If you have a problem, it’s in your best interest to ensure that trying to solve that problem doesn’t end up causing more problems. This is a good way to think about low-code development platforms.

Each business has its own set of tools for solving problems and getting things done, and for the most part, these problems can be solved by existing commercial apps.

But of course, there are certain needs that off-the-shelf solutions cannot meet, and for these needs a business could approach the problem a few different ways.

If a proprietary tool doesn’t exist, then the best option may be for the business to try and build a solution themselves. This is often done from scratch, and it’s called software development.

That’s fine, except it costs a lot of money, takes a long time, and is difficult to make changes once things are in motion. It also means everything gets more complex, because it’s not just the development team you’re bringing onboard, but designers, testers, data analysts and many others as well.

The simple truth is that it takes a small village to develop good software with conventional methods.

However, there are tools that are designed to give businesses the freedom to build their own solutions, without all of the excess baggage.

These tools are known as low-code development platforms.

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We’ve all felt overwhelmed by advertisements and burned out by peer pressure. Most of us also want to influence people’s decisions to try and get a certain outcome.

That’s where nudge theory comes in.

Less intrusive than advertising and so widely applicable that it’s seen implementation in everything from architecture to politics and charity drives, nudge theory is a great way to present choices to your audience in a way that subtly promotes the one you want them to make.

So, stick around to learn what nudge theory is all about and see how you can use it to influence decisions without making your audience feel like they’re being forced into it.

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“We’re here for YOU“, the sign in front of me mocked as I waited my 22nd minute in line at the local store. We could all hear the staff chatting in a back room (a team-wide “lunch break”), discussing the weather while the rest of us silently fumed.

It’s horrible when a business doesn’t put their customers first.

That’s the problem that an omnichannel approach is designed to solve.

Following up from Whitney Blankenship‘s post about omnichannel marketing in e-commerce, we here at Process Street decided to tackle the subject as a whole and show what it means to be an omnichannel business in action.

From theme parks to banks, we’ve got a little of everything. Before all that though, there’s something we need to get straight…

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Podcasts are like hacks for your everyday life. They allow you to passively improve your knowledge and gain valuable insight into almost any topic you could imagine, whilst doing pretty much anything.

All of that time spent walking to the store, commuting to work, preparing a meal, working out; it’s all time you could be utilizing to improve yourself and your business.

This article is a selection of the best business podcasts from our team at Process Street; we’d recommend them to anyone looking to devote themselves to self improvement, stay sharp and keep pace with the cutting edge of business trends and insights.

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You can’t earn €38.8 billion in annual revenue by stumbling through your processes.

Specifically, the IKEA supply chain is the glue that holds the company together and allows them to flourish.

From their suppliers through to the product in-store, the supply chain is set up and managed in a way that reduces costs at every stage, makes the products more appealing to customers, and makes the brand as a whole seem more appealing.

It’s genius, really.

So let me show you how they do it.

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On September 23, 1999, NASA’s $193 million Mars Climate Orbiter was obliterated 57km above the surface of Mars.

What caused such a catastrophic event? Badly implemented processes.

“The problem here was not the error; it was the failure of NASA’s systems engineering, and the checks and balances in our processes, to detect the error. That’s why we lost the spacecraft.”
—Edward Weiler, NASA associate administrator for space science

Despite all of NASA’s precautions, preparatory research and technical developments, the deviation from standard procedure for making sure their units were consistently imperial or metric was what resulted in the disastrous calculation error responsible for the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter, and in turn huge amounts of time, money, and material resources.

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When Michael E. Gerber gives you advice for starting a business you listen to it.

With a career spanning over 40 years and working with hundreds of thousands of companies worldwide, Gerber’s expertise is invaluable to anyone looking to start their own venture. Lucky for us, he’s written several books on the topic, the most famous of which I’ll be summarizing in this post.

This E Myth summary will take the core business tips from Gerber’s work and condense them into a single post. It’s all of the value, proven with examples from companies like Facebook and Zenefits, and doesn’t need you to spend 40 years to learn it.

In particular, I’ll be covering:

• Balancing your business personalities
• Creating a business, not a job
• Working on your business, not in it
• Why your business needs systems
• The idea of your business being your product
• Motivating employees with the idea behind their work
• Make topics human to make them interesting

Let’s get started.

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Project management is the key to sticking to your budget and deadline, whilst keeping the most important tasks at the forefront of your company. Without it, you leave the future of your business at the mercy of your teams and employees (which, in case you weren’t aware, is not a good business model).

For such an important process, the project management steps are a little muddy, with sources citing differing numbers of steps, timelines, etc. Then again, it’s a massive topic with a huge margin for error; how the hell do you convey these steps when the project could be anything from “get winter clothes in stock” to “grow to $220,000 monthly recurring revenue”?

Well, we here at Process Street hate making things complicated, so we’ve simplified the project management steps of any and every undertaking to five easy stages.
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Running a business is hard. The below movies are great for a break and can help you remember why you got into business in the first place.

[ Download our Free Ebook ] – Click here to download our free 111 page ebook on “How to automate the tasks you hate at work using Zapier“.

Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

“I believe in total immersion, if you want to be rich, you have to program your mind to be rich. You have to unlearn all the thoughts that were making you poor and replace them with new thoughts – rich thoughts.”

Wolf of Wall Street is a must-see for individuals who are partaking in new ventures, small-to-medium-sized businesses or even large corporations. The film is based on the true story of Wall Street’s Jordan Belfort; a stockbroker who eventually runs a firm that engages in securities fraud and corruption on Wall Street in the 1990s. While Mr. Belfort was taken for fraud and corruption, the story is fantastic: a man who starts out as the lowest on the totem pole rises up and soon makes close to $1 million dollars USD per week. Needless to say, Wolf of Wall Street is packed with motivational pieces and a quick lesson on the do’s and don’ts in business.

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A book about disasters, human error and a simple tool that could well be the answer

Surely we don’t need any more bureaucracy, do we? Writer and surgeon Atul Gawande says yes, in fact we do. Box-checking and form-filling are often seen as the direct opposites of efficiency, but how many skyscrapers just tumble down out of the blue? Not very many, and The Checklist Manifesto explains why. It all comes down to recognizing that checklists are a powerful weapon in the fight against human error. In a series of anecdotes/case studies spanning from Gawande’s familiar operating theater to the secretive world of venture capitalism, the author makes rock-solid arguments in quick succession about why we all need more checklists in our lives. But not just any old checklists…

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