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Method to the Madness Can Lead Way to Success

The dot-com days of chaotic, unmanaged company expansion, rooted in a seemingly endless supply of easily obtained investment money, have come to a close. The importance of profitability has returned.

Successful management in a softening economy involves paying close attention to the traditional business basics: well-planned strategy, effective execution and building a team that understands the goals and is capable of achieving them.

It is time-consuming to build groups inside the company that possess real shared knowledge of common working practices. In the dot-com era, the fear of knowledge loss was symbolized by the company pool table: Make work feel good and hopefully the employees won't go home.

Keeping people at work for 16 hours a day is one way to foster a shared understanding of goals and process. However, there are more reliable methods available for building teams that execute their roles efficiently, consistently and in accordance with strategic company goals.

Common practices can be codified into roadmaps, or playbooks, called business process methodologies. These methodologies serve a pivotal role in retaining, sharing and reusing knowledge.

A Common Approach

In its simplest form, a methodology is a sequence of activities that an organization follows to accomplish specific goals. Take, for example, a sales team challenged with introducing a new product. A methodology gives team members a common roadmap for efficiently selling the product.

Without a defined methodology, teams rely on company "folklore" for guidance and instruction in how to execute functions such as sales, consulting or development.

An informal approach works well in some cases. However, many companies find the folklore method to be limiting and inefficient. It doesn't play out well when a company is growing rapidly, facing change, has multiple offices or is operating in a complex market or business environment.

Share the Knowledge

Issues of consistency and efficiency can be solved by building methodology toolkits, which codify the company folklore into documented and usable best practices. Methodologies provide a means for companies to create well-managed, scalable operations that produce predictable and reliable results, and retain knowledge that would otherwise walk out the door at night.

Every successful team needs a shared process, an agreed-upon method for carrying out its activities.

Can you imagine a football team that did not carefully plan and rehearse its plays? How about an orchestra with no score to follow? Although these examples are almost self-evident, many business leaders do not apply this thinking to their organizations.

Even in companies with talented workers, process failure is common. A team-oriented sales group might have high turnover and poor performance; customers might complain that a software company's products are difficult and time-consuming to implement.

These problems can be solved by creating best practice-based guides. With a playbook, the sales team functions as a unit; the implementation group follows the shortest, lowest-cost path to deploying software at customer sites; and all members of the consulting team share a common set of practices when working with customers.

In both large and small companies, methodologies drive organizational performance through continuous, measurable improvements. When common processes are defined and followed, costs go down, cycle times decrease and customer satisfaction rises.

A Methodology Checklist

If you decide to develop a methodology, keep in mind that process improvements require management support. Perhaps your most important consideration should be getting senior management sponsorship. With that in place, here are some ideas to get started.

First, choose a specific process to refine—whether sales, product development, consulting services, account management or something else—and determine clear goals. Ask your best people how they deliver your services. Select the optimum methods, examining them critically as you create a standardized approach. Be sure to get the team's buy-in when building the new, refined way of working.

Next, document the process. Shared best practices only become useful when they are written down. Keep descriptions short and practical.

Finally, consider how you will package and deliver the methodology. An intranet Web site can serve as an excellent knowledge repository.

For people who regularly work offline, such as sales people or consultants, a CD-ROM-based methodology may be appropriate. If parts of your methodology will be shared with customers or partners, consider building those sections into training that you offer to those groups.

Developing methodologies requires careful scrutiny of your processes and some hard work, but the benefits—reduced risks, greater consistency of results and increased profitability—make it well worth the effort.

Written by Michael Krigsman, president and CEO of Cambridge Publications. This article was originally published in .