Quick W.I.T.S.

This week in Tools of the Trade, we will be discussing project stakeholders - the key people in your company that will help you implement changes or fixes to your processes, programs, or business practices. If you're not sure how to identify the problems that require changes or fixes, be sure to check out our previous Tools of the Trade article, Process Mapping . What is a stakeholder? A stakeholder is, simply put, anyone at your company who has a role or a stake in the process you are working on improving or adding. They can be the employees who perform the actual work, employees who are affected by the work once it's done, employees who depend on the results of the work to do their own work, managers who are responsible for the department the work gets done in, and so forth. The stakeholders of your project will be your key allies in figuring out what is causing your problems, deciding how to fix it, and helping you get the job done. Why are stakehol...

When I came up with the idea for Tools of the Trade, the very first thought that came into my head was Process Mapping. It's pretty much the first thing any business analyst or project manager whips out of their bag of tricks whenever they start a new project. It's ubiquitous in the industry, because it's so powerful and diverse. Despite this, it's not something that has really made its way outside of the project management toolbox. I think that's a real shame, because it's so useful. With a bit of work, it can easily be adapted to almost any industry or small business, and help them to identify problems, make better decisions, and track their progress. So for my first Tools of the Trade article, we're taking an in-depth look at Process Mapping. What is process mapping? On the surface, process mapping is exactly what it sounds like. It is a visual representation of all the steps in a process from start to finish. To create one, you map out all the st...

Since I started this blog several months ago, we've talked extensively about many subjects related to running a modern small business, but almost all of it has been focused in some way or another on web design. We've talked about why businesses need a site, methods and design philosophy for the building the site itself, how to write good content, how to market yourself, and what makes good social media content. Starting this week, in my new Tools of the Trade series, we're going in a slightly different direction. For those who don't know, I worked as a Business Analyst and Project Manager for 20 years before I started Whistler IT Solutions. My job was to help companies streamline and optimize their operations, which included making custom reports, automating mundane tasks, reviewing and updating processes, and creating other custom software solutions to improve the level of information managers had access to and help them make better decisions. A lot of the skills ...