like a lot of things, Pareto relies a lot on data: if you have no data, it might be difficult to notice a pattern. If you are starting your business, take notes of the failures you encounter and of their root causes. With time, that data will help you make appropriate decisions.
Organization
Finally, another tool you can use to work efficiently in your business is organization. This is the basic. Lots of business fail because of a lack of organization.
Efficiency depends very much on organization. Running a business can be very overwhelming especially if you are beginning and if you are alone. Organization should kick in from second one. Sometimes, when you are organized, the business is overwhelming – let alone when you’re not!
A way to organize your tasks is to segregate them in different categories: importance (low or high) and urgency (low or high). If a task is:
- Important and urgent: give it priority.
- Important but not urgent: schedule it
- Urgent but not important: delegate it
- Not important and not urgent: don’t waste your resources on it.
If ants are capable of organizing themselves, how about us?! We are stronger and more valuable than ants.
How about you? Do you know of any other tools you can use to work efficiently in your business? I’d love to read your feedback in the comment section.
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