Questions Your Operations Team Should Be Asking
Operations teams are the backbone of any organization, handling day-to-day tasks that keep businesses running. Sparking innovation and being proactive to potential pitfalls isn’t just about having rockstars on your team. It’s also about continuously asking the right questions to accurately assess effectiveness and to allocate resources in the right places.
For operations teams looking to jumpstart monthly wellness checks or improve their evaluations to stay ahead of goals, there are five key questions they should be asking themselves - and other team members:
Are we fully utilizing our systems and technology?
Too often, businesses subscribe to different systems or technology and underutilize its features. Now, sometimes the effectiveness of a process benefits from having different pieces of technology in place. Other times it's best to consolidate within one piece of technology. This not only allows for cost saving opportunities but also increases the likelihood that you can automate your workflows. Using too many different systems minimizes your chances of automating where it best suits your process. While you can use third-party automation tools like Zapier, it’s typically best to try to automate a workflow within the system itself.
Here’s a quick overview of how to choose the right systems for your team.
2. Are there any bottlenecks in our workflows that we can remove?
A major hindrance to process efficiency is bottlenecks. Bottlenecks can be small things like only this one person in a department having the appropriate access to add data into a system (this happens more often than you might expect) or a manager holding onto approving every tiny detail in a project or process despite their workload being at (or over) capacity.
Appropriate checks and balances or quality control points in a process are not necessarily bottlenecks as they serve a purpose. But it’s important to be able to identify areas that cause lags or delays in a process and determine the best solutions to remove them.
3. Are there any silos that we should work on removing so we can collaborate better?
Silos are detrimental to culture building, collaboration, and innovation. Teams should be able to communicate and collaborate seamlessly. Silos are created when certain departments or individual team members are reluctant to share information, when they don’t see the value that other departments or team members bring, or when conflicts within an organization go unresolved.
Introducing communication apps like Slack or task management boards that encourage collaboration, like Monday.com, can be effective ways to start to tear down silos. Training on healthy conflict, effective communication, and management encouragement also help to improve collaboration.
4. Are we accurately tracking data that shows our goal progress?
While strategic intuition and creative direction can take goals to the next level, accurately tracking progress is how we validate where we’ve dedicated our resources. It also allows us to pivot before we’ve wasted too many resources if we’re not headed in an effective direction. Data tracking can be as simple as a team member entering numbers on a dashboard for weekly reports or can entail system automations that keep numbers up to date daily. Whichever direction is best for your team, make sure you’ve identified which pieces of information are most relevant to your goals and be committed to reviewing them in some kind of consistent cadence.
5. Is everyone clear on what they are responsible for and how that contributes to the team or company’s success?
There is not enough to be said about CLARITY. There is empowerment, confidence, and trust in a team that is clear on their specific responsibilities and the processes to execute on those responsibilities. Beyond clear direction is also clarity on how their execution contributes to the larger picture. Employees that are foggy on how their work matters are plagued with low engagement, workplace tension, and ultimately low productivity.
Creating clarity requires more than just leadership or management direction. Operations teams should always have foundational SOP’s in place that note processes, expectations, and the why behind the process.
By asking the right questions and leveraging the insights they gain, teams can ensure they are operating at peak efficiency. Investing in understanding and improving operations is an investment in a more successful future for your organization. Your team will be equipped to make informed decisions to keep you ahead of the curve and primed for success.
If your team is not used to asking these questions or you’re simply ready to take your operational effectiveness to the next level, book a Possibilities Chat with us. We’ll help you identify and understand your operational areas of focus and most pressing improvement areas for better operational awareness. Click here to book now and get started on unlocking your team’s full potential.