Leverage. Operations and Training Manual

How to: Write an Operations and Training Manual

I want to do this! What’s This?

An Operations and Training Manual is a complete set of step-by-step instructions on how to complete tasks within your business. There are many ways in which a task can be done but the question is “Is the task being done in the most efficient way possible?”

Effectively you will save time, energy and money by having an Operations and Training Manual because you will be able to leveraging the power of systems in your business.

There are mainly three ways to complete a task:

1)      Absolute: All critical activities are done in sequential order, allowing for the task to be completed correctly and in the most efficient manner possible.

2)      None-Uniformed: The activities are done in such a way that they are not necessarily ordered to complete the activity as efficiently as possible. However, this method generally gets the job done.

3)      Incorrect: The activities are incorrectly completed and the task is not done.

To illustrate this further, think of what’s involved in making a cup of coffee, the main activities are:

1.         Add Water to Kettle

2.         Boil Water

3.         Find a Cup

4.         Add Coffee Beans

5.         Add Sugar

6.         Add Boiling Water to cup

7.         Add Milk

8.         Stir

This is the Absolute way to making a cup of coffee, taking into account the order of which activities need to be completed so that the whole task is done correctly and as fast as possible (Critical Path). Let’s now see what happens when we change the order of some of the activities, for instance if we where to do activities 3, 4 and 5 before we did activity 1 our list would look like:

1.         Find a Cup

2.         Add Coffee Beans

3.         Add Sugar

4.         Add Water to Kettle

5.         Boil Water

6.         Add Boiling Water to cup

7.         Add Milk

8.         Stir

The results will be the same – we would get a perfectly adequate cup of coffee, except now we have ignored the need to complete the task as quickly as possible and followed the None-Uniformed way. For instance, the two most critical activities were ‘Add Water to Kettle’ and ‘Boil Water’, which is also the longest activity to do, as you cannot pour the hot water until the kettle boils.

The difference between the None-Uniformed and Absolute way is that whilst the kettle is boiling you can do activities 3,4 and 5 when using the absolute method, cutting out unnecessary time. Whereas with the none-uniformed way you are adding to the overall time it takes to complete the task, as you would have not started boiling the kettle until after you had completed activity 3.

If we were to rearrange the activates as shown below, then we would have completed this task the Incorrect way:

1.         Boil Water

2.         Add Water to Kettle

3.         Find a Cup

4.         Add Boiling Water to cup

5.         Add Coffee Beans

6.         Stir

7.         Add Sugar

8.         Add Milk

We still would have completed the task, but possibly with a damaged kettle, and with all the sugar at the bottom of the cup!

When you apply this theory to business processes you quickly begin to see just how much time is wasted and how tasks are completed incorrectly. In order to achieve consistently fast results for the same process, the same steps need to be carried out each time in an absolute manner.

Irrespective of your line of business an Operations and Training Manual is vital to describes how to perform a job, tells which position does it and details how frequently it is performed.

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