Peaks & ValleysConsulting
Home/Services/Operations

Operations and process consulting

We map how work moves through your company, then design the process it should move through instead. Not a slide deck. A written map, a costed list of what to fix, and the systems that fix it.

Our operations founder has spent eighteen years building a national company from the inside, integrating thirteen acquisitions onto one platform in three years and leading six departments through it.

01 / The problem

The same story, almost every time.

An audit almost always finds the same shape of problem. The process was never written down, so the software couldn't enforce it, so people hold it together with memory and spreadsheets. It works until someone leaves, or the company grows, or two departments disagree about who owns a step.

The symptoms look different from outside. Orders that stall between teams. A job that went out wrong and no one can say which check was skipped. A new hire who takes six months to become useful because the only copy of the process is in someone's head. Work done twice because two people both thought it was theirs.

None of that's a people problem. It's a process problem wearing a people problem's clothes. Fix the process, write it down, and most of it goes away.

02 / What we do

Everything this covers.

Systems audit

  • End to end review of how work moves through the business
  • Where the hours and the money leak out
  • Costed and prioritised, so you fix by value not by volume of complaint
  • Delivered as a written document you own
  • Covers process, software, data quality and department handoffs

Process and workflow design

  • Gated stages a job must clear before it can advance
  • A checklist per stage, so nothing advances on assumption
  • A named owner at every step
  • Handoffs between departments that hold under pressure
  • Exception paths, because the real world has them

Training and onboarding

  • Training built on process and checklists, not on memory
  • Role specific paths with progress tracking
  • Modules that get updated when the process does
  • New hires productive in days instead of months
  • Programs that survive turnover, because the knowledge isn't in one head

Team structure and hiring

  • Department structure that matches how the work flows
  • Role definitions written from the process, not from a job board
  • Hiring and training without an HR department
  • Keeping people through acquisitions, restructures and growth

Post acquisition integration

  • Clients, contracts and renewals moved onto one system
  • Inventory, sites and locations mapped and booked through one process
  • Staff trained on the acquiring company's process and brought into its departments
  • Receivables and billing brought into one ledger
  • Rebranding sequenced so nothing sits half changed

Documentation

  • Standard operating procedures written down and kept current
  • Procedures written step by step, so they double as training
  • The rules recorded in plain language, so the next person can change them
03 / How it works

The order we do it in.

01

Watch

We spend time inside the operation and watch the work happen, instead of asking people to describe it. What people describe and what people do are rarely the same thing.

02

Map

Every step, every handoff, every place work waits. Written down, with the cost of each stall estimated per year, so you can rank them by money instead of by who complained loudest.

03

Design

The process it should move through instead: gated stages, checklists, named owners. Designed so software can enforce it later, whether or not you build any.

04

Hand over

Written procedures, training material, and the rules recorded in plain language, so your team runs it without us in the room.

04 / Fit

Who this is for.

A good fit

  • Teams of 5 to 300 held together by memory and spreadsheets
  • Companies growing by acquisition that now have four ways of doing one job
  • Operations where a missed step costs real money
  • Owners who know which task is eating the week but not why
  • Businesses whose best person is the only one who knows the process
  • Anyone whose new hires take months to become useful
05 / Questions

What people ask about this.

What does a systems audit include?
We spend time inside your operation and watch the work happen, instead of asking people to describe it. You get a written document: a map of how work moves through the company, where it stalls, what each of those stalls costs you per year, and a costed, prioritised list of what to do about it. It covers process, software, data quality and the handoffs between departments. The document is yours whether or not you hire us to build anything.
How long does an audit take?
About a week of our time, plus the scheduling needed to be inside your operation at the moments that matter. The written document follows. Most engagements that come after it are scoped directly from what it found, with fixed prices.
Do we have to change our software?
Usually not at first. Process comes before tooling. We often find the software you already own could enforce the process fine and no one ever configured it to. Where a tool can't do the job, we say so, and we can build what it's missing.
06 / Related

The work next door.

These almost always come up together. An audit that finds a process problem usually finds a data problem underneath it.

Start here

Start with the audit.

Every business is different, so we scope the audit that way. We spend time inside your operation and watch the work actually happen. You get a written map of every valley, what it costs you a year, and what it would take to flatten it. That document is yours whether or not we build anything.

Emailadaignault@peaksnvalleysconsulting.com
Phone(250) 423-9511
FoundersKamila Domanska · Alex Daignault
Based inNelson, British Columbia
ServingCanada and the United States