Distill Business Problems for a Quick and Effective Action Plan

Use the S.O.A.P. method to quickly identify and analyze business issues and create an effective action plan that makes a real difference in performance.

Today’s guest post is by Dr. Stephanie F. West, author of ‘S.O.A.P. For Success, A Simple Method To Manage Your Business And Revitalize Your Mission.’

As a veterinarian, I knew how to analyze a patient to identify current and potential issues to address to keep the animal in optimal health. When I moved into operational administration, I naturally defaulted to the same thought process and found it surprisingly useful, and so can you.

The medical community uses a problem-oriented method abbreviated S.O.A.P., standing for Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan to collect, organize and analyze data.  I look for subjective and objective issues and capture them in a problem list that I then assess and use to create an action plan. I found that treating a business as my “patient” and using the S.O.A.P. process allowed me to quickly identify issues and underlying causes that could be more effectively addressed.

I discovered this process could also be scaled up to a larger operation. As an example, when I was tapped to lead the veterinary hospital program for a noted veterinary college, I suddenly had to review and run five hospitals and multiple partnerships. At first, I started to document issues in a list, but that immediately became overwhelming. I reverted back to using the S.O.A.P. process and found that it led to fast and effective analysis, action plans, and operational success.

How did I approach this?

Subjective

First, I look for the issues that are often hardest to capture, because they relate to how people feel, and thus are often ignored or glossed over. Your clients or customers, employees, even the general public have feelings and thoughts about your business that can directly and indirectly affect your operations.

Check your reviews, net promoter scores, and read the text comments, both good and bad. Interview your employees. Speak with your vendors and support services. It is surprising what you can uncover by taking the time to capture subjective issues.

I discovered that the team was hard working but almost all employees felt unsupported and out of any communication loop. The clients and public had positive feedback, but I knew that unhappy employees would mean this wouldn’t stay positive for long.

Objective

Most companies have easy access to objective data, such as the financial statements, inventory lists, and other operational data. Just because this information is available does not mean that it is analyzed. Spend the time to review and look at actual and potential issues, and log areas of concern.

In this large organization, I found variation in the operational efficiency of various departments which warranted a deeper look. Uneven staffing numbers and historical funding differences needed addressing. I also saw a very flat organizational structure, with dozens reporting to the few available and overworked managers.

Assessment

Block time in your schedule for the deep work of reviewing your problem list to compare, contrast, and analyze. You will likely find problems with similarities or connections. You will start to identify areas to correct first, and those will make the biggest and quickest difference.

In analyzing my problem list at this veterinary college, I realized that the flat organizational chart was a major issue. If I could correct this by adding middle management, then employees would begin to feel supported and communication in the organization would be easier through departmental groups. Uneven staffing and funding could be addressed through this management team.

Plan

Your assessment will include ranking problems and easily lead to action items. From carefully prioritizing those action items, you can quickly come up with a very effective action plan.

In this case, my first action was to start hiring or promoting middle managers and creating a strong administrative team. Once in place, this team became my extension by delegation, and I was able to positively affect many more areas than I could have reached on my own. My initial “to-do” list melted away as these issues were handled by this new, strong team.

Summary

By using the problem-oriented S.O.A.P. method, I discovered not simply all the little issues in this large organization, but identified one change that simplified operations and resulted in a dramatic revenue increase based on management efficiency. This shows the power of using the S.O.A.P. method in your organization as well, whether large or small.

Dr. Stephanie F. West is a consultant and speaker, and author of S.O.A.P. For Success, A Simple Method To Manage Your Business And Revitalize Your Mission. She has over 30 years of experience in veterinary medicine and executive leadership.

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