Work gets stuck between people
A request moves between inboxes, spreadsheets and conversations. It becomes hard to tell who owns the next step.
Explore handoffs →Practical process improvement
Clearer workflows.
Less repeated work.
For owners and operations leads at small B2B service businesses
Explore practical examples and guidance to help you examine everyday work, spot unclear handoffs, and consider simpler ways forward.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Start with something that actually happened.
Keeping work moving often means filling gaps between people, information, and tools. That effort can be easy to overlook.
Perhaps a request stalled between people, information had to be entered twice, or checking progress took several messages.
These are starting points for exploration:
The same information gets entered again
Someone copies details from one tool to another, then checks whether both versions match.
Explore repeated entry →Status takes too much chasing
A simple question about progress turns into several messages and a search across tools.
Explore visibility →Your problem may be different. You’re welcome to share something we haven’t described here.
How we work
Understand the process before adding technology.
When work gets stuck, adding another tool isn’t always the answer. Understanding what people are already doing—and what gets in their way—is a useful place to start.
Faber Systems draws on experience in IT operations, systems thinking, and process improvement to understand how people, information, and tools work together.
We use three principles to explore practical improvements:
01Understand
Examine a real example: the intended outcome, people involved, information needed, and points where work breaks down.
02Simplify
Consider clearer ownership, fewer unnecessary steps, and better use of existing tools.
03Verify
Check whether a proposed improvement produces the intended result.
This approach guides the improvements we’re exploring. Today, you can read our practical guidance or share an experience to inform what we develop next.
A practical place to start
Examine one onboarding handoff.
Our client-onboarding guide includes a simple worksheet for examining how requests, documents, and information move between people.
Use it to identify a handoff worth looking at more closely and consider where simplification could help.
Read the client-onboarding guide →
FABER SYSTEMSWORKING RESOURCE
A simple onboarding review worksheet
| Question | What to record |
|---|---|
| What starts this step? | The event or information that makes work ready. |
| Who owns the next action? | A role responsible for moving it forward, with a backup if needed. |
| What information is needed? | Required details, their source and where they belong. |
| Where does work wait? | A missing answer, approval, unavailable person or unclear responsibility. |
| What gets repeated? | Re-entry, repeated requests, checking and correcting. |
| What makes it complete? | A clear condition the next person can check. |
Your experience matters
What recurring problem have we missed?
You don’t need a polished explanation or a proposed solution. Start with something that happened, in your own words.
Tell us what you were trying to accomplish, what got in the way, what you tried, and what happened afterward.
Examples outside the topics above—and critical feedback—help us understand which problems deserve further investigation.
What happens when you share?
- Your response is recorded.
The written form opens on Microsoft’s website. You can share an experience without providing contact details.
- A person reviews what you share.
We review responses to understand the problem, its context, and questions that need further investigation. Submission confirmation means your response was received, not that it has already been reviewed.
- You choose whether you’d like contact.
If you do, provide an email address and we may follow up where appropriate. A reply or meeting isn’t guaranteed, and sharing does not create a project commitment.
If you would prefer to discuss a problem, you can express interest in a conversation →.
Participation is voluntary. Please leave out passwords, client names, confidential records, and sensitive personal information.