# Operational efficiency reviews: where to look first

Where inefficiency usually hides in a growing business, and how to run a review that produces changes rather than reports.

Inefficiency rarely announces itself. It accumulates in handoffs, workarounds and exceptions that made sense once and were never revisited. A good review finds the few changes that matter most and ignores the rest.
## Follow the work, not the org chart
Pick one core process — quote to cash, order to delivery, hire to productive — and trace a real example from start to finish. Note every handoff, wait and rework loop. The org chart shows who reports to whom; the process trace shows where time actually goes.
## Five places inefficiency usually hides
- **Handoffs** — each one adds waiting time and a chance for information to be lost.- **Re-keying** — the same data typed into more than one system.- **Approvals** — sign-offs that exist out of habit rather than risk.- **Exceptions** — special cases handled manually that have quietly become the norm.- **Reporting** — reports produced on schedule that nobody uses to make a decision.
## Measure before changing
Capture a simple baseline: cycle time, error or rework rate, and cost per unit of output. Without a baseline, it is impossible to tell whether a change helped.
## Prioritise by impact and effort
Plot each opportunity on impact against effort. Start with high-impact, low-effort changes to build momentum and credibility, then sequence the larger projects.
## Assign owners and dates
A review that ends in a report has not finished. Each recommended change needs a named owner, a date and a measure of success, reviewed until it sticks.

Source: https://adlerlynx.ca/insights/operational-efficiency-review/