It never ceases to amaze me how many people will grind out results for their business as their first port of call.
I’m not lazy. Far from it.
But, when it comes to computer systems and software, the saying ‘work smarter, not harder‘ is very true.
Taking the strain…
Recently I have been working with a company that has poured lots of hours into handling a clerical task. This has now become an issue due to the knock on effect to other parts of the business.
Their answer was to work harder when the problem became apparent.
However, this wasn’t an option as there weren’t enough hours available and, oh yes, they had an underutilised software package that was meant to be able to deal with this issue.
Rules and logic
Most computer software is based on rules and logical ways of working.
Unless you have purchased the wrong kind of software, getting results from them is often a case of tweaking the configuration settings or changing the rules in the system.
This becomes a closed system approach. Run the software, check the results. Don’t like the results? Change the settings and run the program again.
This has been the approach for decades and it works most of the time. This, for me, is the first port of call.
Short term versus long term
A little bit of extra effort from the team can work in the short term. This is often enough to get you over a hump in workload.
The longer term, with work that revolves around a computer system, needs to look at what leverage you can get out of the software. What features haven’t you used to its fullest effect? What parts of the software aren’t you using yet?
If you find yourself in this situation, where sheer grunt power is the only option that gets used, then I urge you to look again.
Even if the process isn’t related to software, taking a look for a more efficient way of working is worth it. Over the years, steps that made sense when you started working in a certain way won’t make sense any more.
Focus on the systems and the processes, it really is worth taking a look.
