* Dash carefully to the holidays
Labor Day marks the end of summer for most of us, and it’s far enough behind us we have to admit the push to the end of the year has begun. Whether or not your business relies heavily on the holiday season for survival, like retail stores and companies that service them, the end of the year causes higher blood pressure for all of us.
Let me outline three tips to reduce technical troubles in the last quarter. These tips help anytime, of course, but during this time of year little mistakes tend to become big problems. Successful businesses keep small problems small and don’t let them impact business.
First of all, change little. If you can change nothing about your computer and technology foundation during this season, that’s wonderful. Remember the old saying, “don’t change horses in midstream”? That advice saves you from getting wet or possibly drowning. Changing anything critical in your technical systems during your busy season may well drown your profits if not your entire business.
Almost every technical change requires process changes. Software upgrade? A function you regularly use in that software may change. Even if the change improves things — at best a 50/50 chance with most software lately — users must change as well. Every change to a process increases the chance of a mistake, and a heavy workload magnifies mistakes.
When you do have to change, change carefully. If you must upgrade software (which happens when vendors give you little choice like Microsoft’s Automatic Updates), incorporate the changes into your process. Figure out exactly what the changes mean to your regular routine, and train users to handle the changes. Those changes may be minor, so a sticky note on the monitor may be enough of a reminder. If the changes are major, take time to properly retrain users.
Ah, I hear the groaning already. “No time for training! We’re in our busy season!” Let me reference Philip Crosby, author of the groundbreaking book _Quality Is Free_. It came out in 1978 and was the first to teach systematic quality processes in language regular people understand. My favorite quote from that book still sticks in my consciousness from over twenty years ago. Actually his quote is a question, which I’m reciting from memory so it may not be exact.
“If you don’t have time to do something right the first time, when are you going to find the time to fix it?”
We’ve all learned that the hard way, yet we keep ignoring the lesson. Rush through something, screw it up, take twice as long to fix it, then rush through the next thing. Computers can tragically amplify the screwing up part, such as when a little update in your accounting software moves the Delete button over just a bit, and a user clicks the spot that used to be Save but is now Delete. Oops, there goes your Accounts Receivable database.
Deleted files aren’t a catastrophe when you have proper backup systems in place, but even the best backup and restore procedures take time. If you don’t have good backup systems, a quick “oops” turns into painful days of rebuilding critical files.
If a computer dies, replace it with as close to the same model as possible, and certainly keep the same operating system. That may be tough if you like Windows XP rather than Vista, but you can do it. Next year, after the rush and after Microsoft releases the first Service Pack for Vista, start playing with that operating system. But avoid, if at all possible, upgrading operating systems during hectic times.
Finally, stick to your plan. You know, that grand business plan projecting growth three years into the future you made in all your free time. OK, if you don’t have one of those, the plan where you quickly sketched out the next few months on the back of an envelope.
If you don’t have a plan, every potential change decision gets made in a vacuum. If you have a weak plan, at least you have some idea of where you were and where you want to be. That may, or may not, be enough to reign in mistakes the rest of the year.
If you have a strong plan, however, every necessary change will be compared against what has worked for you in the past, and your future technical and business goals. Big businesses call these jobs “processes” and Russell Morgan, founder and president of ITSPA, gives a great explanation of process during this interview when I asked him what small businesses should learn from big businesses.
Defining processes for your business will help smooth the bumps in a hundred ways. However, now is not the time to deeply examine your business and how every job should be performed. Get through the rush, then spend some time thinking about how to make next year’s rush smoother and therefore more profitable.
