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I thought the entire book could have been written in less than 10 pages. For years I worked as a manufacturing engineer, so documenting your processes is kind o
by nhebb 17y ago
I thought the entire book could have been written in less than 10 pages. For years I worked as a manufacturing engineer, so documenting your processes is kind of second nature to me. On the other hand, I hated bureaucratic systems like ISO 9000, so my advice is always to do the minimum necessary.
For startups, just keep simple documentation of essential processes. For example, I rarely had to process refunds through PayPal, so I would forget how to do it. I kept overlooking the refund link. So I made a screen shot, circled the link, and saved it in my process documentation folder. Basic, but effective.
For other processes, I have written documents, flowcharts, and checklists, depending upon how complex the process is. If you have 1-2 people in your company, you're doing it for your own benefit, so there's no need to be formal.
- davidw 17y ago> I thought the entire book could have been written in less than 10 pages. That's true of a lot of business books - even some really good ones. I think the difference, in terms of documentation, is that you're more or less describing "stuff that's useful for us to remember and keep in a specified place", as opposed to "let's document how people work here in detail in order to be able to plug people in". I think it's certainly a valid idea for many fields; I'm just not sure how or where it's applicable to high tech startups at an early stage: most everything is going into the product itself, which is what's going to grow the company, rather than the systems that surround it, although of course you have to increase efficiency where you can...
- hga 17y agoI read the first edition, and it had more than 10 pages worth of useful advice including a fair amount of stuff besides the "document processes" advice (although that was its biggest message). One of the best was "make sure there's a head for every cap." I.e. there are a lot of necessary roles in every small business (at the highest level, things like marketing and sales, at a low level, say, backups); make sure every important role is identified and assigned to someone. It's still on my "top 5" list of books anyone starting up a company should read.