Working in a fast pace environment needs to have standard procedure in order to operate a business successfully. Presence of operational issues need to be addressed and solved immediately to avoid further business losses, clients dissatisfaction and employees low morale. Business owners and or managers should be on top of every issues that affect the smooth operation of the business.
Business owners, Corporations and Managers alike play an important role in the effectiveness of this process. They should be able to invest and support the needed tools and expenses in going through this process. Just like setting and adhering to company objectives where the managers are held accountable to the owners or corporation, the supervisors are accountable to the managers and rank and file staff are accountable to their supervisors etc., which means everybody in the organization work as a team in the fulfilment of the objectives and therefore solving operational issues works the same way too. This is not employees problem or supervisors problem, it is everybody's problem.
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To start this process a set of company employees should be selected to work as a team in solving the issues. It will be helpful if not all members of the team are subjected to the particular issues being worked on. This is to avoid assumption but rather gather informations more on factual events or interviews. Team coach will be updating the management and or owners regarding the process.Team members of each issue will be working independently with a team coach and should be given full support by the management/owners in the gathering of information or data. During the interview, employees are allowed to voice out or say what they are actually experiecing on specific issues being analysed and avoid assumption on what could be causing the issues. When a person assumes then the process fails because it lacks the facts or the truthness in what actually happens.
The primary step in solving operational issues is to be able to pick-up the issues affecting the operation of the business. It is vital that issues be worked on according to its basic category such as; priority and important and important but not a priority. First work on the important and priority then the important issues can be handled on a later stage after one issue has been completed. There could be five or more issues that will surface on the discussion but each issue should be worked on one at a time and if there are two or more relevant issues, these can be joined and named as one issue. List of issues should be communicated in writing to the Manager and update him on the issues being worked on.
Second step is to find out the root causes of the issue. The assigned team gathers information to the affected work site or interview employees and search for possible root causes of the problem. They should be able to list all these root causes where all the team members can see, have discussion and eliminate root causes included on the list that are not relevant to the issues. Time element in gathering of information as to the root cause of the issues may differ from one issue to another depending on the process involved on specific type of issues. There could be issues involving contact or approval of the owners, the managers, suppliers etc wherein their availability for interview and agreement with the process will be at their own disposal.
As the team proceed to the process and were able to complete the second step, they then will start with the third step which is summarising the gathered information. Out of those information, they should be able to keep the relevant and eliminate the irrelevant data. They should be able to note which data keeps coming up on the list and be able to sequence them as to which data comes first, second, third and so on according to its repetitiveness on the list. Based on the data gathered, team member will then set a procedure that will solve the issue.
The fourth step is to eliminate the obstacle in setting up the procedure involved in an issue. Once a procedure has been created, it will then be discussed with the manager and or the owner to eliminate obstacle/s for the successful implementation of the newly created procedure. The procedure should be convincing and be able to solve the issue. If the procedure gets the support and approval of the manager and or the owner, then the team will be able to finalise the creation of the procedure.
The fifth step is the implementation of the set procedure by the team members. Manager and or owner should then meet with the employees concern with regards to the issue and discussed the new set procedure to be followed in order to totally eliminate the occurrence of specific operational problem. With the support of the upper management/owner being highlighted with their presence, this will give a positive impact on the discussion and implementation of the newly created procedure.
The sixth step is to Review Set Procedure. In this stage, the team members will try to review the effectiveness of the procedure and if there is/are changes that need/s to be revised then it has to be communicated to all the person concern, re-implemented till it works without flaws.
Summarising the sixth steps on how to solve operational issues are as follows:
1. Pick-up the issues- team members should be able to gather issues and categorised each one of them based on important and priority or important but not priority. They should also be able to make one issue out of related issues that are relevant to each other.
2. Find out the possible root causes of the issue - team members visit the work site or employees at the work site of specific issue that they are working on. They should be able to gather facts, data or information with the concern employees or work site. It is important that the collection of data or information are based on facts and not assumption.
3. Summarises the possible root causes, analyse the issue and create a procedure to solve the issue based on the facts and data gathered through the interviews made with the employees and actual observation linking the events as to how the issue is occurring. It should be factual and ocular.
4. Eliminate obstacle for the implementation of the newly set -up procedure.- team coach/members should discuss their findings with the owner and or the manager with their suggested procedure for implementation. Issues that concern the suppliers or other outside establishment should be handled and discussed through proper channels with the full support of the owner and or manager.
5. Implementation of the newly set-up procedure- team members should have a meeting with the concern employees that will adapt the procedure in the presence of the owner and or the manager. Set-up operating procedure will be in place and team members make a follow through ensuring that the implementation is taking place
6. Review the set-up procedure. After three to six months, team members will review the set procedure and make revisions if necessary for the successful implementation of the set standard procedure in solving operational issue.
These steps on solving operational issues if followed accordingly will give or show dramatic improvements in the smooth operation of the business, profitability, clients satisfaction and high employee morale.
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