Step 1 — Trace one job end to end
- Write every step from first contact to payment received.
- Mark each point where information is copied between systems.
- Mark each point where work waits for a person to be available.
- Mark each point where a customer has to be asked something twice.
Step 2 — Measure the coordination load
- Two weeks of fifteen-minute time blocks across the office.
- Group into: entry, scheduling, chasing internal, chasing customers, documents, billing, customer conversation.
- Divide by jobs completed to get administrative minutes per job.
Step 3 — Rank the losses
For each recurring task, multiply monthly occurrences by minutes per occurrence. Sort descending. The top of that list is almost never the task people complain about most — it is the small, frequent one nobody notices.
Step 4 — Remove the top three
- Eliminate the step entirely if the output is unused.
- Otherwise make the system carry it: status, reminder, template, automation.
- Otherwise assign clear ownership with an enforced due date.
- Change three things at a time so you can attribute the result.
Step 5 — Re-measure and repeat
After thirty days, re-run the measurement. If administrative minutes per job did not move, the change did not work — find out whether it was the wrong target or an adoption problem, and say which. Then run the next round.
Step 6 — Write down the rule
Every improvement that lives only in the habits of the people who made it will decay. Record the new process on the record itself so the next hire inherits it rather than rediscovering it.