How to Teach Your Team Your Processes and Systems

Carl Barnhill

Hopefully now with your Production Team, you’ve put some good processes and systems in place in regard to Providing a Clear On-Ramp for New Volunteers, Providing Consistent Training Opportunities and Providing a solid Rotation Schedule.

 

If you need some help establishing some systems in these areas, check out these blog posts:

 

Now it’s time to make sure everyone on your production team knows what’s in your head.

 

Here are 5 ways you can teach your team the processes and systems you’re using within your team:

1. Put everything on paper.
Make it clear on paper everything you’re doing. Have documents with your Training Process, the Process for New Volunteers, your Team Lists, your Team Schedules, your Staff Contact Information, any Training Material or Position Checklists, your Team’s Org Chart, and anything else that pertains to the whole team.

 

There are a couple of great benefits to this:
-Your training of people is consistent because you have everyone read from the same document with you.
-Veteran volunteers can use these documents to share with new volunteers and others without you having to be there or even be involved.
-Other campuses or churches will want to know how you do a particular piece of your ministry. You can now easily show them and they can be blessed by your work.

 

You can download free templates of some processes and systems I’ve used at the churches I’ve served:

2. Teach Your Core Team and Give Them Ownership.
Let this be what you do as soon as everything is on paper. Gather your core volunteers. Explain to them things like, “I’m so excited to share with you how we will be recruiting and training new volunteers for our next season of ministry…”. Cast vision as to how, through your processes and systems, your team will grow and succeed. Give them ownership in your processes- give them responsibility, delegate tasks, give them leadership roles. People respond to vision.

3. Distribute Your Documents.
When you put everything down on paper, be sure to save each as PDF’s. This will hold all your formatting and fonts where no matter who opens it and with what software, it will always look the same. Once you have all your processes and systems as PDF’s, distribute them to all your volunteers in as many different ways as you can. E-Mail, Facebook, Print-Outs, Carrier Pigeons and any other methods you have.

 

Give them no excuse that they didn’t get a copy. I would suggest you stagger when you distribute everything. For example, send a team email, with attachments, and post the same content on Facebook. Then over the next few weeks, pass out printouts as people come in to serve on Sunday and spend a few minutes during a down-time casting vision for your new process or system.

4. Hold a Vision Event.
Give people a few weeks to plan to come to a Vision Event on a weeknight or time when you can spend time with them.
-Overcommunicate when this event will be. Use a service like Eventbrite or eVite to get a good headcount and to remind people of your event. You can also use Planning Center Online if this is already your scheduling tool.
-Provide food, make it fun, but spend some time detailing to your team any new process or system you’re putting in place.
-Have an agenda! Respect the time your asking people to spend on another night of the week.
-Be informative but not long-winded. No matter how good of a communicator you are, attention spans and minds drift. Get to your point. Quickly.
 
5. Incorporate teaching your material to new volunteers.
Once you continually let everyone on your team know your processes and systems, be sure to incorporate teaching as much as you can to new volunteers as they start coming into your team and as they are trained. Are they going to remember it all? No way. But at least you can start getting how your team operates into their mind and as they start to serve they will start to learn the rest.

A couple things to remember:
1. People will not retain information by you telling them one time. They have to be told and shown several times for them to retain the information you want them to have.
2. People live busy lives outside of volunteering in production. Don’t be frustrated if you have to repeat yourself over and over. They can’t really help it, people are inundated with so much information all the time, your processes and systems for the production team at church is low on the list for them. Make it easy for them any way you can.

How do you teach your volunteers your processes and systems? 

About Carl Barnhill

Owner, Church Visuals

Carl Barnhill is a creative entrepreneur, motion designer and author. He is the Owner Church Visuals, a company that helps Ministry Leaders visually communicate the Gospel. He is the host of the Your Visuals Matter Podcast. You can find him in Columbia, South Carolina with his wife, Katie and two sons, Jacob and Wesley.

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