I’ve got a new Bluetooth headset, and I keep forgetting to bring it to the office. I end up jamming the phone on my shoulder while trying to use my computer. I made one change and fixed the problem.

When I plug it in to charge at home, I flip it over my laptop. Now I can’t forget it.

I had my car broken into a while back. One morning I jumped in to find someone else had been there before me and pinched the alarm remote, fuel cards etc. When I say broken into, I’d left it unlocked. I’m not particularly absent-minded but it is easy to get distracted. I thought about how I could fix this and made one change.

We keep the car keys in a drawer. We now have a policy; the key doesn’t go into the drawer unless you are certain it is locked. Not locked, put it on top. I haven’t left it unlocked since (I hope!).

This is called process thinking. It is realising that most things that we do are a sequence of interconnected steps. We repeat those steps and they become a habit. Habits are hard to change. Changing a process step is easier, and easier to embed.

We apply process thinking into everything we do at YourQS.

An important part of being a good quantity surveyor is being repeatable and consistent. This can only be achieved by having sound processes. This means much of the value that we offer is the systems and processes that we have established. As we develop our own software we can build many of these into our system, dramatically reducing the chance of human error.

Whenever we have an unintended consequence, I always ask, “what could we do differently?"

An example.

We use 3D modelling to drive our estimating process. Currently this is mostly done by creating a model over PDF drawings. To do this we must first scale the drawing. The problem is, get the scale wrong and every measure is wrong. If the scale isn’t out by much, it isn’t easy to spot. We were caught out a few times early on and had to redo models. We fixed this by adding a process step.

For this one, we added a process step that requires the user to place a check dimension into the model. Our model validation tool won’t let the costing run unless this is done. We’ve not made that mistake since.

What in your business isn’t working as you’d hope?

Look at the process. There might be one thing that you can change that will deliver a better outcome.