Since beginning my employment at Jamestown Community College, my team and I have been outlining and documenting systems. All this work has occurred in Google Drive. When I read Miller’s book, it totally made sense to me. As my team is getting ready for a short retreat with systems being a focus, I am going to have them read this book in preparation.
Miller’s book is 113 pages long, and I was able to finish it in one sitting. It consists of 7 chapters addressing the following topics:
- Vision
- Systems Drive Business
- The System Creation Process
- Creating Your Ideal Business
- Creating the Systems
- Assign the System
- Monitor the Checklists
As Miller noted early in his book, there are many free tools that can aid a business in both operations and training. As he described his path to his current business, he learned that systems and checklists were invaluable tools for producing at a high level. By using systems and checklists, he could more easily delegate tasks to his team with a higher assurance of the tasks being accomplished successfully. He also discovered that systems and checklists could be shaped into training products.
“As you navigate the bumpy waters of your business, you should create a system around every problem that arises.” (Miller, 2014, Chapter 3, Section: System, not staff problem, Para 4)
In his book, Miller outlined a process for system development. This is framed around your vision of an ideal business. He recommended creating systems around major tasks such as opening and closing a store. From that point, you need to identify specific tasks for each system. Under each task, you list the steps. You now have a checklist you can use for operations and training. Miller stores these checklists in Google Drive. In his book, he offered ideas that I believe really give the checklists life, but you will have to read De-Mythify: Finding freedom in your small business to discover them. We will be incorporating these ideas into our processes and systems.
One of the benefits of using Google Drive for your systems is that you can make adjustments and monitor them at a distance. I have found this to be a wonderful capability since we have three campuses to work from. Additionally, Miller provided some ideas for distributing checklists that I really liked. With a finalized system in place, it should be extremely easy to determine if work is being completed as requested.
I really liked the ideas brought forward by Miller. They reinforce the direction I have taken with my team. Also as a small business owner, I plan to do a better job documenting my systems for that time when I hire someone new or just to handle infrequent tasks. De-Mythify: Finding freedom in your small business is definitely a book I recommend.
Additional Reading
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