Businesses are a collection of interconnected systems. Good systems are autonomous. But each system needs to be understood within the context in which they are running, otherwise, you have isolated islands. Make sure you are leading the development of systems that connect to one another.
Every system has a trigger to start and produces an outcome when it is done. For most systems, the input will be an output from another system. And for most systems, outputs will be inputs for another system. Creating this interconnection between systems via inputs and outputs means the owners of each system must agree on SLA between them. But when they do, they can create seamless customer and employee experiences that decrease costs and increase revenues. For more on Inputs and Outputs, sign up for the free workshop below!
Systems are made up of things called elements. Elements are people, processes, technology, and content. When developing systems, list all the elements that will be needed, given the inputs and desired outputs.
Once you know what elements are in a system, those things need to be in a certain order. This order is what makes a system repeatable and scalable. However, some systems are going to do things that produce a unique output every time. In which case, the system type is that a framework. For more on system types, sign up for the free workshop below!
Systems themselves have a mini-input and output that not only tells you what to do next but when to do it! It is like the old saying, “timing is everything”. If you complete your homework a year late, you may not be getting the output you were seeking!
For every step in the process, create a way to determine the state. You will need this for the next step, reporting. Which leads directly to improvement. So, if a step in your system is to determine whether a customer is willing to buy in the next 30 days, you might track the state of that question as follows. Start date and time, whether it has been Asked, whether it has been Answered, whether a prospect dropped off or went to the next step. If you can capture the context, that is extremely useful as well. For more on Instrumentation, sign up for the free workshop below!
Look, the reason systems are so powerful is because they tell you things that give your insight into exactly how well they are performing. The best reason to use systems is so you can continuously get better and better. But if you do not build the system where you can determine success and failure at each step, then you are going to be guessing why, for instance, the close rates for your sales system are low. You’ll ask your sales VP and they will say “We have a strong pipeline! Don’t worry about it”. Bad advice. Worry!
