Improving How We Work: Part 3

DMS - Daily Management Systems

In my last article, I talked about the 5S system. This is a system we have put in place to help maintain cleanliness and order in the clinic. The last major system change that we have implemented is something called a daily management system or DMS.

For those of you who run a household, you totally get this. You have a routine and structure for just about everything that you do in a day. If you have multiple kids or family members that you need to wrangle with multiple agendas, there are lots of processes in place. This is no different in a company.

Now let’s take the case of a mother who runs the entire show. She ferries the kids to and from school and sports practices (pre-covid of course). She prepares all the meals and does all the home upkeep. If mom should get sick (heaven forbid), the entire home's activities come to a crashing halt and nobody knows where anything is or how to get anyone anywhere. This is no different in a company, even one as small as PSPT.

After 11 years, the clinic has lots of systems and processes in place. Unfortunately, a lot of this is in my head or the head of the person in charge. As time goes on, people leave, as they would in any company. As soon as a new person comes into a role, they are expected to be a mind reader and figure out all the processes that are expected of them. This is not a good place to be and very frustrating for sure. Having those processes in my head makes it really challenging for those around me. Thus, if you read my EOS blog post, you saw that I had already set up a leadership team to help start to take things off of my plate. The next natural step was to set up daily management systems to help us manage daily activities and metrics as well as document all the standard work that we do daily to take the mystery out of our jobs.

All of us have experienced something like this at one time or another. You’re in a group project, and one person seems to have all of the knowledge. They really do not want to share their information with you, so instead of team effort fueling the project, it becomes this one person’s project. Another example is working in an office with one person who seems to be “in the know” about how to get things done and holds that information hostage. This does not really build a “team” or “family” feeling if you get my drift.

We make our processes transparent and changeable in order to give everyone a feeling of being “in the know” and facilitate a team approach for growth, keeping in mind our core values of conscious growth mindset, positivity, and commitment to excellence and balance. This makes a work environment much healthier and helps the company grow.

Our DMS process includes daily, weekly and monthly standard work that each person in the leadership team does. It allows us to track lots of important statistics and metrics that help measure if the clinic is reaching the goals, we have set for it. We audit this process to make sure it is functioning properly, and we teach others what this process looks like. We have been doing this since August and it seems to be working. Only time will tell. In the meantime, it will be transparent and changed as needed.