In Part I of our Operational Efficiencies series: Getting Business Owners in the Driver’s Seat, we described the importance of including all of your team members in the Operational Efficiencies Improvement process in order to fully capture ideas that come from differing perspectives, drive improvements throughout the company and promote contributions, buy-in and ownership. Further, we discussed setting criteria in order to prioritize which suggestions, ideas and initiatives to pursue.

The first step to encouraging ideas and promoting a culture of open and honest dialogue is to construct and agree upon what we call “Rules of the Game.”

The goal in rules creation is to ensure a positive, fun and productive brainstorming experience while driving operational efficiencies.

Here is an example of our Rules of the Game:

• • We are all working toward the same goals.
  • All ideas and opinions are encouraged.
  • It’s expected that there will be differences of opinion, hence criteria and priority need to be assigned to ideas and initiatives.

Consider our rules as a starting point for creating your own rules of the game.

Remember, the rules have to fit the form, function and personality of your teammates if you are going to be able to use them successfully. And while there is an easy to manage quantity, there is no magic number of rules required. If one does the trick, so be it. And if you operate in the kind of chaos that needs 10 rules, go for it. But nail down your rules so we can get moving towards the next and more invigorating phase of gaining operational efficiency covered in our subsequent blog post: creating, capturing and organizing your ideas for improvement.