Plan, Act, Review

Getting things done requires process. Smaller businesses typically do whatever it takes to win and satisfy customers. Larger businesses understand the importance of process, but business process isn’t a fashionable subject. Unfortunately we’re all searching for the silver bullet that will turn our ideas into an instant success.

The bad news is that silver bullet doesn’t exist, at least outside of the murky world of Internet Marketing.

Getting things done consistently, without getting in the way of business as usual, takes management and management isn’t about lucky silver bullets. It’s about setting objectives, planning how to achieve them, executing the plan and regularly reviewing progress then changing the plan. It’s a process.

For more than fifty years management consultants have tried to explain to us the secret of success – getting things done – lies in process – a measurable, repeatable, standard way of doing things. You’ll have heard the expression “if it can be measured it can be improved”. That comes from the concept of process which in turn comes from Henri Fayol.

From the early days of the 20th century to the time management books of the last, theorists have described the virtuous cycle of planning, execution, review of the results and revision of the plan.

“Failing to Plan, is planning to fail” explained Alan Lakein in his bestseller -  How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life.  He explained “You cannot do a goal. Long-term planning and goal-setting must therefore be complemented by short-term planning. This kind of planning requires specifying activities. You can do an activity. Activities are steps along the way to a goal.”

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” defined Albert Einstein.

“To manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, to command, to coordinate, and to control.” wrote Henri Fayol, the father of management philosophy.

To most of us this sounds obvious, but we don’t follow the thinking as well as we could.  Our systems just aren’t built that way.

Front Office Box is different.  It has Plan>Act>Review “built in”.

The workflow is a constant process of deciding what we want to do, scheduling the activities, and reviewing the results.

We don’t need to worry about management best practice, because the software looks after it for us.  We can get on with the day job, delivering for customers.

Front Office Box tells us when things aren’t going the way we want.