Stop Waiting, Start Working

Every business fulfills some sort of job for its customers.

And most businesses I’ve observed cannot answer the following question:

“Where is the job?”

Implementing a system to efficiently and effectively answer this question will solve many, many headaches for you and your business.

If you can answer the primary question (“Where is the job?”) then the following secondary questions (not exhaustive) are easy to answer…

1. What is being done to the job?

2. How long has the job been waiting to be worked on?

3. Who owns which process?

4. What prompts the next person to process a job that is ready to be worked on?

5. And more…

Let’s explore what happens when you answer this question… and what next steps you can take to improve your business!

Waiting or Working?

Every process creates outputs. And every process requires inputs.

Whenever I work with a customer, as a business mechanic, understanding how value flows through their organization is where I start.

Oftentimes, when a job is worked on… if it has more to be done to it… it sits there and waits to be worked on.

Why?

Because there’s no system for measuring uptime and downtime.

Here are some examples of processes from various industries that are sequentially dependent on one another…

Status vs. Stage

Most project management tools (Motion, Asana, ClickUp, Monday, Notion, etc.) have default statuses:

• To Do — this status is used to represent a task or project that has yet to be started.

• In Progress — this status is used when a task or project is actively being worked on.

• Complete — this status marks a task or project as finished.

Statuses provide useful information. But they’re not sufficient for telling the entire story as to where a job is at.

Instead, imagine that each stage has statuses. So a “job” (using the manufacturing example above) might flow through the following statuses and stages…

1. To Do + Procurement

2. In Progress + Procurement

3. Complete + Procurement = To Do + Production

4. In Progress + Production

5. Complete + Production = To Do + Packaging

6. In Progress + Packaging

7. Complete + Packaging

Notice how the completion of one stage prompts the next stage.

Now… let’s label each of these 7 status + stage combinations as either uptime or downtime.

Remember, uptime is when the job is being worked on. Downtime is when the job is not being worked on.

1. To Do + Procurement — DOWNTIME

2. In Progress + Procurement — UPTIME

3. Complete + Procurement = To Do + Production — DOWNTIME

4. In Progress + Production — UPTIME

5. Complete + Production = To Do + Packaging — DOWNTIME

6. In Progress + Packaging — UPTIME

7. Complete + Packaging — DOWNTIME

Imagine having a digital board that represents all of your jobs that need work done to them… and having the information as to where they are at in the flow of the business.

Let’s go one step further…

Imagine being able to track the time of each job:

• “How long did a job sit it downtime?”

• “How long did a job sit in uptime?"

And this is where continuous improvement comes in.

By identifying the root causes for a job not being worked on, you can then create improvements to reduce the downtime between processes.

When you reduce the downtime between processes, you increase throughput.

When you increase throughput, you get more work done with the same amount of resources.

More revenue in less time equals more profit.

Take the First Step

Start improving your business in this way by identifying every “job” as a “project”.

Then recognize that there are “processes” (or tasks) that need to be executed to fulfill that job.

By being organized and disciplined about labeling the “status + stage” of each project, you’ll have the information you need to begin understanding your throughput, capacity, and profit-potential.

Every second that passes during the lifecycle of a job represents money being made (uptime) or money being lost (downtime).

Need Help?

If you want to double-click on this topic and get support in operationalizing your business, apply here for a free 30-minute assessment!