Page 21 - Accounting Best Practices

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How to Use Best Practices
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hands-on whenever possible, since employees retain the most information when
training is conducted in this manner. It is important to identify in advance all pos-
sible users of a new system for training, since a few untrained employees can
result in the failure of a new best practice.
A key element of any training class is procedures. These must be completed,
reviewed, and be made available for employee use not only at the time of train-
ing, but also at all times thereafter, which requires a good manager to oversee the
procedure creation and distribution phases. Procedure-writing is a special skill
that may require the hiring of technical writers, interviewers, and systems ana-
lysts to ensure that procedures are properly crafted. The input of users into the
accuracy of all procedures is also an integral step in this process.
Even after the new system has been installed, it is necessary to conduct a
post-implementation review. This analysis determines if the cost savings or effi-
ciency improvements are in the expected range, what problems arose during the
implementation that should be avoided during future projects, and what issues are
still unresolved from the current implementation. This last point is particularly
important, for many managers do not follow through completely on all the stray
implementation issues, which inevitably arise after a new system is put in place.
Only by carefully listing these issues and working through them will the employ-
ees using the new system be completely satisfied with how a best practice has
been installed.
An issue that arises during all phases of a project implementation is commu-
nications. Since there may be a wide range of activities going on, many of them
dependent upon each other, it is important that the status of all project steps be
continually communicated to the entire project team, as well as to all affected
employees. By doing so, a project manager can avoid such gaffes as having one
task proceed without knowing that, due to changes elsewhere in the project, the
entire task has been rendered unnecessary. These communications should not just
be limited to project plan updates, but should also include all meeting minutes in
which changes are decided on, documented, and approved by team leaders. By
paying attention to this important item at every step of an implementation, the
entire process will be completed much more smoothly.
As described in this section, a successful best practice implementation nearly
always includes a review of the current system, a cost-benefit analysis, responsi-
ble use of new technology, system testing, training, and a post-implementation
review, with a generous dash of communications at every step.

BEST PRACTICE DUPLICATION

It can be a particularly difficult challenge to duplicate a successful best practice
when opening a new company facility, especially if expansion is contemplated in
many locations over a short time period. The difficulty with best practice duplica-
tion is that employees in the new locations are typically given a brief overview of