What You'll Discover In This Episode:
A lot of business owners I’ve had the pleasure of working with shy away from documenting processes for numerous reasons. It’s boring, they don’t have enough time, it seems tedious, they don’t know how, just to name a few. Since her youth, my guest on today’s episode of Productivity Straight Talk has run toward them. Adrienne Bellehumeur is passionate about teaching others her six practical steps for navigating process documentation in a way that is effective, non-intimidating, and even appealing.
So, why should we as small business owners care?
Because documenting processes highlights inefficiencies such as needless or redundant steps
It creates efficiency as it enables everyone to move through recurring tasks quickly
It gets steps out of your brain and into the Cloud
It captures the knowledge of employees who might leave their role
It makes onboarding new employees less painful and time-consuming
It drastically reduces the number of interruptions in the form of time-wasting groundhog conversations that usually begin something like, How am I supposed to do XYZ task again?
It drains much less energy than constantly having to think about what the next step is in a recurring task
It makes your business more valuable because your buyer will gain a great deal of your workforce’s knowledge, thus reducing their purchasing risk.
I’m not going to lie. Carefully documenting your processes takes time. But the result… the peace you will feel knowing that you’re operating efficiently and that if a key employee leaves, you’ll be able to quickly pick up the pieces and slide your new hire seamlessly into that role, is totally worth the hassle of documenting your processes.
Not convinced? Tune in to this week’s episode of Productivity Straight Talk in which the Owner of Risk Oversight and Bellehumeur Co., Adrienne Bellehumeur, dives into her world of documenting processes and walks through her six practical steps for navigating them.
Episode Links & Resources:
About Guest:
Adrienne is Director and Co-owner of Risk Oversight, a leading Canadian firm specializing in governance, risk and compliance, internal audit, SOX, and CSOX programs. She is also the founder of Bellehumeur Co., where she consults, speaks, trains, and writes on documentation and workflow best practices. In her 15 years as a business owner and consultant, she has developed a practice she calls “Dynamic Documentation” that helps teams, projects, and organizations solve their problems and achieve their goals. Driven to help companies – and individuals – leverage their knowledge, manage their risk, and enhance their productivity, Adrienne believes everyone can work better and smarter through more effective documentation practices. She is the author of THE 24-HOUR RULE—and Other Secrets for Smarter Organizations, (BenBella/Penguin Random House March 2023) which is her second book on documentation best practices.
