You do it. I do it. Everyone does it, even babies. Babies do it with a little help from their parents. We all follow processes. We do things step-by-step because it works.

Babies cry, mess their diapers, sleep, eat, repeat. Many parents create a schedule for them — whether on paper or in the brain — to ensure they fill up on fuel at set times of the day. My husband and I created and modified our interactions with the infants that helped them learn to sleep through the night within three to six weeks. We had to modify our process as the baby adapted.

We have processes for getting dressed. If you put your shoes on first, it makes it harder to put on your pants. We have processes for brushing our teeth. The toothpaste needs to go on before you use the toothbrush. We have processes for driving cars. Can’t change gears until we first start the car.

I know many folks roll their eyes at the whole process business. But they do help you do better work.

Why Should I Bother with Processes?

Freelancers and contractors — whether working alone or with others — can create processes. Why bother? A few reasons:

• Cuts mistakes. When you have a process, you ensure you do all the steps or else you could overlook a step.
• Finish faster. Following the same routine for a task helps you move in a straight line instead of take the long way. Of course, you may be able to speed up your process — that’s why we have “continuous process improvement.” Ugh, fancy words, but the right ones.
• Develop habits. For many of us, having a schedule or habit makes it easier to get the work done.
• Identify problems. When a client and I couldn’t figure out a problem, we walk through the steps. It often works.

I may be a one-person business, but I work with others. Some have formal processes and some informal. I have my own processes for managing invoicing, banking, social media time and more. So processes don’t always involve more than one person.

Keep Updating Those Processes

I’ve worked with Hank Stroll of InternetVIZ since 2001 when it was just three of us. The company publishes email newsletters. It still does, but it has added other elements as the industry matured and we offered more services. The company and team has grown a bit. The processes we had in place in 2001 look nothing like the ones we follow today. If we didn’t change, we wouldn’t succeed.

The processes help us stay on schedule, limit mistakes and take us through the steps beginning with article ideas and ending with going live.

If you can make it better, do it!

Documenting Processes

Should you document your processes? Well, it depends. If no one reads it, then there’s no point. OR, it could come in handy if you suddenly become ill. That way a family member or a back-up person knows what to do. You just need to make them aware of the document. If you get promoted or leave a job behind, the documented processes help the next person taking on the role.

I have been the webmaster chair for different non-profit organizations. I love the job, but it has one downside: The hand-off. Most non-profits only allow you to retain a position for two years. I created a living document that I updated as I did the job. It also contained information about the host, domain name, IDs and passwords. It worked and hand-off went smoother than expected.

Templates also come in handy especially for writers who do a lot of documentation. Templates ensure you include all the parts you need in the document. For example, I worked on a training team back in the days of my corporate career. We created training documents based on templates to keep it all consistent. On top of that, we had a process for writing, editing and submitting the documents. Of course, the process improved over the years as we found better ways of doing tasks.

I leave you with quote that I love from this blog:

Process won’t help you if you suck. It will just make you suck more repeatably.

What processes do you have in your business? If you don’t have processes, tell us about it.

Talented writer Thursday Bram presented me with a Proximidade Award, on the condition that I pay it forward to eight bloggers. According to the rules of the Award, I am to chose bloggers who are “exceedingly charming, blogging friends who aim to find and be friends” and include the following text in my post.

“I am grateful for an opportunity to award this to a few bloggers who are very special people. I include the following bloggers who may have received this award in the past but I’m sure won’t mind receiving it again.”

My eight choice are as follows:

1. Christina Katz, and her blog The Writer Mama
2. Karen Swim, and her blog Words for Hire
3. Brad Shorr, and his blog Word Sell
4. Joanna Young, and her blog Confident Writing
5. Tim Beyers, and his blog The Social Writer
6. Robert Hruzek, and his blog Middle Zone Musings
7. George Angus, and his blog (yes, I know he received it — but notice we can do it again!) Tumblemoose
8. You, and your blog [your awesome blog]

• 10 Guidelines for Social Media Participation at (Company) [pdf file]: Steal this policy to easily implement one in your company. No more excuses for not having a policy. A company that tries to control too much of social media will choke in its SM efforts. Also see how to create a winning corporate social media policy and Publicity Hound blog.
• The Power of Continuous Improvement: This applies to everyone including a small company and a one-person show.
• Big List of B2B Marketing Blogs: About time. It’s been tough to find b2b-specific blogs and contacts [Link: Valeria Maltoni].
• 10 Successful Facebook Business Pages: Like to see some that target businesses. All of these target consumers.
• Screenr: Easy to create screen casts!

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Wordoid: “Wordoids are made-up words. They look nice and feel great. They are good for naming things.”
• 10 Weirdest College Mascots: Aw, Fort Worth’s TCU is on there. I went there over 10 years for speech therapy and attended my freshman year in college there. The mascot costume is a little weird, but not the mascot itself. While growing up in Fort Worth, I’d see many horned frogs. Unfortunately, they’re scarce now. Nonetheless, the list shows stranger ones than froggies.
• 10 Coolest Pens: I love finding pens that write smooth without the squeakiness of a fine pen.
• Q-Block: Create 3D Pixel Art [Link: makeuseof]
• Printer Choreography: Who knew printers could dance? Warning: Lots of trees involved [Link: makeuseof].
• 12 Steampunk Gadgets and Designs: Ooh, cool looking PC.

I’ve either been involved with or held a process-related role since 1994. It started in the government with TQM (Total Quality Management). Then before I left the government, I worked with ERWin and some process standard model—I’ve forgotten its official name. We had pages and pages of flows that were not easy to follow.

In 1997, we worked with a fancy software application that was not user-friendly and spit out huge process maps. In 1998, I joined another company and the department had its own process for managing process additions, changes, and deletions. The organization got much bigger and then we dove into CMM.

I’ve written several articles on process.

I bring this up because Will pointed me to this, which led to my finding Katie’s version of RUP:

Step 1: Write about running really fast.
Step 2: Go and draw a plan of the racetrack.
Step 3: Go and buy really tight lycra shorts.
Step 4: Run really, really, really fast.
Step 5: Cross line first.

Unfortunately, the outcome of RUP is that you end up with extremely well documented TERRIBLE designs.

This blog has the best quote:

Process won’t help you if you suck. It will just make you suck more repeatably.

I believe process is important and necessary. Documenting everything doesn’t help because no one studies the document. We’re too busy with our own little world. It’s the new employees who benefit most.

Anyway, templates are useful to ensure you consistently document with every project and remember all the components. If you can make it better, do it! There’s always a better way of doing something. That’s why we have CPI: Continuous process improvement. The hard part is finding an effective way to do things and documenting it.