One of the most destructive habits when it comes to business efficiency is the firefighting response. You probably know the scene: someone alerts the team to an urgent situation, perhaps in response to an angry customer. A chain reaction of activity is then set off across the office to try and swiftly handle the issue. Things are eventually brought under control by throwing resources at the situation and everyone is left utterly exhausted. After this period of unplanned activity, everyone gets back to their routine work.
Reacting to Unexpected Challenges
Many businesses rely on firefighters to keep running, solve unexpected challenges and keep the business operating. Like real firefighters, they’re often valued, and perhaps even celebrated.
But have you considered that by rewarding firefighting you might actually be creating a culture of arsonists? Sometimes firefighting can be exciting, but on closer inspection, the vast majority of fires are probably preventable. Why wait for a fire to start burning when you could prevent it from starting in the first place?
A problem that never occurs is much better than a problem that has to be fixed. Your day-to-day operations are the last things that deserve a firefighting approach – it’s better to spend your focus and time on preventing the issues occurring in the first place, rather than putting out the fires.
Does Your Business Rely Too Much on Firefighting?
Here are 12 warning signs that your business relies on fighting rather than preventing fires:
1. Variation in Quality
Does your team use different processes to complete the same task? Do you have clear and easy-to-follow processes that allow work to be easily repeated? If you do already, are they being used? Processes mean nothing, after all, if they’re not properly utilised.
2. Rework and Repeated Site Visits
This might be due to errors, missing equipment or tools. How much rework do you or your team have to do?
3. Root Causes Left Undiscovered or Unfixed
When something last went wrong, was time taken to understand the root cause? Was something put in place to prevent it from happening again?
4. Missing or Late Information
Does your team have accurate and timely information to perform its tasks? Are team members ever unable to answer questions about the current state of tasks?
5. Bottlenecks
How much time do people spend waiting on tools, inventory, people or information to get things done? How is this impacting your business efficiency?
6. Customer Satisfaction
When did you last ask for or receive feedback on your service? Remember that whereas some customers will complain, some will simply change suppliers to avoid conflict.
7. Long Email Chains
Do you have long email chains with lengthy discussions around routine issues that could easily be standardised processes?
8. Blame and Lack of Responsibility
When things go wrong, are there consistently unproductive discussions surrounding responsibility?
9. Silos
Are there certain team members who hold all of the knowledge about certain areas of your business? Does your team struggle every time a certain person goes on holiday?
10. Running
Looking around your office on a normal day, how frequently do you see your team running from meeting to meeting, barely finishing one before heading into the next? Does it look like they are in control, or does it feel as though they’re struggling to stay on top of work?
11. Lack of Improvement
When was the last time you improved a process based on feedback from an employee or customer? When was the last time you actively sought open feedback?
12. Crisis Motivation
How often do you see your team responding to crisis situations? Are things genuinely urgent? Could the situation have been better anticipated?
Preventing Business Firefighting With Continuous Improvement
Solving problems permanently is better than having to deal with them repeatedly. That’s just common sense. According to McKinsey research, some frustrated General Managers can spend as much as 67% more time dealing with short-term, unexpected emergencies and 25% less time setting overall strategy.
It's easy to see just how much energy is wasted on running things inefficiently. Spending too much time on some activities, and not enough on others. The key to preventing crises from recurring is good time management, alongside the development of a robust system to get to the root causes of issues and implement change.
A simple system to get things under control without becoming overwhelmed is Continuous Improvement. When you succeed in solving underlying problems, crises will reduce in frequency. This will not only make the working environment more pleasant, but it will also free up time and mental energy to improve business efficiency and move your company forwards.
How Can Rugged Data Help Implement Continuous Improvement (CI) in Your Workplace?
Standardising your processes – making them more streamlined and efficient – is what we’re all about here at Rugged Data.
Our mobile forms and reporting applications are designed to take your current processes, those that are inefficient and holding you back as a company, and replace them with intuitive, easy-to-use alternatives.
Not only will this improve the benchmark of your business’s overall quality, but it’ll save your technicians out in the field a huge amount of time and wasted energy, too.
Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference
By simplifying your reporting through digitisation, you reduce the amount of firefighting within your company. There’s less to go wrong, there’s greater transparency and accountability, and the efficiency improvements that automated mobile forms bring mean your team won’t be left feeling pulled from pillar to post so often.
Wondering Where to Start? Consider the Faster Fieldwork 28 Day Sprint!
If this all sounds like we’re going at one million miles per hour, then let us take a second to strip it back to its core for you. With our Faster Fieldwork 28 Day Sprint, our Lean-qualified Rugged Data coaches will review the process you want us to digitise, and then design an app for you for that process, all within 28 days. And if we don’t get it done in that time? We’ll refund your setup fee and build the form entirely for free.
What Next?
Our goal at Rugged Data is to be your long-term technological partner. To take all of your reporting processes and make them more efficient. Because that’s the thing – we know how busy you are.
We know how little time you or your teams in the field have to be faffing about with old-fashioned and laborious reporting processes. We want to make your lives quick, simple and accurate, and that’s exactly what we’ll do.
Put Out those Fires, One Process at a Time
By changing your reporting processes, we’ll help you eliminate firefighting from your workplace culture. No more arsonists, and no more dowsing of flames. But if for whatever reason, you’re not happy with our offering after 90 days, we’ll refund everything. Our data may be rugged, but our processes are as smooth as anything. Trust us.
Our customers say implementing a Rugged Data app has boosted their business efficiency by 30%. Contact us today for a free quote.
