As a consultant with more than 9 years of experience, I have seen the best and the worst in companies. No company, independently of how big or small they are, is safe from clustering data in the wrong places, losing important documents or having three different versions of the same file.
In order to tackle this, I recommend my clients to implement the 5S principles to help them create an organised digital working environment, thus reducing mistakes and stress.
It is aptly named “5S” as it contains five principles that start with the letter “S”: Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardise and Sustain.
- SORT: establish an algorithm for corrupt document isolation — removing unusable and duplicate documents.
TIP 1:
You can find unused files by searching in the folder you want to clean.
Press “CTRL-F” in the folder. Click the “Date modified” and select one of the latter options to find files that haven’t been used in a while. You can also find duplicated files by searching in the folder you want to clean and sort by name. You will see the duplicated files and keep only one version.
Define a red-tag folder to place unnecessary files that can’t be immediately deleted. Allocate a certain time (usually 2 weeks) for people to check if any of those files are needed and then delete them.
- SET in order: create a logical format for storing documents and data in various folders to make it easy to discover.
TIP 2:
Create folder-subfolder structure templates for generic things like projects. You can then copy-paste it every time you start a new project.
Think of folder names as keywords. Keep in mind that you can search for files using folder names: the more specific you are, the quicker you’ll find what you’re looking for.
Keep folders unique. Make sure there’s no overlap in what goes into your folders (e.g.: there shouldn’t be two places you’re keeping project charters for the same project).
Keep down the number of subfolders. The more you’ll have, the more complicated it will be to figure out where you need to find or save things.
For a template folder, start the subfolder names with a number, for example:
01 — Preparation
02 — Initiation
03 — Execution
04 — Control
05 — Close-out
TIP 3: Date of file — a good format being YYYYMMDD — e.g. 20180924 — XYZ
Author name/initials — e.g. 20180924 — Mirel Baila — XYZ
Project name — e.g. — 20180924 — Mirel Baila — Project X — XYZ
Version number of the file — e.g. — 20180924 — Mirel Baila — Project X — FTE Analysis Team 1 — v001
TIP 4: Use leading zeros for clarity and to make sure files sort in sequential order. For example, use “v001, v002, … v010, v011 … v100, v101, etc.” instead of “v1, v2, …v10, v11 … v100, v101, etc.”
TIP 5: When multiple people are working on a presentation, to name the versions v0.01, v0.02, …, v1.0 — where v1.0 is the final version that is ready to be presented.
TIP 6: If you have too many files to rename them all by hand, try one of the following applications for renaming your files: Bulk Rename Utility (Windows), Renamer 5 (Mac), PSRenamer (Linux, Mac, Windows).
Organize your folders in such a way that everything is easy to find. Organize them by the due date or business name, or colour codes them. Make a file naming practice and stick to it. You should easily identify a certain file by name.
- STANDARDS: implement standard organisation for web document management, which includes: Document naming usage, good system structures, archiving documents and the right storage criteria about every document file in the database.
TIP 7: Implement an agreed standardised internal naming filing structure. For example:
OurCompanyName_OurClient’sName_Client’sProjectLocation_ProjectName_SubjectOfDocument_Author’sInitials_DateFormatInYearMonthDate(e.g.20180627).3
This is what Document Management Systems do. Documents are stored based on indexing so you can search easily and set user access rights. You can define file folder structure what is suitable for your type of business. In this way, all your customer’s folders (or other type folders) will be equal (for example: Customer N, Deal N., Representation documents, Ownership documents…etc.)
Some systems can even recognise data from the scanned documents and save documents in the right folder based on this extracted data. This eliminates manual work after scanning.
Implement a version-controlled processing document that contains formation, naming and maintenance lineup, which can serve as a reference.
- SHINE: regularly clear the folder with non-useful documents and keep a certain maintenance process to reduce personal drive storage space.
TIP 8: Clean-up unnecessary data at regular intervals. Once every 2 weeks, scan through the folders and sub-folders to clean-up unnecessary or unused files and folders.
- SUSTAIN: implement a periodic self-check and self-audit of the electronic work setting.
Track, monitor and conduct monthly audits to ensure that the set procedures are followed.
TIP 9: Continue doing the first 4S consistently
I have seen how sticking to the 5S principles and implementing it consciously and consistently brings several valuable positive effects that will help the organisation. By following the 5S principles, your business will:
- Be more efficient and productive
- reduce the risk of confusion of a data to be used in a particular process
- drastically reduce the number of preventable errors because the information will easier to organise and find
- provide the organisation a well-established, logical and easy to understand digital environment.
If you want to know more about 5S principles or any other guiding principles can benefit your company, you can go to consulthon.com where you can find me and hundreds of experts that are ready to help you.
Consulthon is a UK Management Consulting expert network. Businesses can raise a Business Challenge and the network’s experts will brainstorm solutions. After selecting the answer they like the most, the business can book a paid one-hour advisory call and deep-dive session with that consultant. All the consultants are vetted by Consulthon and the platform offers businesses access to a wide range of skills, in a variety of sectors and countries.
