Hi @naomi_paulson!

We have done a few things to make this better. It wasn’t easy, took a change in perspective from everyone in the firm, and takes work to keep moving. Here’s a summary:

1. Work first in, first out (kinda)
   • We try hard to stick to a single flow of work, meaning we don’t have work jump the line and disrupt the flow because of client requests or management urgency.
   • We prioritize the work as necessary from a whole-firm perspective, so some work gets moved along faster if it needs to be, but at the direction of our ops manager, not clients or managers.
2. Never start work unless we are very certain we have ALL the documents/information we need to finish.
   • Our admin staff are continually following up, and after a certain amount of time and attempts with different methods and people, we inform the client that it seems like they have found someone else to do the work.
   • This has reduced our “Waiting on Client Answers” backlog dramatically.
   • It has also reduced our prep time since people are not picking up and putting down work over and over again.
   • If we still run into situations where we didn’t have all the docs/info, we pause and adjust the work for next cycle in a way that will avoid the situation from happening again next time.
3. Daily huddle where yesterday’s work is reported on (done, half-done, not started), and today’s work is handed out.
   • Any work not finished from yesterday is first up for today before picking up new work.
   • Makes it very hard to skip over or move on from work that is difficult to complete.
   • Work that doesn’t have all the docs/info gets one phone call by the prep staff and if they don’t get the answer immediately, the work is taken out of the flow and sent back to admin to follow-up, then to the back of the line when we get what we need.

Next steps:

1. Standardize absolutely as much work as possible.
2. Break standardized work down into TBD minute sub-segments.
3. Everyone work in real-time, flowing work through the firm such that each person works on their TBD minute sub-segment, pulling new work from the person in front of them and pushing their completed sub-segment to the person after them.

We are testing a software called Teramind as a workplace anthropology tool to learn how staff are doing work so that we can collaborate on changes to make things flow better.

Really impressive breakdown of your workflow here @max , thanks for sharing!!  This Karbon community is unlike any I’ve ever been part of.

@naomi_paulson something I think is important is having a clear understanding of why work is overdue:

• Is it bad Karbon hygiene habits from the team where the work is being done, but statuses/tasks are not being updated?
• Is there a capacity issue so work is genuinely overdue as the assigned person can’t get to it?
• Are you blocked by clients not getting you information when you need it?

It’ll likely be a combination of all three, and/or different reasons for different people/clients, and each need different strategies! Some things I’ve seen in the past:

• Regular reporting on overdue work stats to see if things are improving. Could be broken down by team, type of work, how overdue it is, days since last status change etc. This can help narrow down the problem, but also make it clear this is something important to the firm.
  • Acknowledge team members who are showing improvements in this, and coach individuals who are struggling.
• Review budgets/due dates - if work is consistently overdue but still getting done, maybe the due date is just unreasonable, or more time needs to be allocated to a piece of work?
• What missing information is holding up the process? What changes can be made so it doesn’t become a blocker? Examples from my own clients I’ve had:
  • Requesting PDF bank statements too early in the month, so a client checklist couldn’t be completed because the statement wasn’t ready, but I don’t actually need them to start the bookkeeping! By the time I got the statements, everything else had been delayed. Solution: request statements in a later checklist so that the client can mark the first checklist as complete sooner and I get started on the bookkeeping sooner.
  • Waiting on clients to provide reports from third party tools. Solution: get our own access so we can pull reports on our schedule.
  • Sending work to clients to review, but they don’t confirm. Solution: get an agreement in writing that no response by X date or after X days is implicit approval to go ahead and file/action/process (obviously depends on what they are reviewing!).
  • Do clients understand exactly what they need to provide and also why they need to provide it and the implications if they don’t? Solution: review wording of client tasks and emails.
• Give the team clear guidelines as to what they should do when clients are unresponsive, for example: after X emails without reply, give them a call. If no phone response, leave X voicemails. If still no response, escalate to manager to follow up with client and consider pausing work.

If you aren’t aware as well, the Insights tab has a chart where you can see how often due dates are changing - the easiest way to make sure something is no longer overdue is to change the due date, so this chart can also be a helpful tool to monitor unexpected behaviour when you start looking at overdue work!

@Rebecca Williams  Also an incredibly helpful breakdown!  You two are a powerhouse resource, this single thread is a literal workshop in elite Karbon workflows.  Nicely done!