Blast Inefficiency With These Magic Bullets (Part 2)

Finding Opportunities to Use Job Aids
Assess activities in your project to identify opportunities for using job aids. Look for the situations where classes or explanatory meetings can be reduced or replaced. Before you request that a class be delivered or a meeting be held, consider use of a job aid. For example, if you are upgrading a software application, don't make a knee-jerk decision to design, develop and deploy a training course for all users. Instead, have designers put together a job aid that clearly shows the procedures to use for the new features.

Look for procedures that get confused often and have you running to put out fires. Do you keep having to answer the same question or fix the same problem? For your own sanity, consider disseminating a job aid. Ask team members what procedures need to be clarified in a job aid. Once you ask, you will be surprised at the requests. 

I once got a huge number of requests for an overview of purchasing/payment procedures. This from workers who had supposedly been using these procedures for years. No one had ever supplied an easy-to-follow chronological list with appropriate rules and forms. There is just no telling what accounting problems were avoided here. I used to wake up in the middle of the night with cold sweats just thinking about it.

Have a whole package of job aids available at project kick-…