Why not treat the rest of your business the same way? In my business we have documented processes for most of the things that mater. In fact, the first draſt of our Operations Manual was writen before the company even opened. It has since been edited, tweaked and modified and will continue to be a living docu- ment, as it should. But it provides the guardrails. The introductory sections include our mission and vision
statements as well as business hours, key contacts and emer- gency contact information. The rest has chapters on our best practices for all office processes. Examples include:
• How we answer the phone and handle inquiries • Daily opening and closing procedures • How our filing system is organized • How we operate when the power goes out or the Internet goes down • Monthly record scanning and archiving • How to greet and process walk-ins. We do clinical testing as well as drug testing, and handle self-pay clients as well.
• How paperwork is handled aſter a donor leaves • How billing paperwork is processed • How and when we do inventory and quality assurance • And, of course, it addresses the drug test collection process and a lot more When the “new guy” is hired, the first thing he gets is the opera-
tions manual, with a “Tis is how we do things here.” Of course we go over things in training, but it’s a good start.
But isn’t this big book cumbersome? In a word, yes. And if you had to refer to it every day every time you had to do something, it would gather dust. This is where the checklists come in. Yes, checklists can be cumbersome too, if they are too complex. We are still paring ours down to the bare essentials. Each best practice in the operations manual is summarized in a checklist at the end. For completeness, they are integrated in the manual, but in practice, copies are posted in lo- cations where they can be quickly referenced. The opening and closing checklist is at the front desk, along with phone numbers for courier pickups, for example. If you think of the operations manual as 49 CFR Part 40,
and the checklists as the 10 Steps to Collection Site Security, that would be a fair analogy. Our checklists are geting simpler, influenced in a large part by
Te Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Tings Right, by Atul Gawande. Gawande used airline pilots’ checklists as a model for improving safety and eliminating mistakes in surgery. It’s a simple thing, and he makes a compelling argument for making them as simple as pos- sible. If they are not used, they are useless.
www.datia.org There is more to our operations manual, but its heart and soul
is the processes that are documented. Some call them standard operating procedures, but I prefer best practices, as I think that is really what it’s about: doing things the best way possible for a given situation.
Controlled growth When a company is small, it’s easy to “wing it,” since there isn’t as much to manage, but “winging it” takes its toll over time. As you grow, steps get skipped, billing gets lost, employees get frazzled and customers get neglected. The fewer decisions that waste precious mental energy, the better off you are. The more employees understand the “guardrails,” the more empowered they feel. Documenting your processes puts the day-to-day on cruise control for the whole team, and allows people to concen- trate on more important issues.
Where to start Like many of you, I read a lot of business books. But there is one I keep going back to. It’s dog-eared and highlighted and still full of great thoughts. Tat book is Michael Gerber’s Te E-Myth Revisited. For those of you non-readers, read it. It’s an easy one. ❚
Tim Thoelecke is the owner of InOut Labs, a Chicago area business that provides TPA and collection services, as well as DNA and clinical lab testing services. He applies lessons learned from previous successful businesses to InOut Labs, which was founded in 2012. Tim is a member of DATIA and holds CPCT certification.
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