How to find the work slowing your team down

Choose one recent request, delivery, or handoff and follow it from its real beginning to its real end. Ask the people involved to show what they did, including the messages, notes, and tools that helped them move it along.

A real example keeps the audit close to lived work. It often surfaces steps that disappear from a formal process diagram, such as a quick check in a chat thread or a document someone keeps locally.

Notice where work waits for a response, an approval, missing information, or access to a tool. Waiting is not always a problem, but it is worth understanding when nobody can tell what is holding the work up.

Also notice where the same information is entered again. Re-entry can mean a system does not share a needed detail, but it can also reveal that the original input needs to be clearer before any connection is built.

Ask people which details they check more than once and why. They may be protecting against a common mistake, an out-of-date record, or a rule that only exists in someone's memory.

Keep the reason for each check in view. Some checks should be reduced with better information, while others are an important human safeguard that a new workflow should make easier to perform.

Turn a broad complaint into a question that a small change could answer. Instead of “this process is slow,” ask whether a clearer request form would reduce the back-and-forth before someone can begin.

Name what you would observe if the change helped, and who should review the result. A testable question is easier to discuss, try, and improve than a solution chosen before the current work is understood.

Bring one recent example, including the points where it waited, re-entered information, or needed a second check. That evidence gives the next conversation a concrete starting point for a careful improvement.