Say it with Pictures

The introduction of flat packed furniture has created some interesting challenges for the manufacturers and customers alike. How do you show someone who knows nothing about construction how to build a bookcase?

The answer, as we all now know lies in the old expression "a picture is worth a thousand words". In most cases the instructions for building flat packed items fit onto a single small sheet of paper and contain no words at all. We may be able to think of experiences where the supplier didn’t quite get it right but in most cases it works really well. Imagine how many words would be needed to do the same thing.

In business we have been surrounded by manuals full of white paper and black text telling us how to do various critical tasks. In most cases these manuals have taken hours to produce and update but end up as door stops or dust traps.

Many organisations are now replacing much of their internal documentation with highly colourful visual alternatives.

For example, one organisation replaced most of their thirty-five ISO 9000 procedure manuals with colour coded flowcharts and digital pictures. (Steps in green for best practice, red for "must do".) These were much easier to understand and the result was that people actually looked at the manuals. An unexpected benefit was that the time it took for the induction process for new employees was radically reduced because people learned far more quickly by looking at pictures than they did reading manuals. In another, a 400 page work instruction manual was replaced with 30 pages of full colour digital pictures and drawings.

In the office, simple process maps can describe the flow of documents through the company.

In one case the process to obtain approval for a capital expenditure item was reduced to a simple process map copied onto the back of the form. By doing this, everyone knew what the steps were, they knew where they fitted into the process and they knew where the form went next which created complete transparency and an easy to use system for anyone who had never done it before. The result was a 50% reduction in the time it took to get an answer to a capital expenditure request.

Your challenge

Look around your office and see how many text-based "how to" documents you have. These could be procedures, check sheets, quality documents, operating instructions, manuals for "how we do work round here" (even how to use the telephone!)

How could you replace the text with two or three colourful pictures with some arrows and text boxes added?

• What difference would this make to the people who use them?
• What difference would it make to the people who produce them?
• What difference would it make to your business?

By the way you could be asking yourself: "Why isn’t this Tip in the form of a picture?" It’s a valid question - unfortunately many of our subscribers are using e-mail systems where anything with a picture causes delivery problems! We’ll crack this challenge soon, I’m sure!