I wrote in a previous post about how I was launching something new out of my existing core business, just to create the positive pressure of a launch date, and to think of something at a larger scale than I normally do.
I also mentioned how I was recruiting a team of freelancers to help, not only to build some additional pressure, but to free me up to do the essential job which in my case, is creating video courses.
In order to help these team members to understand the launch, and to make sure we didn’t replicate effort, I began drawing a flow chart to represent my business. The process almost made me laugh as I remembered doing the same thing to a group of designers at one of my live events in San Antonio.
We went into small breakout rooms and the different groups tried to chart out different parts of the interiors design process. The team that was handling procurement proudly brought their flip charts back into the room to a round of laughter—they looked like something needed to build a nuclear power plant!
Just that one part of the interior design process is so complex that it can be mind boggling. But only by drawing it out do you stand a chance of avoiding redundancy, eliminating steps, or outsourcing elements. As the engineers say:
“If you can’t draw it then you can’t build it.”
To which I would add, if you can’t draw it then you can’t get rid of it. Because truly, in the process I went through the biggest payoff by far was identifying just a few steps that don’t need to be done at all. That’s huge.
Give it a shot. Whether you use a mechanical pencil or AutoCADD…draw the way information flows through your business, the way decisions get made, the way databases are kept, how emails are followed up, how tasks are managed and…whew!
My head is starting to hurt, but I can’t wait to see your drawings!
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