“They’re going to lose their houses, they’re going to lose their jobs…this is like, the end of capitalism, this is like the dark ages all over again” – The Big Short

Debuting in 2015, The Big Short is an American comedy-based drama showcasing the 2007-2008 financial crisis. I remember watching the movie, in quiet disbelief that a financial failure of such magnitude slipped through all areas of caution, potential management, and mitigation.

The 2008 financial crisis was the result of unsuccessful systemic risk management.

A crisis that the Federal Reserve Board estimated to have cost every single American ~$70,000.

For me, this single example communicates the importance of understanding, managing, and mitigating systemic risk items. With that in mind, we begin this article on systemic risk.

In this Process Street article, we will explain what systemic risk is and how it differs from conventional risk. You are given tips to help you identify prevailing systemic risks so you can be proactive, plan for, and manage these risks for your business and line of work.

Before concluding the article, we acknowledge climate change as a potent systemic risk that urgently needs to be addressed and managed. For this, we give you free template resources, uniquely designed to support the movement towards business sustainability. A movement that runs hand-in-hand with carbon footprint reduction.

Click on the relevant subheader below to jump to that section. Alternatively, scroll down to read all we have to say about systemic risk.

• Risk management: Conventional risk vs systemic risk
• Systemic risk: An explanation for the concept
• Systematic risk: The difference and its relation to systemic risk
• Systemic risk examples
• Identifying systemic risk elements: Too big to fail, too interconnected to fail
• Systemic risk mitigation: Approaches to managing systemic risk
• Global systemic risks of today, a new challenge
• Climate change as a systemic risk
• Using Process Street to become more sustainable, mitigating against climate change

Let’s get started!
Continue Reading

This is a guest post by Thornie Longmuir from EssayShark, an on-line academic writing service. Thornie Longmuir is an experienced marketing expert with a deep knowledge of SEO, and over 10 years of experience working within the IT industry. Through his articles, Thornie helps SMEs and entrepreneurs launch their online products or services and teaches them how to promote and sell them. His articles are mainly focused on new and upcoming marketing tools and techniques.

Real estate agents have it tough.

They often work long, anti-social hours, they spend hours driving to and from different locations, they face a lot of rejection, and it can take a long time to become successful.

Virtual Reality (VR) is a new type of technology that can solve these issues.

How?

Let’s find out together by exploring the following topics in this Process Street post:

• What is virtual reality?
• Where did virtual reality come from?
• Virtual reality in real estate
• The benefits of virtual reality real estate

Ready to find out what impact VR is having on the real estate market today?

Let’s go!

Continue Reading

In the fast-paced, full-throttle world of modern business, there’s an incentive to keep going, keep doing, keep pressing forward.

(Business. More like busyness, amirite? 😏)

But what if I told you that striving forward without robust, solid processes is a massive mistake?

While Łukasz Tartanus found from his sample that 69% of businesses have documented processes, only 4% manage and measure them. This means countless businesses are zealously pressing forward with depreciated, outdated processes for their recurring tasks. If only their processes were optimized, these businesses would be able to grow and achieve internal targets far quicker.

This is why business process optimization is important. And it’s why you’re about to read my post on it.

I’ll define business process optimization, its benefits, explain how to go about it, and show you how Process Street makes process optimization super easy.

Just read through the following sections to get clued up:

• What’s the business process optimization definition?
• Is business process optimization right for you?
• Example of an optimized process
• How to optimize your business processes (with Process Street’s template)
• Use Process Street – and its automation features – for true optimization!

It’s time to learn about optimization! 🚀

Continue Reading

Understanding quality and seeking to improve it is arguably the core purpose behind undertaking process improvements.

But where did this philosophy of process improvement come from?

One key person is William Edwards Deming – sometimes referred to as Edward W. Deming. He’s principally a statistician, but one could even call him a philosopher of science.

Deming’s goal was to reapply the scientific method to business processes, and has left us with two main variants of his thinking: PDSA and PDCA.

In this article we’ll outline:

• What the Deming cycle is, with its history
• How to apply the Deming cycle to improve your business processes
• The important distinction between PDSA and PDCA
• How PDSA is employed in the medical field

Deming’s approach is not just about improving processes, but about improving a whole business.

In a recent meta-study from the British Medical Journal, researchers found only 2 out of 73 studies had applied PDSA in a way which fully met criteria. Commenting:

To progress the development of the science of improvement, a greater understanding of the use of improvement methods, including PDSA, is essential to draw reliable conclusions about their effectiveness.

And that’s why we’re writing this article!

Continue Reading

Do you know what SIPOC stands for?

Go on, have a guess…

To clarify, SIPOC is an acronym for Suppliers, Inputs, Processes, Outputs, and Customers.

The SIPOC methodology acts as a tool to identify the inputs and outputs of target business processes, to determine the process owner, customers, suppliers, and to establish clear boundaries for the process.

Numerous case studies have shown the utilization of SIPOC to give substantial process improvements. For this reason, we at Process Street present you with this ultimate SIPOC guide, explaining the what, why, and how of SIPOC, with free templates to help 👊you👌 get started.

Click on the relevant subheaders below to jump to that section, alternatively scroll down to read all we at Process Street have to say regarding SIPOC.

• What is SIPOC?
• SIPOC Template
• The benefits of implementing SIPOC methodology
• Creating a SIPOC diagram with our SIPOC Template
• SIPOC example

Alternatively, if you want to skip all of the info and get straight to the free SIPOC Template, you can check it out below.

Let’s get started!
Continue Reading

Knowing how to write a procedure is a key skill for anyone looking to build a successful business. Procedures are vital to consistent success for many of the same reasons that processes are important – they let you reliably repeat your successes, isolate and correct your mistakes, and create a business model that lets you scale your operations.

If you don’t know how to write a procedure then you’re dead in the water. Get it right, and the resulting efficiency boosts can put you on track to eclipse your competitors.

This Process Street post will cover the following topics to help you write effective procedures:

• What is a procedure?
• Why are procedures important?
• Preparing to write your procedures
• How to write an effective procedure
• How to write an effective procedure

Read on to learn the 13 steps to writing your business’ procedures effectively, in a way that they will actually be followed instead of getting read once and then forgotten.

Continue Reading

I’ve just finished watching this Netflix docuseries and I can’t stop thinking about it.

The Last Dance.

It’s ten juicy episodes, full of massive egos, incredible basketball, and a banging 90’s hip-hop soundtrack. It’s a fantastically brutal account of how the Chicago Bulls came to dominate the basketball scene throughout the 1990s.

The team was led to countless victories by three key players: Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman.

This, coincidentally, demonstrates the concept behind the Pareto chart, and this Process Street post perfectly.

I’ll explain what I mean by this later. First, let me go through what we’ll cover in this post:

• What is a Pareto chart?
• Where did the Pareto chart come from?
• How to read a Pareto chart
• When to use a Pareto chart
• How to create a Pareto chart with Process Street

I’m excited to get started. So, my cagers, let’s take it to the hole!

I admit. I may have googled “basketball terms” for that sentence… what I’m basically saying is; C’mon you lot! Let’s go!

Continue Reading

This is a guest post by Sharon Koifman, an expert in remote work with nearly two decades of experience running three companies 100% from her computer. Sharon has studied and researched not only how to operate remote businesses but how to create an amazing work culture where people love to come to work. These days Sharon runs DistantJob, a very unique recruitment agency geared specifically for finding remote developers who work from all over the world.

As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) started spreading, many companies began advising their staff to work from home. With the virus now pandemic and many countries under some form of lockdown, there’s a large swathe of people who are working from home that have never done so before.

Are you one of those people?

If so, you may be wondering how you’re going to stay productive while working from home – especially if you have young children at home and are having to balance their care and education at the same time.

The good news is that it is doable. In fact, full-time remote workers have been doing this for years! You can learn from their wisdom (and mistakes) which I’ll share, so you can be as productive as possible.

Just make your way through the following sections in this guest post for Process Street:

• Common WFH struggles
• Working from home tips for staying productive
• Work from home like a pro with Process Street!

Let’s get started! 🏡

Continue Reading

Lunch was over.

I was walking back to our senior common room with my friends. When we reached Foundation House, we found all of the students and teachers standing outside while the fire brigade trailed in.

There was no smoke or visible flames but I saw three friends that we’d left in the common room off to one side of the car park looking sheepish.

Turns out that they’d managed to make a pseudo-napalm launcher out of a tube of Pringles, a rubber band, spray deodorant, a lighter, and a supply of biro casings.

My friends were smart but, as you might’ve guessed, had no common sense.

Whether you have students setting off fire alarms with molten flaming plastic or have a much larger accident, it’s important to know that your safety measures are up to standard.

$25 billion in damages were caused by fire in 2018 in the US alone, which should tell you how vital it is to catch fires and deal with them early before they need additional help to contain.

That’s why fire extinguisher inspections are so important.

In this post I’ll cover:

• What is a fire extinguisher inspection?
• How often do fire extinguishers need inspecting?
• Who can inspect fire extinguishers?
• Perform free monthly inspections with Process Street

You’ll also get access to Process Street’s free Fire Extinguisher Inspection Checklist in the very next section of this article!

Let’s get started.
Continue Reading

“The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement” – Helmut Schmidt

Only 4% of businesses measure and manage their processes.

Why, when doing so provides an avenue for continuous improvement, advancement, and business success?

At Process Street, documenting our processes means we can continuously assess what is working and what is not.

For instance, when I first began as a Content Writer, I found navigating HTML code difficult. Luckily for me, at Process Street we document all of our business processes, creating full transparency over what works and what doesn’t. In this sense, a stronger HTML focus was needed during training. The required changes were made, and our training processes improved.

In this article, you will find out how you can do the same. You will learn how to:

• Identify opportunities for process improvements.
• Implement the changes required.
• Measure the success of the changes made.

Think of this article as your ultimate toolkit, to make continuous process improvements in your business. We provide you with 17 free templates, to support you in improving your processes. Click on the links below to jump to the relevant template.

• Business Requirements Template
• SIPOC Template
• SWOT Analysis Template
• FMEA Template: Failure Mode and Effects Analysis
• Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) Template
• SOAP Note Template
• HACCP Process checklist
• HAZOP Process checklist
• Lewin’s Change Management Model
• Bridges Transition Model Process Checklist
• ADKAR Model Change Management Process Checklist
• McKinsey 7-S Model Process Checklist
• Kotter’s Change Management Model Checklist
• Kubler Ross Change Curve Change Management Model
• Nudge Theory Change Management Model Process
• PDCA Change Management Model Process Checklist
• Satir Change Management Model Process Checklist

Or, if you just can’t wait, check out the first of our templates below to see what we’ll be giving you!

We begin this article by explaining exactly what we mean by the term process improvement, and identifying the three steps you should follow to effectively improve processes in your business. The templates provided above have been carefully designed to assist you with each step.

Click on the relevant subheader below to jump to the appropriate section, alternatively scroll down to read all we have to say.

• What do we mean by the term process improvement?
• Process improvements, step 1: Identifying business opportunities for improvement
• Using process documentation as a business opportunity
• Process improvements, step 2: Implementing changes
• Process improvements, step 3: Measuring the impact of change

Let’s get started!
Continue Reading