Wow! Job Tracking With A Process Triage Map (Case Study)

One of the more popular deliverables of our Process Triage workshop is the Action-Result style process map. The map is an easy-to-build and read illustration of the triage team’s process. It’s designed to last one to three years with occasional cosmetic updates. It shows the essential tasks and their outcomes, typically from Opportunity to Cash — from the first conversation with an interested prospect all the way to payment for products or services.

We had the privilege to triage with Goosetown Communications, in Congers, New York in mid-2017. David Gottlieb sponsored and Jason Schlesinger hosted and led the implementation. They’re also running on EOS®, a branded operating system we enthusiastically support based on our experience with post-triage successes.

While planning a triage on a different process, I noticed Jason’s triage map behind him during our video call. It’s fascinating —

CLICK ON IMAGE to view Jason’s insights (2:32)

After successfully implementing the Process Capability Improvements that our Process Triage developed for us, I discovered that the large Process Map that I had hung up on my office wall could serve an additional purpose.  It could be the perfect visual aid for tracking project status throughout the Process.  I took some sticky pad notes and quickly wrote down some job names and numbers and stuck them up on the wall to indicate where they were in the Process.  As the jobs progressed, I would move the sticky note down the map until completed.  Within a few weeks, I had close to 100 sticky notes plastered across the map.

Two things became immediately apparent:
       
I, or anyone else in my office, could swing around in my chair and quickly see the general status of any particular project.  If more specifics were needed, I could always look the job up in our CRM software, but for a quick at-a-glance look, this was by far the fastest way to review large quantities of projects in short order.
     
Much like pain-points become clustered together in problematic parts of the Process during our Triage, I also noticed that I could quickly see at which part of the process jobs were stalling, and allocate labor accordingly.  If I had sticky notes of several jobs stuck in the “punch-list” phase, or the “order parts” phase, I could check in with those departments to encourage the backlog to move along more efficiently.

The Process Triage map, which is so helpful in keeping jobs moving through the Process, now also serves as a means for me to quickly track the status of those jobs within the same Process.

Jason Schlesinger, Goosetown Communications.


For Jason’s size of company — with scores of custom engineering and installation in process, here’s a way to show projects-in-process, from opportunity all the way to cash.

If you’re a custom manufacturer or construction trades contractor, with about scores of jobs in progress, consider Jason’s approach.

We welcome your call.