While there are plenty of reasons to embrace large-scale process improvement projects to simplify, integrate, and automate your business, there are options for a budget or with less risk. The rise of tools like Zapier, IFTTT, Make, and native workflows in almost every tool put expensive and complex changes in the hands of nearly anyone. However, there is a danger in diving into these tools, so a plan is the best way forward.

Select one of the above tools and attempt to reduce the pain involved with one of your most common business tasks.

Examine and understand your processes

This is critical, no matter whether you are aiming for a small “tweak” or re-writing the guts of your business. There are many leaders who have learned that automating a bad process can generate too much trouble to handle. The best way to start is to break down the steps of the process you want to improve and detail the ins and outs of each step. This task can become challenging with complex processes, so start small and simple.

Eliminate Steps

Look for ways to improve a step by potentially eliminating it, getting it done faster, or doing it in tandem with another step. These are your guides to process improvement that can be applied almost everywhere.

Verify

Test your hypothesis. Once you have an idea of how to improve the process, try it out on a small scale. It’s also important to do this in a controlled environment. If you have a sandbox or test environment, make use of it. The goal is to be able to confirm your improvement before implementing it for real.

Launch and observe

Once you are comfortable your improvement will work, then watch it closely for a while. It is easy to miss outliers and other problem causing inputs during initial testing. Those can cost you any time an improvement would have gained if you do not catch and address them early on.

Repeat The Process Improvement Steps

Finally, rinse and repeat. The first time is the hardest. Once you get comfortable with what these tools can do, you can start to feel out where you can leverage them to help your business or where you want to bring in other resources to get the job done. The vital point to know is that you do not have to commit to years of development and untold costs to achieve valuable improvements.