One of my first big technology projects involved custom programming for a point-of-sale (POS - and you thought it stood for something else ;) ) system. Programmers were on site almost round the clock for months and the cost was out of control. Nightmare doesn't begin to describe it. Disaster doesn't either. It was a mammoth failure. The only thing that came out of it was a deep education for all of us involved. Mostly, let's don't ever do this again!

But you can't just stop using technology.

You can't neglect to put in the work to future-proof your business.

And we all need to find ways to be more efficient.

The question is, "How can we best accomplish these things?"

People. That's the answer. A goodly number of them. And not just anybody, but people qualified to provide valuable insights. People who may disagree with each other, too.

If I had it to do over, my POS project in the early 1980s would have been handled differently. Back then we had technology folks who claimed to know what they were doing. Things were so new I failed because I trusted they knew more than me. I knew what information I wanted, but I had no idea how to get it. The technology nerds at the time were arrogant in their prowess because at the time, Management Information Systems wasn't even a thing. As business people we were sort of hostage to the few people around us who claimed to know how to get stuff done. Part of the failure was the early stage of the tech. Part of it was my human failure to incorporate more brains into the room to figure it out.

You SHOULD be giving attention to these activities and areas of your business: technology, future-proofing, and efficiency. Not everything will involve a computer, but much of it will.

Today, I want to spark your imagination and give you some practical tips that may help in your quest to elevate these things inside your business.

Step 1 - Get the right people in the room.

This isn't always easy because too often I have found people do it too quickly without enough forethought. They think of the obvious players to have in the room, but it's often the least obvious who can provide the greater value.

Make your list of the usual suspects.

Now, make your list of the most unusual suspects. There are people who have an insight that the most brilliant people in the room may lack. I've encountered countless times when a low-level team member recognized something that the brainiacs in the room were overlooked because he was dealing with the problem every day. They weren't.

Who touches this process? Who does it every single day? Are they in this room providing input? Make sure they've got a seat at the table.

Think of anybody who may be able to provide insights to help you figure this out. I'd strongly encourage you to assemble a very small team, including yourself (I like the number 3 because it's small and odd-numbered) to review WHO is going to be involved in vetting the projects.

Nothing is more important than in assembling the right team to help provide good answers and solutions. This team will provide the discussion and debate necessary to provide the best possible answers to all questions, and perhaps more importantly, they'll be able to think of all the best questions to ask.

Pick the right people and don't be afraid to invite outsiders.

Step 2 - Dive deeply inside your operation.

Question everything. "Why do we do it that way?" was among my top questions. Always.

Find out the reason. It can be enlightening.

It's remanence of the story of the man who's wife sent him to the store for a ham. After he bought it, she asked him why he didn’t have the butcher cut off the end of the ham.