Five tactics to make any business process more efficient

Executive overview

Most processes waste time through repeated context switching, unnecessary handoffs, and misaligned incentives. Five practical tactics can be applied to almost any process without a full redesign.

• Reduce how often you enter and exit a task
• Cut handoffs that create communication overhead
• Align team incentives to the metric that matters most

The core insight: process inefficiency is rarely about the steps themselves — it's about the switching, handoffs, and misaligned incentives around them.

Batching: reduce context switches

• Batching means doing like tasks in larger chunks rather than many small sessions
• Each time you re-enter a task, you pay a setup cost — "getting into the zone"
• If context switching takes 5–20 minutes per session, batching cuts total overhead significantly
• Rule: the higher the re-entry cost, the bigger the gain from batching
• Watch energy levels — doing everything in one giant session risks quality degradation
• Examples: send 5 emails once a week instead of 1 daily; record 2 videos per session instead of 1

Fewer batons: eliminate unnecessary handoffs

• Every handoff (baton pass) is a moment where details can be dropped or miscommunicated
• More handoffs = more potential for errors, delays, and information loss
• Identify handoffs that exist mainly as habit, not because they add value
• Consolidate steps: have person B handle both proofing and scheduling if both are within their capability
• Trade-off: fewer handoffs gains efficiency but removes the checks and balances of separate roles
• Only eliminate handoffs that don't serve a genuine quality or control purpose

Specialisation: match people to their strongest leg

• Sometimes adding a handoff increases efficiency if the specialist is significantly faster or better
• One generalist doing every step can be slower overall than two specialists with one handoff
• Identify steps where current owners are slow or error-prone — those are delegation candidates
• Early-stage delegation should start with tasks the owner does worst, not just tasks they dislike
• The efficiency gain from specialisation must outweigh the coordination cost of the extra handoff

Silent approval: eliminate approval stalemates

• A silent approval clause states that no response within a set timeframe equals approval to proceed
• Removes the limbo state when clients go quiet after receiving work for review
• Keeps projects moving without waiting indefinitely for client feedback
• Must be stated in the contract (with legal review if needed) and repeated prominently in every review email
• Best used for intermediary approvals, not final project sign-off
• Never move forward silently and then dismiss the client's late feedback — communicate the clause clearly upfront

Carrots and sticks: align incentives to process goals

• Identify the single metric that matters most for a given process (e.g. response time for support tickets)
• Make that metric visible and trackable at each stage so everyone knows how they contribute
• Use carrots (recognition, shout-outs) to reinforce the behaviour you want
• Use sticks (team-level callouts, not individual blame) when the goal is missed
• Competitive scoreboards suit high-competition cultures; collaborative cultures should lean toward carrots
• This tactic improves process outcomes without changing the process map itself