Review and discuss the following questions and conversation starters with your staff. After the discussion, review your feedback and look for common themes. This will help you begin to formulate strategies for helping staff reclaim their time.
Has your organization every engaged in some sort of “Lean” process improvement?
Have you analyzed and/or consulted your staff on how to reduce recurring errors so that they do not become defects, including error proofing?
Does your organization have clear Standard Operating Procedures for all of your processes? If so, do all staff actually closely adhere to them or is there variance?
Do you use any visual displays, controls, or mistake proofing strategies to check for errors (e.g., check cells, data validation, locking certain cells, conditional formatting in Excel, or visual warnings for out of parameter values in the ERP system) to ensure accuracy in financial and other data?