Look at that chart.
That, according to Wired magazine’s Danger Room blog, is the Pentagon’s craziest PowerPoint slide.
It’s the The “Integrated Acquisitions Technology and Logistics Life Cycle Management” diagram, which purportedly describes the Pentagon’s process for developing, testing and acquiring new gear.
Stare long enough, and you’ll start to see why it takes a decade for the Defense Department to buy a tanker plane, or why Marines are still reading Web pages with Internet Explorer 6.
I recall a previous project of mine that involved seven different companies, each with its own agenda. I sat down and committed the project’s approval process to a PowerPoint slide, which I humorously titled “How a Bill Becomes a Law.” At the time, it was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen, with flow-chart lines going everywhere. But of course it was nothing compared to that Pentagon slide.
Does anything in your business resemble it?
We talk a lot about “personal productivity” and “lifehacking,” but we don’t spend enough time on company productivity, measured by the time it takes to turn a quote into an order, and how many steps are involved. And think about the steps it takes for a customer who wants to buy your product to get back to you. Print the quote. Sign the quote. Scan the quote. Get the scan into an email. Write the email. Send the email. Every step representing a moment where the customer can reconsider their decision.
Quosal and Quosal for ACT! will help you streamline this process, making it easy for your sales staff to get your approval, and Order Porter will make it even easier for your customers to say “Yes.”
But it’s all going to come down to you. How many flow chart lines can you delete from your process?
