Process is like most things in life, it needs balance. The hard part is determining where the right balance is for a company.

Companies that focus too heavily on process can slip into the all-to-common roll of being a workhorse. Producing medium quality work that lacks feel and creativity. Yet, companies that can’t reign in certain aspects of process tend to lose money and long-term durability. The key lies in finding a medium.

Implementation of a strict process can help companies rebound in times when individuals aren’t present. Yet, companies must be careful. The ability to swap individuals in and out has a cost. There’s a reason small businesses sometimes change the game all together and not just the rules. Small companies thrive on being nimble and innovative. These two things are the result of talented individuals working together as a family. If you remove this aspect from a company, over time it will bloat, lose drive, and eventually quality will diminish.

Case in point, rather than: check your approach, verify other team members understand and agree, confirm the customer is on board, document it, and then start. It’s better to just do it. If the result is good: add it to your toolshed, document it, and teach others. If not, eat crow, fix it, and move on. My feeling is most of the time this gamble pays off. Especially if your people are high caliber and your customer buys into the strategy.

However, for small companies it’s a facade to pretend that you can replace a family member and keep moving forward like nothing happened. A company, especially one that strives to break barriers, will always be hurt by the loss of a key individual. There is no way around this. The goal of a good process shouldn’t be to avoid this all together, but rather to mitigate its damage. Employee happiness, company profit, high quality work, and long-term sustainability should be enhanced by process. Not stifled. This… is not easy.

Best of luck to all companies (including us) who are trying to combat this challenge

I’ve said from day-one; “my job is to make myself irrelevant“, but that has proved tougher then I originally thought.

I’ve spent the last week away on vacation; as detached as my iPhone will allow me to get. Being out of the loop on the day-to-day team dialog and hands-on involvement has really given me a better appreciation and perspective of our office and our team’s capabilities. It’s reassured me that it’s OK to let go, bruised knees are just part of the learning process.

Owners of small businesses wear many hats but others need to try on those hats from time to time if you plan on growing as a company. Take for instance the sales process. For the last 7 years this has been part of my domain. I have a very established way of doing things which has worked very well for ME and Imulus. I was reluctant about leaving the sales process up to the rest of our office while I was gone. I believed I hadn’t trained them enough; I didn’t give them the necessary time with the training wheels on.

Thankfully with the lead of our Project Manager Stephanie, the office strongly pushed back on the notion they weren’t up to the task. I tucked away my fears and took a seat in the back. Over the next few days I watched the dialog between us and two perspective clients. I was impressed by what I learned. They deeply engaged with the prospects, were exceedingly quick to respond and thorough beyond my standards. Not only did they live up to the task but they taught me what I needed to do to improve my sales process.

I emphasize process because this term gets a bad rap, yet it’s critical to running a successful company. I think it’s important to stress a key principal at Imulus before I continue. We don’t grow for the sake of growing; to maximize profits; or to add extra personal to drum up our size. Nope, we’re not that shallow. Instead our growth is aimed at creating a better company. One that is enjoyable to work at, for and with. Everytime we add someone it’s because we want greater specialization and expertise. Process gives us constraints and structures to be creative within; as opposed stifling creativity.

My tip
Step away from the office and watch your team work. Take notes, refine and re-implement your process. The key is to let your team drive the company’s process rather then just the owner(s). Look at your process as the joint brain trust of the kick-ass people you’ve hired. Have the faith and confidence in your team. It will go a long way to improving your small business.

Let’s face it. Today’s tech industry work ethic revolves around tight deadlines, top notch output, and dedication to your users. This performance hat trick isn’t an easy thing to pull off. If you’re like me you rely heavily on caffeine and weekend sleep to keep on your game. And, while sleep may not be plentiful during the week, it’s even worse when it’s restless.

Here’s the thing, even if you only get 6 hours of sleep a night you’re still spending 25% of your day asleep. That’s a fourth of your daily life that’s spent in an unconscious state. So, if you’re going to spend that much time sleeping you might as well make it good.

The quickest action you can take to increase sleeping comfort is to aquire a new pillow. I’m not talking cheap, I’m talking a quality of pillow that Zeus himself would use. The type of pillow that makes you feel as if you’ve been placed in a bed of satin angora rabbits.

My personal choice is this monstrosity of comfort offered by Bed Bath and Beyond. It’s fluffy but also large enough to avoid constant readjustment. It’s nice to wrap your arms around or place directly under your neck. If you’re not into down pillows another option is the selection from Tempurpedic. A bit sci-fi for sure, but sturdy and made to fit your exact curvature.

Realistically, the pillow type doesn’t matter, what matters is that you sleep better. I know way too many people who just aren’t willing to drop $100 on a pillow. Trust me, it’s worth it. You’ll be more refreshed and less sore. Your actions day to day will reflect this. Don’t buy it? Ask around. I guarantee a few of your good friends have learned the lesson of crap pillows: being cheap on comfort just isn’t worth it.

For a long time here at Imulus we had trouble keeping track of internal company information. Client datasheets, software licenses, Imulus specific programming tips, bug tracking, email setup documentation, employee calendar links, etc. This problem was not something isolated to just us, every work environment I’ve been a part of has struggled with documenting and finding information. Generally the solution ends up being a massive repository of excel documents or a shared hard drive full of text files and snippets. Neither of these solutions are practical or scalable.

Our answer to this problem was an internal company wiki. Our goal was to have a central resource that was easy to update and easy to get information out of. It needed to be searchable, easy to edit, and secure. Being a .NET shop we decided to go with ScrewTurn a free open source wiki for .NET environments. A few other alternatives are: Wordpress plugins and hosted solutions such as pbwiki.

We’ve been using this solution since last August and it has been a huge time saver. Our project manager no longer gets flooded with requests for, “that spec requirement the client sent over,” and our programmer’s no longer have to use local text files to keep track of bugs in their code.

Here at Imulus we all use glass top studio desks. There are a few main reasons for this: sex appeal, weight, and office personality. However, there are also a few hidden benefits.

From time to time when brainstorming and talking out ideas we’ll simply pull out a whiteboard marker and start drawing right on the desk. Rather than getting distracted moving into the conference room and drawing on the whiteboard (which usually involves erasing it first) we’ll just get our ideas out right away. Plus then you get the added benefit of being right next to the computer and you don’t have to retrace your ideas onto a notebook.

Sure, this could be done using a sketchbook or a portable whiteboard, but we find it a nice add-on to the standard “desk setup” of today’s office.