This month, Jeremy Hyman Associates share their recipe for running an efficient practice. The ratio and importance of the four ingredients varies from firm to firm. You have probably already succeeded with some of these, but for the others a bit more work may be needed.

Standardisation

Rather than being planned, processes in firms tend to evolve over time. Factors such as time pressure, multiple offices, mergers, and stubbornness create parallel approaches to doing the same thing.

Instead, you should have standard operating procedures: Always do the same thing, the same way. The absence of these is inherently inefficient, leads to variable quality of work, and denies you a basis for future improvements. A word of warning here: attempting to standardise by buying a new system is far riskier than standardising processes, and only then buying new systems.

Tip: Be collegiate when deciding on best practice, but dictatorial when insisting it is adopted.

Integration & Automation

A lot of data flows into, around and out of your firm every day, often with some transformation along the way. These flows consume time, duplicate information, and multiply the risk of errors.

Instead, data that forms part of a common process should only be entered once, and then transferred or presented elsewhere by integrating the systems involved in that process. So, to take a simple example, the same "Jeremy Hyman" should exist in your billing, CRM, practice management and production systems and on your phone.

Tip: Investigate the many software tools available to integrate and automate data, even for the legacy systems on which many firms must still rely.

Resourcing

The ideal model for resourcing is to allocate tasks to the cheapest available resource who is competent to do that task. Standard processes and good data allow that resource to be less skilled, more available and cheaper.

They allow you more resource choice. Instead of having to compensate for deficiencies in process and data by using a more senior, less available resource, you can use a software robot, or a human; and if a human that might be an in-sourced or out-sourced position.

Tip: Standardisation, integration and automation create the right conditions for efficient working; the profit comes from more flexible resourcing choices.

Prioritisation

Do looming deadlines, angry clients and poor short-term staff availability govern your scheduling? Does too much pick-up and put-down of work decimate your efficiency?

Professionals are poor at objectively prioritising clients but data analytics and AI can rapidly process a lot of data and make better suggestions to you as to who should do what and when.

They can identify the clients that matter most to the firm, and act as an early warning system for jobs that are drifting, intervening to highlight issues before they mature into crises. Scheduling on this basis will improve efficiency and create more headroom for unplanned but inevitable client emergencies.

Tip: Be data-led when prioritising work. Systems are objective and you are not – you still have the final say.

Conclusion

To improve efficiency, firms need to follow a recipe much like this one.

Standardisation, integration and automation form the basis for efficiency – professionals can learn here from manufacturing disciplines. From here, flexibility in resourcing translates into profit.

For those firms who feel ready for a slightly bigger leap, accepting data-led advice on scheduling and prioritisation can help you focus your skills on the clients and jobs that matter most.

The combination of these ingredients, in the right ratios to suit your taste, will be the right recipe for your firm.

Jeremy Hyman Associates is a leading independent technology advisory practice acting for PrimeGlobal and several member firms. They are pleased to continue offering a one-hour complimentary consultation session with Jeremy to managing partners or IT partners, as a gesture of our ongoing partnership with them.