There is one person (usually the owner) who starts a business design or sets up how things are to work – how services are delivered to clients, how products are developed, how the online store operates once someone places an order and so on – for most key processes in a company.
The trouble is, as the business grows, there is only one person who knows how everything in the business is meant to work. As a result, the owner gets frustrated when the team isn’t sure how to do things or does things incorrectly (or just differently), which further reinforces in the owner’s mind that they need to do everything anyway!
At this point, the owner questions why they are adding more people to the team when they still have to step in and assist them all the time. The fact that they need to step in at some point creates a bottleneck, with the business owner being required to explain, teach and make checks at many points in the process. This bottleneck contributes to increasing complexity and a feeling of being constantly under pressure.
The Gating Process™ is a tool I have developed to help my clients extract information from the business owner’s head so the rest of the team can access it.
It’s designed to map out every stage within each core process in the business so everyone can see what is meant to be done, by whom and at which points in the process. It brings clarity to confusion and streamlines what can potentially be complex processes.
The idea of the ‘gating’ is that each part of the process needs to be entered into a system, documented or completed in some way before it can proceed through the ‘gate’ to the next stage of the process. This is a way of implementing checks and balances so the team understands what needs to be done and how, and the business owner can be more confident that important functions in the business are being done the right way.
It isn’t hard to do, but it can take a while to map out a complex process with your team for the very first time. Here’s how to implement The Gating Process™ in your own company:
- Start with the very first step and keep asking questions like, ‘What happens next?’, ‘Who does that?’, ‘Where is the data entered?’, ‘Who approves that step?’, ‘When does it need to be done?’ and so on. Use sticky notes, write actions on them and then move them around if they end up being in the wrong positions.
- Challenge how things are done currently by exploring whether they could be done faster and with fewer people involved at that point in the process, or whether that step could be removed or placed somewhere else.
- Make sure you name your processes – for example, ‘New Client Onboarding Process’. This will help everything make sense once you start mapping out the core processes in your own business.
- When everyone has agreed on the process, document it and review it for updates and accuracy every six months.
Product development is a process. Service delivery is a process. Recruitment and onboarding is a process. Also, certain departments or roles – such as finance, operations and marketing – will have their own core processes.
This is not about creating a detailed operations manual; it is just about clarifying and documenting the core processes so everyone can follow them.
There are many benefits of The Gating Process™ but, ultimately, the main benefit of more efficiently managed processes is that they enable your business to upscale in a more manageable and profitable way.
Here are the eight key reasons to map out core processes:
- It acts as the company DNA – it becomes part of the culture around ‘the company way’ and how your company does what it does.
- It helps the people in your business do their jobs.
- It helps free the business owner from being involved in every single step.
- It helps engender trust in the team by the founder because processes are more repeatable and reliable.
- It gives everyone confidence knowing that they understand and can follow key processes.
- It makes it so easy to bring new people into the business as it fast-tracks their learning curve.
- It saves time, reduces errors, unlocks bottlenecks and improves efficiency.
- Once in place, it helps map out resource requirements for the key things in your core processes that need to be done.
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