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Introduction: One of our customers, Sports
Potential, was having a problem keeping their
forms and data organized. Sports Potential is a
company who assesses the athletic talents of
children of various ages, and makes
recommendations as to which sports or other
athletic activities might best suit their
particular physical and mental skill sets. The
following is a description of the major problems
that they were experiencing, and what was done
to correct them.
1.
Problem: Too darned many forms!
Resolution: Dividing the Forms According
to Tasks
Description: In a nutshell, what Sports
Potential does is send several
instructors/trainers out into the field to
evaluate a group of children. The children are
then run through a relatively extensive series
of physical and analytical tests to determine
things like speed, agility, problem solving
ability, and so on. When Relyco was first
approached, each test had its own multi-part
form, on which the instructors would hand-write
the test results and their final evaluations.
They had a large briefcase that was filled with
stacks of forms which they brought to each test
site, and each instructor would dig through the
stacks, find the appropriate forms for the
particular tests that they were administering,
and then fill them out for each participant
using a clip-board.
The first
thing that we did was talk to them about exactly
how they administer the tests. What we
immediately learned was that each instructor was
responsible for the same tests each time. For
example, one instructor might be responsible for
the 40-yard dash and the agility run, while
another handled the standing broad jump, sit-ups
and push-ups. It was easy to see, then, how we
could begin to pre-sort the forms based on these
factors. In addition, we were able to combine
the forms for some tests onto one form. Since
the same instructor was handling both the
40-yard dash and the agility run, for instance,
it made sense to combine the forms for those two
tests into one.
2.
Problem: Processing forms without a
desk, and then storing them
Resolution: Binding the forms into Books
Description: Once we had discovered who
was using which forms, we then began to look at
how the forms were actually handled. One of the
biggest problems that the instructors were
contending with was that they were literally
“out in the field” when the tests were
administered. This meant that they had no desk
on which to write, and no drawer or file cabinet
in which to store one child’s completed test
form while the next child was taking his or her
test.
So, between the first problem of dividing the
forms into specific groups (by instructor), and
the problem of actually filling out the forms,
and then storing them and keeping them organized
once they were completed, we decided that the
best solution would be to bind the forms into a
series of spiral-bound books. This way, each
instructor would have their own book, containing
only the forms that pertained to the specific
tests that they would be administering.
In addition, the books were printed with a
“writing table”, similar to the piece that you
may have seen in some checkbooks. Basically, it
is a piece of card stock that folds out, and
that can be used as a backing for writing on a
carbonless multi-part form to prevent the
information from imaging onto subsequent forms.
The “writing tables” made it unnecessary for the
instructors to carry clipboards around, and also
eliminated the problem of storing the forms once
they were completed. Now, all they had to do
was flip to the next form, slide the writing
table beneath it, and the previously completed
forms just stayed in the book until the end of
the session.
Instead of
leaving the writing tables blank, we used the
space to print instructions which explained
exactly how to administer the various tests
associated with each binder. This way, if one
of the instructors had to fill in for someone
else, or if they had any new hires, they would
have instructions for how to administer the
tests at their fingertips. We even color-coded
each book, so that they could visually
distinguish one binder from another without
having to look at the forms inside to see which
tests were there.
Conclusion:
In some instances, the changes and
recommendations that Relyco makes to our
client’s forms and their forms processes result
in direct monetary savings. However, there
are certain instances where the true savings
cannot really be measured in terms of dollars
and cents. The Sports Potential example is
one such instance. Dollar for dollar, this
client ended up spending almost exactly the same
amount on their new binders as they had been
spending on the loose stacks of carbonless forms
that they had been using previously.
However, the changes that we made for Sports
Potential did exactly what they wanted them to
do: they made them look much more
professional; they made them better organized;
they made it easier for the instructors to
perform their jobs; and they helped them to
focus more on the athletic potential of their
customers than finding the right forms and
deciding where to put them when they were
finished. |
