002 : How to Master Your Workflow w/ Ryan Soeder

[Music] This is Keyes to the Shop Episode #2 and on today's show we have Ryan Soder discussing Workflow. [Music] Well, hello there everybody and welcome to Keyes to the Shop. This is a podcast that is dedicated to giving you insights, inspiration and the tools you need to help you grow as a coffee service professional. And no matter who you are serving coffee for a living, if you are a new barista, seasoned veteran, a manager, owner, or anywhere in between, or if you just love coffee shops and want to know more about how they work, then this show is going to have something for you. My name is Chris DeFerrio and I'm your host for Keyes to the Shop and today we get to explore a subject that really never gets old and we should always be talking about this particular thing and that is Workflow. We all have a way that we work and we all use Workflow in one way or another whether we call it that or not. The question for the bar is are we getting maximum efficiency, speed, and consistency from our current system and how do we handle heavy traffic in the shop and still feel refreshed, energize, and all that at the end of the shift. And it sounds like a pipe dream really. What can we do to improve the way we work and improve the customer experience through good Workflow? Well today is your lucky day because when we talk with Ryan Soder, he is going to lay it out for us. Ryan has been working in coffee for 14 years now. He has a lot of different titles to his name. He started in Starbucks out the street level stores in Seattle where he was a trainer and then went from there to work at counterculture coffee as a customer representative. And then a retail educator at Intelligencia Coffee in Chicago. Now I'm honored to work with him here in Louisville, Kentucky here at centergost coffee where he is the trainer and quality control guy. Ryan has also a host of different competition titles to his name with some of which are coffee fast world latte art open champion. He is a past winner of the North Central Regional Barista Championships and ninth place finisher overall the United States Barista Championships. And in all of these pursuits Ryan has employed taught and really had as a cornerstone of his career the subject of workflow and you might say he's a little obsessed with it if you know who Ryan is if you've ever experienced his training. This is a guy who really loves to be organized and know where to put things how to work behind the bar and loves to improve systems and he's basically a systems guy. So on today's show we discuss in depth the ins and outs of good workflow bad workflow and then Ryan has five guidelines five steps that will help us improve our workflow starting today. So lots of great stuff for you here really hope you enjoy it. I had a blast talking to him about it because I always love talking about these types of subjects they never really get old so here is without further ado my conversation with Ryan Soder on workflow. Okay Ryan Soder welcome to the show. Hey hello so essentially today's topic is a really really important one because we you know we're all coffee people presumably there might be some people that are not coffee people listening to this podcast right now. But most of us are really into making coffee doing it well and serving people really well but the problem is that sometimes we're not as organized as we could be and we we feel it we don't have a plan A or a plan B for things that happen on the bar or we just have a nagging sense that you know just unsure of what we should be doing at some points during the shift or at any given moment on the bar really. And that's really a problem with workflow and since you're the guy with the words workflow tattooed on your knuckles figure you're the guy to talk to you about this subject so what is workflow well how do we how do we define it and what role does it play in the cafe. Yeah I love this topic I'm probably you know of all the things going on in coffee I'm probably the biggest nerd for like workflow and systems and I really enjoy you know just thinking about. Like just how people can move and how you can make your job easier without you know that whole like worksmoder not harder trope is what workflow is really all about so. I guess like defining it for me and of course I didn't invent workflow or in this way of thinking about it and I've learned this from you know brilliant intelligent individuals. But yeah so for me it's about just ordering the steps it takes to accomplish a task in such a way that you get it done you know it's quickly as possible as efficiently as possible and as consistently as possible. We talk about this at you know it's in regards where both work. So if you're thinking about these three things like speed efficiency and consistency speed just being obviously how quickly you can get it done. Efficiency is just the amount of work it takes to get the job done so you can either be exhausted at the end of a job or you can have a bunch of energy left because you're able to work you know more or less efficiency efficiently. And then consistency we're talking about that in food service all of the time. If a customer doesn't know what to expect when they come in it's usually a bad thing. You know surprise surprise food is never referenced in a positive way. So I think the customer should know about how long it's going to take to get their latte they should be able to expect that. And the braces are going to be in a a service minded mood. I don't think you need to be you know super positive all the time to do a good job but but it helps. And then you know that the drink should be great. The drink should be great all the time. So thinking about building systems and thinking about a specific way to do everything and making that way work for you as much as possible. It just gives your customers the right expectations of you. I'm sure you know your your breeze says and your co workers are all wonderful people and it's a good way to know that. And also gives you it gives you a way to know you don't a good job. If you have a way to accomplish every task and then you know when you've done a good job. If you don't then you're you're kind of always left wondering you leave a shift you know not knowing if you did the best job you could have done because there's not a measure for that. Right. And you're you're not really sure what to do about it. Although you know that there is a problem somewhere and that's a really frustrating position to be in to know the problem exists but know that also one of your problems is you don't have a solution or you don't see where you can find one. Both things can happen you can you can leave a shift feeling like you could have done better and you're not sure why. Or you can leave a shift feeling great and your co workers like a guy you know. Oh man. Yeah and that sucks. It just kind of gets everyone on the same page. And I'm thinking about how to accomplish like every little thing. You know to maximize speed efficiency and consistency is is giant for me. Absolutely and I think you know one of my beliefs is in the importance of cafes in the chain of the supply chain of coffee and in the importance that we have is it's important that we are consistent with what we serve in that it's great every single time. Because it all comes down to that one service experience that the customer has and what it what workflow represents by that definition is our ability to consistently make the entire supply chain. And I think that the chain of what's been produced and what's what has gone through our hands and is being enjoyed by the customers and you know I always think about the. I don't know what study it was but everyone kind of throws around that idea of customers prefer a consistent mediocre experience over a excellent experience one day. You know bad experience the next day and it's you know I think we'd both agree that each one of those experiences is a workflow issue in some way. Well right but I think that people have this that I hear this a lot about like people always want to bulk about there being a way to do everything because it like takes away from creativity and like what if you know what if my way is awesome in your ways. You know, lame and it's just killing so corporate and you know all that best. I think that you, positing it in one of those two ways is not highlighting why we would do this. I would say that you would need, you need a way to serve only the best coffee all of the time. Like there's, there's not a reason to not do that. Like if you could break down pulling a shot of espresso, you know, in such a way that it makes the best shot of espresso, and we know that there are things that do that. So breaking down the steps that takes to do that and then building that into yourself and never deviating from it will result in the best possible espresso all of the time. And then if the espresso is not the best it could be, it's because you didn't work the system the way it's supposed to be worked. And you build things in that make sure that happens. So like, you know, you taste every hour, you watch every shot, you weigh this off and you know, whatever it is. But you know, and shoot for the best possible thing. I think that the idea that the system is limiting is incorrect. I think that a system frees you up to look at other things. Whereas if you don't have a way to do it, then, you know, you spend so much time making, trying to make sure every shot is exactly the way it should be that you don't really, you're not able to zoom out, you're not able to look at other aspects of your job. Sure. So there's a balance there, of course, in the conversations that people have on social media about the use of scales and cafes and systems. Like you said, there's this gripe against systems that basically says that it robs you of creativity. I love what you just said about freedom being essentially freedom is found in structures. The structures that enable you to exercise that freedom on a daily basis. It's not the enemy of, you know, the artsy version of a of a barista lifestyle. It's actually the facilitator of it in some ways. Right. And a system doesn't have to be, you know, the answer doesn't have to be more checks, more measures, like scales aren't better than, you know, volume in a shot glass or, you know, time predominantly, you know, you just need to find your way. So, you know, the idea of workflow and the idea of like ordering the things that you do isn't about one way or the other. It's about having a way that you have a way to measure if it's better or worse, and you stick to it. Okay. So I don't, I don't care if you're using scales or not. I care that you know how you did it last time, whether you liked it or didn't like it, and know how to change it so that you do better next time. And then once you find a way that works, you stick to it. I think that's the important part. I think you touched on this already a little bit. And we've gone over the benefits of workflow and the cafe and but we haven't really discussed in and we've seen examples of this and maybe some people listening to this are saying, well, I just worked in a situation like this yesterday where there is a lack of good workflow, not a lack of workflow, necessarily, but maybe a lack of good workflow or something breaks down. Where does it break down? Where do we see these problems? Well, I think it's important to first frame it, you know, frame this conversation not necessarily behind the bar, but as more of a thought process and there's a way to kind of break down like whatever you're doing. And the analogy I always use is like, you know, you know, how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, right? It's you have the self in your kitchen. You probably have peanut butter and jelly and a knife and some bread and a plate. And you want to get fancy like a napkin or a silk scarf. So I look at face with yeah, this is this is my house. No, my house. We're probably going to your house for sandwiches next for me. For butter and jelly sandwiches. No, but so you can imagine the things you need to get that job done and you can imagine if you were, if you could write out the list of things, there'd be maybe like 10 things like, you know, get the stuff could be one or even more specifically, like go to the cabinet, get the jelly, you get the, you know, peanut butter, go to the refrigerator, get the jelly, unscrupter thing, get your knife out, get the plate out, get the bread, you know, but peanut butter and jelly both sides and so on. And you can rearrange these steps in a way that makes a great peanut butter and jelly sandwich and very little time and very little mess at the end. You can rearrange them in a way that, you know, you have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at the end and it's great, but there's a mess. They have to clean up and it took forever. And of course, you can arrange them in a way that you don't have a sandwich at all. You have, you know, a plate between bread and jelly on the floor, you know, whatever. And the idea is just to be aware of the steps, be aware of the items you need to get a job done and then put them in an order that, you know, the results and the best possible product every single time very quickly without a lot of work involved. So thinking that way, you know, you can imagine where that would break down. You know, personally, if you don't have the equipment you need to do the job, that's a big one. You know, you know, you know, you need the right tool for the job. You don't have the tool available. So you have to improvise. You and the other breeze to on bar with you're going to improvise in different ways. You're both going to try to compensate differently. You might try to compensate differently every single time depending on the drink you're making or the customers, you know, you know, demeanor or how busy you are versus how slow you are. There are things you'll do behind a busy bar that you would never do when you're slow. So making sure you have everything you need and you have the right expectations for your tools is huge. Another one is not building the system into yourself in such a way that it sticks when you're stressed. So there's one thing again, talking about the difference between a slow bar and a very busy bar. It's important to practice your way and your best way exactly that way every single time and never let anything else in while you're practicing. Because as soon as something gets in or as soon as, you know, you make a motion, you weren't planning on making or you look away at the wrong time or you just get lazy and put the tamper back, you know, in a different place and suddenly that's in there now. And now you have to train that out again. If you're going to do it well, when things get crazy. So, you know, you watch, you'll do a training and you'll teach the right way to do things. This is a classic like public class sort of way. Or when you're training a new barista, you teach them how to do it. Now, you're confident in the way to do it. You're excited about like, you know, they're doing it the right way. They get it down. They do it the first time. You high five, you're stoked. They do it three more times. You know, everyone's excited. And then you give them five drinks to make and you're watching them and maybe have a stopwatch just to like just to make them more stressed. Yeah. And then what's more entirely entirely. Yeah. Exactly. Or clipboard. And you just watch it like devolve completely. And just so that it takes that that little that small amount of time, you know, and just you do it 10 times in a row. You've got it. You add a little bit of pressure and you watch it crumble. So yeah. So it workflow falls apart and these methods falls apart and these systems collapse under stress. If you've not done the work to make sure that you've built it into yourself in such a way that it stays that way. Well, I wonder how many people are in a barista role in their in their shops. You wanting to get into coffee, but because of bad workflow, it's just it seems impossible to enjoy working in the cafe. I wonder how many baristas have we we lost, so to speak, into to poor workflow? Yeah. I mean, or you get the other thing. I mean, yes, absolutely. Right. And this is just again, having a measure of what good work is. It's hard. It's hard to congratulate someone on a job well done. If there's not a measure for a job well done. So you made that shot great. It tasted good, but the next shot wasn't good. And we don't know that what the difference was because you don't have a measured way of doing this. Sure. That's a that's a leadership thing as well. You know, like anyone who's studying the standards in in the cafe for a job well done and, you know, making sure people understand what absolutely. And we're going to zoom in and zoom out a lot on different things in this conversation. I think about like different systems you can build both personally and then kind of zooming out to you and a buddy and then zooming out to what's the space look like and what is this? How is this organization? You know, how does it spin? Like how does it? What? Well, they're all the all the cogs and motion and how do they work together the best way? But you see this happen a lot where someone has a great idea. It may be they've tested it, but they haven't like God never in into it. And they just drop this new system in and then they leave and everyone freaks out. Oh, man. And you know, I have done this personal guilty. Yes. I was just going to say exactly. Like now, now we're all we're using this new grinder and good luck. And you know, you're excited. The grinder's amazing. You know what's amazing. And your braces have no idea how to use it. And it's different. Even though it's better, it's different. They hate that and everyone just bummed out. So yeah, I think that like, you know, setting these things up, it's important. And this also results in bad systems and bad flow and just like exactly the opposite of what you're trying to do or making these changes. But something else that that happens a lot in that shop you're talking about is the metaphorical shop within the systems is that you build a culture of there being no rules. And the people who do really well, you kind of want nowhere near your business. Like these are people who like, like we'll do their homework on the bar or like our watching movies in the back room. And they're not bad people, there's just no rules. Like there's no way to, you know, step one through 10, you've just made a shot, this is how you clean up next, then check the dishes, then stock the beans, and then mop, and then wipe the tables, and all that kind of stuff. It's not their fault, it's not, you know, but people who are stoked about there being no systems, A, will leave when you put them in place if they're not frustrated. - Oh yeah. - And that's important. Like when you go like, you know, making rules where there were none, the people who were stoked that there were no rules will go. And it's important to know that going in or they'll cause problems and you'll fire them. Like one of two things will happen, you know? And then the people who are like bummed out that they didn't, you know, there was no way to do things, we'll be really excited. But again, it'll be difficult to learn and entirely in your way. - Right, so systems is not a small thing. You know, it takes patience. I've, you know, had this as, you know, one of my mandates as an operations manager is implementation of systems and have done it poorly and have done it well. And what you say is absolutely true. You know, when I've taught at Coffee Fest before about culture, one of the things that you brought up was the people who are really psyched about there being no rules in the cafe will kind of create their own culture behind the bar and sort of like squatters in a house that's not being occupied. This is what I like to think about when there's nobody occupying the house and there's no systems. There's no expectations. And eventually, legally, the thing becomes theirs. And that's just an issue with leadership and management. So any of you managers or leaders out there in coffee who are listening to this, a lot of this falls on your shoulders and on our shoulders to make a reality. And if you're a barista listening to this and you're not in a position of authority, you still have the ability to implement good workflow personally. And in your own work, even though you might not have the authority to implement a system store wide or between many stores, which kind of brings us to the good news of all of this. And that is you have five guidelines for how we can implement workflow and improve our workflow on the bar. So what would you say is the first thing that somebody listening to this thinking, I really need to get my act together. Give me the first step. What do we do? Yeah, I love breaking it down until I had to do this just thinking about how to have this conversation on a topic like as big as this. No, there are a lot of moving parts. And we're going to get specific and then zoom out. And I think it's important to also talk about just really quickly touch on the fact that we've referenced a lot of things leading up to this moment that workflow will not help. And that is just being present in your bar. Just because you can build a system doesn't mean you can implement a system and that you have the authority to implement that system or that let's say you do have that authority, but you don't work bar every day and you're not at the shop every day. And you can't physically be there to implement this. That is a problem. And that's going to be having a good idea does not make that idea true or does not build the thing you're thinking about. So yeah, we'll talk a little about that as we go through these guidelines. But keep that in mind. Knowing that just building systems and thinking about workflow and having a great way to do things is step one and then doing them responsibly and doing them with longevity and being kind to your people as you change things around them. This is all really important and just kind of be human. And we're thinking like robots because, no, that's good for business, but also, you know, we're dealing with people. That's really important. After I'm on myself at all the time. So people are important. Yes. Yeah, that's correct. So these guidelines, the first one I think that is really important to just to build in all the time is to get used to thinking about workflow all of the time. In the same way that if you want to be a great taste or just pay attention to what you're tasting, like whenever you're eating something, like file it away, you know, this pasta sauce is kind of salty, pretty acidic. What's up with that? Tomatoes are acidic. It must be, there's a tomato pasta sauce. I'm going to file that away under, and whenever I taste a Kenya, I'm going to have this brand of pasta sauce popping into my head. Workflow is very similar. Like when I'm making my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, like how am I laying this out? What are the steps? How am I going to order them? Let's get a stopwatch out. I literally did this. I've literally, you've made this peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a stopwatch. I have made 10 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in a row and have a best way I do it. Not because I eat them, but because like whenever you give, oh, come on. I didn't eat 10 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I'm just saying, this is like, this is an example of like just building and thinking this way all the time. So if I'm going to teach workflow to group people, I should work out how to do it myself. Mm. Is that my way of integrity right here? Well, it's also just fun. Like imagine, imagine how many I got to eat just out of the joy of having a system after that. That's me. I'm a sociopath. Don't be like me. But so if you're used to thinking about this all the time, then you'll see it everywhere. And when you see it everywhere, you'll see it in your work. And that's really important. So if you get in a workflow mindset or you get in a systems mindset, then when you walk around your house, like I need to clean my house really badly right now. So I'm thinking about like tomorrow, I have a day off. Like how am I going to go about doing this? We're going to be talking about mopping and vacuuming and dusting. And then I'm going to pick things up. Like what order should I do these things? I should probably mop, you know, you should sweep first and then that's in the kitchen. Then I'll need to mop. That'll need to dry. I can't be in there while it's drying. That's a great time to fold vacuuming the rest of the house in. And then, you know, so thinking about this way, like how can I get this done as quickly and efficiently and honestly consistently is really good too. Because next time I have to do this, I'll have a better way. I'll have a way to improve on it. Well, it seems like this is also a common sense. Like there's a lot of us that, you know, we do dishes. We, you know, how you build dishes in a dish, dish drying rack is a testimony to like some people, they have a system for how they do it. They put the spoons in handle first or spoon first or plate plates in the back and bowls in the front. And it's almost like you have to give yourself permission to think the way that you think normally in everyday tasks on the bar. That's true. I think that people tend to think this way more often than they realize they do. So, hey, I got step one. Is I get used to thinking about this, getting used to thinking about, you know, speed, efficiency and consistency, whenever you do anything, we'll make it a lot easier to go to work and then be willing to do the extra work up front to think about this. I can make your work later on down the road easier. One caveat I'll give to this is that, you know, you can get stuck thinking about the system more than you think about the work. I know I tend to do this whenever I really don't want to do something as like, I'll use the fact that I don't have a perfect way to do it as my excuse for not doing it. So getting in there and getting your hands is already as really important. It's like come up with a loose system and then throw a bunch of stuff at it, test it, test it, test it, think about better ways to do it. But at a certain point, you have to make a lot of it. So let's, you know, do the work, but why are you doing that? Be thinking about making small adjustments to your flow and to the order of operations on bar or whatever you're doing to make it go faster. Make, give yourself more energy at the end of my work more efficiently and do it the same way every time. So that'd be step one. It's getting a good, getting a good frame of mind to be thinking this way. Two would be to, you know, practice on small projects that only involve you and are very easy. We made the peanut butter and jelly analogy. Cleaning my house is a little bigger of a project for me. But like, let's say you take it into the cafe and, you know, you have to wipe down the tables out in the cafe at some point. So what tools do you need to do that? Where should those tools be? So that's very easy to get to. They should probably be somewhere between where you are now and the tables. So get it, you know, in the closet closest to the exit of the bar, you know, no exactly how to grab them and head out into the cafe. You'll have to clear dishes first. So get the dishes off the tables, either get them back behind the bar, get them in the bus hub. If you have one, then wipe down the, you know, the tables after you, you know, maybe spray the towel or spray the table, find a way to do that. And then what you need to get back behind the bar on your way back. So grab everything you need from the tables and from the cafe that you're gonna need back behind the bar on your way. You know, to make two trips. Just one small example, right? Then test the system, you know, find ways that you can improve thing, like, what didn't go well, you know, my rag wasn't wet enough when I got out of the table, so I may seem to spray it as I walk, right? You know, or things like that. I didn't have enough room in my hands to grab all the dishes. So where can I accumulate them so that I can get them all at once next time? - This is a, I just, just a, reiterate the first step, this is also like the mindset stuff really being fleshed out more in a practical way as you're working. Right. And you're experimenting on yourself at this point. So it's like one, get used to thinking about this to test it on things that don't involve other people for the love of God. Before you have a good rapport. Right. Right. A great thing. Something I love is like, where is your tamper? Like if you have to come on bar and look for your tamper like that. That's a bad sign. Start there. You know, right. Put it back in the same place every single time it should be a place we don't have to reach very far for it as few motions as possible to get the job done. If the area is dirty. How do you deal with that? If there's water in the area, obviously, I want to put your tamper down the water. So just kind of like practice on like where do you put this thing down so that it's easy to reach you're not working very hard. It's super fast, very consistent. And then zoom out a little bit. So now now the tamper is ready to be when you get in the mad crazy rush. I still can put it back there every time without, you know, ruining my day. Now we've built that in now what's the next project to become work on. Sure. So little projects kind of looking at your own flow, making sure that you're getting this job done. And the kind of like improving and watching these improvements happen. It did take you two minutes to make that latte. Now it takes a minute and a half. And you're not you're not stressed. That's that's that's the whole goal is work on these little these little projects. So that you build them into your body and into your muscle memory. That's a way that it just happens effortlessly and naturally. And that frees up your mind to think about other things. Exactly. That's a freedom. That's the freedom that comes from having a structure or system right literally being a scene in the moment by lower Drink time, drink prep times or just more piece of mind to be able to look up and engage a customer while you're making a drink. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So one is think about this all the time to is work on yourself and work on your flow start with small projects and then work on bigger ones. Three would be involve a coworker. So you're looking at your stuff. Right. You're you know how to make a dream from start to finish. It takes not very much time. Not very much effort. It's very consistent. And this is where like You know, we reference like levels of authority and like your like what is appropriate to start doing in your cafe. Make sure people are on board. Don't like don't start yelling about systems. All of a sudden or like, you know, or get frustrated. People who aren't working on this. That's that's huge. But let's say you've gotten someone on board. You're talking about this. You're working in yourself. They're saying that you're, you know, working a lot better. You're less stressed. You're faster. You drinks are better. All of the time. Start working with a two person flow. So what can they do to make your job easier? What can you do to make their job easier? Note any times or one of you is waiting on the other and then put more tasks on the person who's waiting. That give them something to do. So that you're both working constantly and just breaking down these two person tasks in such a way that someone is always doing something with the other person at all times. This is assuming that the people you're working with want to like they're there's the buy in. But also that we're framing it in terms of if you don't have that position of being their boss or they don't report directly to you. The way it works really well at centergast for us is to diplomatically request help in a specific way in a specific area. Instead of just saying, you know, would you please do this in a tone and get frustrated at people like you're saying, don't start yelling about systems to people, but Stop start with the assumption that people want to be helpful. And if you need to help guide them, then, then great, because that's going to help them to, but just do it in a nice and affirming specific sort of way, right? Right. Absolutely. And doing this will give you more awareness of the fact that it's not just you behind the bar. Like you have a teammate. Probably maybe it is just you behind the bar in which case your job is very easy. It's probably not very easy. But you know, this whole workflow thing is actually like easier to figure out. No, but so like if you're used to thinking about yourself and your own workflow. And then you decide to bring someone in, you a have to realize what they're doing. So you have to understand how their work fits in the years and how your work affects theirs. And one way to start doing this is watch, watch two people who are not you work together and kind of get a sense for how, how the wheels turn and who, who was doing what When, so when this person's making the drink that person's helping customers when they finish helping customers do they go help make drinks. And if so, how What's their first action when they go to help bar is that actually the most helpful thing to do. And then think about like when they come over to help me when I'm on bar, what do I want them to do what thing should they be able to grab without having to ask And then how do we turn this from a one person bar situation into a two person bar situation. And it's not always obvious. For instance, a lot of our workflow at synagogue says built on, you know, that the person working the espresso bar does a lot for the person seeming and pouring the milk. Because they just don't have the person seeming the pouring milk doesn't have much time to do anything but steam pour serve steam pour serve steam pour serve. If they take time to put syrups and cups or fill the milk pitchers or you know chat with customers really too much then suddenly they are behind the espresso person and the espresso person can bury them in shots and that doesn't help anyone because now espresso is just looking at the milk person like waiting for them to catch up. Yes. So yeah, that's an example of you'll notice that espresso is bearing milk in shots. So what should you know what tasks should we give them. That the person on milk currently has to even them out in tasks and in time they should be meeting up at the end of every drink starting on the next drink together every single time. How do you balance the list of tasks evenly and that also involves you knowing the list of tasks. So you know, if espresso I refer to them by what they do. So we have this press only have milk. So espresso espresso is prepping a portal filter locking in a shot and that's all they're doing you can get that done in 30 seconds right if milk is filling the pitchers and prepping the cups and steaming and pouring and serving. You know prepping the pitcher takes five seconds steaming takes 20 seconds prepping a cup takes five seconds you know already we're behind milk and then pouring and serving also takes times already. You know espresso can get a lot more work done than milk can per drink let's give some things to espresso espresso should be prepping the cups they should be filling the milk pictures that evens them out in time so they're each working together and meeting up at the end of every drink. Now there are some people that just heard you go through that whole they number of seconds it takes to do one step than the second step. And they are super excited about that that sounds like God bless those people. Yeah, I was going to say and there's a there's another group of people I think that would start to glaze over a little bit. You know it'd be only because their approach you know to things has not to this point been that analytical. Well, how would how do you get over the hump of breaking down all of these all of these steps to be able to include other people in that workflow and just kind of break. Break out all of the steps and create these these systems. How do you stay motivated to do that if it's not like your first instinct to do it right so I actually have to think about this quite a bit myself because I do naturally get excited about this like the first time someone like. Kind of let me in on the idea of workflow I was like what is this is magic fantastic so for me like that is kind of the reward is like being three seconds faster. And not being stressed out right I think thinking about it from the perspective of someone who doesn't like like rules or finds that constructive I think pointing out that you're you're doing this all day you already have a way of doing this if you have five ways of doing this then you know pointing out ways in which. You know that that does make inconsistency occur or point out ways in which they're working way harder than they need to you'll feel it in your body to. That's something else to think about as you're as you're doing this is that you know if you have to reach farther than you have to we have to bend over to get milk every time you'll you'll feel. These motions that your body doesn't like that you repeat all day long so there are benefits to this like. You know you feel physically better after a shift you feel like honestly I feel emotionally lighter like I can get really frustrated when I can't work as fast as I know that I can or like customers are waiting longer than they should i'm not sure why. They're upset that's making me upset you know like I leave a shift feeling very emotionally drained when this when I can't do this and also i'm sore because. I've been grabbing the milk wrong all day. So I think I think for me, just like having felt so much freer when I know what to do. Also, like the stressful moments in a shift become my favorite moments in a shift when there's a line to the door and your whole world is just working through these drinks as quickly and efficiently as possible. That's like my happy place anymore. And that used to just be a nightmare. Like it was awful before I realized that, you know, once you find out a way that you can do this every single time, you know exactly that you're doing it the best you possibly can. And that person is just gonna have to wait. And that's a big one for me, is that like your customers, you know you're not making them wait longer than they should. Because you're working as quickly and as best as you possibly can. And you're in a good spot. And because you know the way you should be doing it, you know that you are doing it. And because you're working more efficiently, you have more energy to talk to these people. You can, you know, there's a lot of self assurance you can achieve from having a way that you know it should be done. If you don't have a way, then you're kind of running around all over the place. You feel horrible for making these people have to wait and your sore and your tired and your grumpy, because they're grumpy. And like I guess that's my carrot. The people who don't like the systems is like, well, but like works just a lot easier. And you have a lot more reserves at the end of the day. You don't have to go drink after work every time. Like there's a way to have enough in yourself to go have a normal day after a busy work shift. And that is to know that you've done a good job when you leave. - Excellent. That's really, it sounds like a perfect motivation actually. - I mean, you can go drink after a shift. That's just true. - 'Cause you want to. So yeah, so step one is, you know, you get used to thinking this way. Step two is work on your own little personal projects to our small work your way out. Step three is watch other people work and figure out how they can work better together. That's huge. I love that. And that I guess other people excited about it too. And then number four for me is like, make the space work for you. So you've done all you can with yourself and your team. So what can you do to, you know, organize your space and your equipment and your layout in such a way that the job becomes easier and you have a better time at work. So is the machine where it should be or the grinders where there should be use the hot water tower for tea and americanos and for cleaning. So is it situated in a way that tea is accessible? Americanos are accessible and that when you need to go like get a bunch of hot water to confuse or the shot glasses, it's available the best thing ever. By the way, yes. Gafiza is the lifeblood of a cafe. Anyway, I have it at home. I love it. Magic, it's bigger magic. Yeah, it is. So yeah, so like put the hot water tower where it needs to go. Right, obviously if you, you know, you don't have power for it, you can. But yeah, so things like if, if you notice that the milk person has to run behind the espresso person to serve a drink every single time, you know, maybe they should be closer to where they hand the drink off. So they don't have to walk across the room every time they want to serve a drink and walk behind someone with hot liquid. That's a bummer. So if you switch for the espresso and the grinders are located around, then suddenly no one has to move to get the drink, you know, finished. It's not dangerous. You've made the space work for you and your customers and your team a lot better. And this again requires that you have kind of a top down zoomed out view of how your cafe works. And this will require you to think about, you know, the tasks that require which objects in what order. And knowing how to make a drink flow from the register to the handoff area or, you know, vice versa. If your shop runs that way, I love a reverse workflow shop where someone orders at the grinders and then pays and gets their drink as they leave. Vavachi works that way. A couple of the intelligentsias work that way. It's fantastic. But you have to make that decision up front and then make that system work. There are the boons and drawbacks to each system you're going to create. So know what equipment you have available, know how you want the flow of customers to go, know how you want the flow of baristas behind the bar to go and organize your equipment in a way that makes that very easy. Yeah, you have to know your menu, what you're making. Oh, yes. Oh my god. Yes. That's huge. And that's going to go into kind of area five a little bit. We can talk about it here too, is be realistic about the things that you are doing and what you can expect. So if you're making, you know, if you have your espresso drinks and you have your brewed coffee and you have your pastries and then you're doing panini sandwiches and you have ice cream and you, you know, have little hats for monkeys on the side and there's gummy bears over here. And there's like a fire breathing troop that you have to train. You know, the more you tack on to a shop, the more you're juggling all of the time. So again, this kind of zooms out into what is my shop about? Where are customers going to be? How are they going to move through the shop? How are my people going to get, and get someone orders a sandwich and you don't have a plan for what happens when someone orders a sandwich. Then the system tends to fall apart because one person has to go away and make a sandwich and now all of their tasks fall to the one person who's left on bar and they want to help in the best way possible. But they have something has to give at some point. The answer here is you add labor and there's interesting ways to make that happen well. Again, you have to have a, if you add a person, you have to have a plan for what that person does. So making the space work for you objectively looks like looking at your numbers, looking at like how many drinks you're selling in an hour at peak and then you move the equipment and then you watch what happens not the next week 'cause everyone's gonna freak out, but the following week, so let people freak out for one week and then watch what happens to your drink sales. If they go up, then you know that was a good move. If it takes less time to make drinks and your breaches have more energy to make them, they will put more people through the register in an hour you will sell more coffee. - Yes. - And this applies to peak hours. If there are hours when you're not maxed out and they're not serving as many people as they possibly can, then you don't have a great lens on whether you're a switcheroo did the job that it was supposed to. But look at hours where you're doing nothing but serving customers, move things around. If your drink sales go up, that was a good move. If they stay stagnant, but your breaches are happier, that was a good move. If they go down, you messed up and then you got to figure that out. - Let's say in terms of order of operation, if we could say how to determine what systems to put in place, there's a system to determine that too. And that is, look at what you got and then see if you're using it to the max, that it can be used where I see people will put another person behind the bar without very much instruction or having analyzed whether or not they were actually getting the most they could out of the people that were actually just not being efficient with their time and effort. And so now you have three people that are doing inefficient things behind the bar. So it really looks like figuring out is what I have sufficient, if not, and that's many times that's the case, it seems like that would be the next step to be, we need to find somebody, but we need to know what they're gonna do before we hire them because you just can't retroactively apply a job description to somebody that doesn't, and hopefully fit that job description. - Right, yeah. - So that kind of plays into number four and number five. The number four is make your space work for you and just kind of look at what you have where they are. And if you need to add equipment that does a thing that you're currently, you know, for instance, at one of our shops to make a pour over, we have to steam the milk, not steam the milk, steam the water to make a pour over on the steam wand. And if there's a lock that goes into making sure that the steam wand is A very clean, so it tastes awesome, that takes time. The time it takes to steam the water takes a lot of time. And because of this, we talk about workarounds. You talk about getting, it's gonna be the kettles to put on the back bar. That's like a quick inexpensive, easy way to solve that problem. It involves adding equipment, but it cuts down your chemx time, which frees up someone way sooner than they were, which makes you more relaxed than able to do more business. But don't just assume that adding equipment will solve that again, without a game plan, without a system, without an idea in mind of how to apply this equipment. And then the last one and the fifth one is relax, and know that it will never be perfect. And, you know, your expectations for, once you start thinking about workflow and thinking about systems and thinking about best practices and best ways and, you know, fastest, most efficient, most consistent, it can ruin your life. And you need to be careful with never being satisfied. So this is something I think about at CenterGoss, where we work a lot. It was my favorite coffee shop before I started working there. And it continues to be, but like, and then getting to work at CenterGoss, seeing the workflow and seeing the things that I value, not being applied, the way I would apply them, it just made me question, like, like how could I have loved this as much as I did? - Gotcha. - When they're doing nothing the way that I would do them. And that just means that like, it's fine. It was fine before I got there. It's better now because we have systems and we have workflow, but also like we can't, we could throw all that out the window and it would still be my favorite coffee shop for like all kinds of other reasons. So you know, you can shoot for perfect, you can shoot for this like ideal, like utopian workflow. But then also realize that your customers aren't there because you have good workflow necessarily they're there because the coffee is good and the people are great. And you know, coffee is this thing where it's not just about the coffee, it's never just about that cup of coffee. So you know, your people with fantastic, your product is great, it's homey, or it's not, you can have any kind of coffee shop you want, that you've created an environment that people like and whether you have everything tuned exactly perfectly is not going to be the reason that you go out of business or people stop liking you. - Yeah. - You can really get lost in building the system and really start having a bad time because of what you can't do. Or for, because of what people aren't on board for. Or, you know, I don't wanna, you know, this is kind of a, people kind of throw baristas under the bus for complaining all the time. And that's oftentimes because they start to think this way and they start to realize there's a better way out there and they can't make it happen. They don't have the authority or they don't have the tact to apply some of this mentality and some of this mindset and some of these principles. And that can really burn someone out and they can really make them not only like have a bad time personally but can turn them into a bad employee where all they can see are the things they can't do and the systems they can't build and why can't they equipment be like this and why don't my coworkers understand this? I've been there myself definitely. So the last thing to keep in mind is that like, you started working at this shop before you got good at workflow and there's a reason that you do that. And there's a reason that you enjoyed this shop before you started realizing that things could be better. - Yeah. So take a breath and know that like, it's never gonna be perfect. It never will be perfect also. That's huge. No matter who you think is doing a perfect job, I promise you they're not. I promise that like, behind the thing you're looking at are 18 things that they know are awful and they do a good job of hiding them or they do a good job of working with them because they're mature and they have a good idea of what it takes to want a coffee shop and a good priority for how to make people happy in their shop. So yeah, and I would think about too, like what you're able to change reasonably. And this goes from baristas and what authority do you have and how do you have the tact and maturity to bring ideas to the table in a way that is well received and because when you don't have like actual power, you have to work your ideas in a way that makes people want to take them. So like my kind of even now, personally, my quick three step process for having a new idea is that whoever you're telling has not had this idea and they will not want to do it. Like so step one is a good shot down every single time or like, hey, good idea. Cool, we'll think about that and then just never expect to hear about it again. Step two, you know, presents a really good reason, presents solutions, not problems. Here are some things I think we could do to be better, you know, here's how they will help us present it again. It'll probably get shot down again and that's okay because it's more work for someone to have to do this than for you to have an idea. And then eventually they will think it's their idea and it'll get done. That's the goal. It's for your boss to eventually come to you and say, hey, you know, I was thinking about, oh man. It may have moved in the grinders around. Do you think that's a good idea? Or they'll say like, hey, I remember you saying something about grinders before, what was that about? So, you know, when it's not your job to change things, people whose job it is to change things, tend to not want to. So as a priest, you know, really plan on getting shot down a couple of times because they don't think the way you think they haven't had, they have a lot of other things they're dealing with. You have no idea what they're dealing with. So know that your great idea is not gonna seem great to someone without your context. And then on the other side of things, like as managers and as cafe owners, know that your great idea comes with a lot of responsibility. This was a classic, oh, man. One time at Intelligencia, we realized that kind of in general, we were grinding too finally at one of the shops. And, you know, we reset the grinders so that they were grind just in general more coerously. And we thought that because we changed the equipment, it will be fine. We're gonna make this change. It's better. People will realize it's better when they taste the coffee or when I tell if people around us about this change we're making. And then we left it. And then the next day people were like crying. I was, it was, oh my goodness. Because they're used to tasting coffee that's ground much finer. Their palettes are developed to like, you know, assess the extraction of a pour over based on a much finer grind, not this coercer grind we're using. Now it freaked everyone out. And it just became like this very sobering moment of like, no, I can't just walk in with a good idea, apply it and leave without like days of conversations and lead ups and like going in at five in the morning to be there, the tele-opening crew, and like hold our hands to the dial in. It's like, I know it's different. It's better. Trust me. It's sweeter. Taste that. What's happening? The, you know, the brew times make more sense. These are all the reasons I know it's hard. You're doing great. Thank you so much for this. You know, there's a lot that goes into like, changing a system and not destroying people's lives. So, you know, and you'll be really frustrated that things don't go the way they are on your head because your breeze says can't see in your head. So either you paint that picture for them and you teach them the new way and you give them the equipment yourself and you install it and you have a meeting and you have another meeting, you know, because when you go changing systems around people, suddenly the place they worked before is not the place they work now and that can be very jarring. So from the breeze inside of things, know what you can and can't change. And who like the owners and the manager side of things know that when you change something, you are responsible for these people who work for you and how they feel in this space. So. Yeah, that's just practicing empathy and hospitality to the people you work with. You put yourself in their position and kind of play out what possibly could happen as a result of my actions. Yeah, I have a great idea. We're gonna start having ice cream at lunch. I'm gonna drop off a box full of ice cream at the bar at noon. Like that could ruin your team because now that's the purpose. Ice cream away and like when do they eat it? They have customers now and like someone's in the back eating ice cream that should be doing dishes and everyone's mad. And it's like it's chaos. Well, yeah, and there are managers and owners that would use the phrase trial by fire as a way of excusing that type of behavior. And you know that I'd say that that's a little bit of I don't know gaslighting in the situation. Kind of, yeah. I believe in trial by fire, but only if you have a game plan for when it doesn't go well. Right, you're not abdicating responsibility to be to be, you know, well responsible. But also like trial by fire and this is another, maybe on their podcast entirely, but like what happens if they fail? Are you gonna fire them? Like is that or are you left with this like broken person who thinks they've had a terrible job and no game plan has to how to dig them back out of that? You know, exactly. Or I'm not saying you can't fire them. Maybe you have this like thing where when you're ready to go on bar for the first time during a rush you either kill it or you're fired. But you have to know that going in because then you're left with this person who just thinks they're the worst and they still work for you. And that's your fault. - Oh yeah. - So much responsibility. And so we've gotten to a point now where we're talking real general on systems. But specifically we've gone through five guidelines, a system of how to apply a system. And if you would just give us a review of what those were again, that would be helpful. So the first one is just get you to thinking about this all the time. Like if you do it in your house, you'll be very comfortable doing it behind your bar and knowing and seeing the fruits of that. So make a loose system, test it, have measurable benchmarks for what it means to go well and what it means to fail and then improve the system and kind of get you to think about that in your life. Step two is practice yourself with very small projects at first and then kind of zoom out in your own work and build and build more and more systems around you. So a great example again is like, where do I put the tamper when I'm on a bar? I need to find the place that work. To put the tamper that is the fastest, the most efficient and the most consistent place. And once I find that, I only ever put it there. I only ever take it from there at the same way and I build that into myself so that when I'm stressed, the tamper still goes back there and doesn't wander around the bar. And then zoom out to your espresso prep and then zoom out to your steaming and then zoom out to making a drink entirely. So practice on yourself. Yeah, three. Yeah, three is practice with a friend. So look at the briefs the next to you realize they have their own whole world of little systems they can be working on and figure out how to fold them into your world in a way that makes sense. And then you can zoom out as much as you want there you can work with you and just a friend or you can, you know, kind of work on a system for the whole shop. But then start bringing people in appropriately. So number four is make the space work for you. So once the team is on board, once everyone is working as efficiently as they can. Everyone's happy and everyone's like very used to the systems that you're building together and you've maxed that out. And again, you can look at sales to determine is this system better is a more efficient is faster is a more consistent are we doing more business and that is really the key. Once you've done as much work as you can do there, then look at your space. Look at your equipment look at how it's laid out. And organize things first in a way that makes flow very easy from the customer ordering to the time they get their drink. And then think about adding equipment or taking away equipment and making switches in that way. And just think about your whole shop and how do people move through it and are they near the things you want them to buy are they avoiding areas you don't want them to be in and organize your shop in a way that makes that happen without you having to put up a sign or having to actually tell people about this. And then lastly chill chill out just relax know that you've been you've done a lot of work up to this point like you've just a lot has happened. Know that the shop and you as a barista are better off for knowing how to do things than you were before you knew how to do things and had measurable ways to know that you're doing a good job. And relax it's never going to be perfect. If you're a boss, you know, know how to appropriately move these things in don't act prematurely don't be rash. And your barista know that it's not your job to run this company and it's not your job necessarily to build the system so approach it in a way that is mature and has kind of a long vision on things and know that maybe the last thing people want to do is mess with a coffee shop that they like that they enjoy and that they think is working well. So if the owner of your shop doesn't want to do things your way that's that's appropriate that's totally fine it's theirs not yours. And you have the option to either move on to some way that does want to work the way you want to work or let it go and enjoy the shop for the reasons that you these are working there. Well, this is there's a lot of things in here that have been you know great to talk about and enlightening just continuing to talk about this type of thing just gets my mind even more in step one of giving in that mindset and you just so many things that I can think of applying to my own personal life and professional life. In this list of things will be available on the website too but you know just just take it take these steps and apply them and give yourself some time how much time would you say a full cycle of one through five would should take. Oh wow I have no idea. They're pretty big picture points and it's not necessarily one through five like in that order because you know like if you get stymied at step three and like nobody wants to work with you then you're still at step two and you're working on yourself your fight figure out how to do this really well. So I wouldn't say like you have to get through all five steps. But what I will say is don't jump the guy something doesn't work at first is probably because you're not used to it. So like in this happens every time I work with a barista I'm a trainer you know I'm doing you know QC at center goss and so I actually am responsible for making sure that baristas work the way that we want them to. And it's always hard at first so if you change the way someone works they will always immediately think it's harder than what they were doing because you've changed the way they do that their muscles don't you know move the way they used to and they have to get used to this whole new way of working it's going to be hard. So my role is always give this a week you know learn the system you know you you've chosen a place to put the tamper and it seems harder than it was but you know that it's closer to your hand that places very clean and dry. It's a safe place you can pick it up and put it back really quickly before you didn't get to do that but it's harder to learn to put the tamper here at first so give yourself a week build it into your body. Then then take a step back and think is this better or is this worse. And I think again just playing long games with all of this is really important. You can't drop a plan and come in the next day and expect expect it to work because you need to give yourself time to get used to it. So yeah I don't know I think like thinking in terms of years is really important especially when you're talking about all five of these steps if you want to overhaul how your shop or how your company looks at you know the order in which people accomplish tasks and their lesser priorities in the shop then you know unless unless your game plan is like clean house with baristas fire everyone hire a new team get all new equipment. You know paint you know all that kind of stuff then then you're talking about years to kind of slowly you know you know get the pot boiling so the frog doesn't jump out that's a horrible analogy it's really morbid don't boil your baristas. But no yeah so take your time be patient find some benchmarks like check in every couple of months look at your numbers look at your baristas people see more relaxed are they are things or drinks better how's your customer feedback. If you're being appropriate and you're you're moving at a good pace all these things will get better and that's the whole point is your your braces show a better time working your goals should be accomplished the cafe should be cleaner the drink should be better and more consistent customer should be happier. If these things aren't happening then you're not you shouldn't be changing things you shouldn't you shouldn't be doing this if your drinks are worse and they're less consistent your customers are unhappy and your braces are bombed out and the cafe is a wreck like the systems you build should make these things better. So reassess give yourself some time have an idea leech it out there in a way that doesn't freak people out and then check in in a month look at your numbers look at your cafe look at your baristas ask how things are going then take the next step. Awesome man well this is this has been great and I know that I really hope that everybody listening to this is going to give this a serious some serious commitment and I think that's what's going to take is is not just having the idea to do it or just being merely interested in a endabbling I feel like in in systems and applying systems you need to be committed to the outcome and it starts with. That mindset it starts with personally personal responsibility and self efficacy you know just being just being that person to start that change and let it extend out from there so. Ryan where you're on Twitter you're on Instagram where where can people find you. And all those things i'm Ryan Soder on all those things my last name is s o e and d e r shoot me a message will talk about talk about workflow. Yeah I know on Facebook and that's wonderful highly recommend not being on Facebook very envious of that so much more time to have my cats and think about workflow. Well thanks so much Ryan for joining us here really hope that everyone got a lot out of this and there's a ton of information and again people can find more information about this on the website where they can download your smiling face on a pdf download my smiling face that's right right into your life. That sounds like a great album name and the yeah so thanks again Ryan and we I will see you in a couple of days here and that's it thank you awesome thanks man bye. Well there you go Ryan Soder left us with some pretty great tips for improving workflow and i'm always energized by foundational conversations like this i know that if you take the time to apply these principles you're going to find fruit from your effort i know that it's been very beneficial for the shops here in Kentucky or at center gas. So I'd say go for it and if you doubt it just ask any of the baristas here they'll tell you workflow is amazing so go ahead and do that you can download the main points for. from this episode, the five steps and all of that. You can download the PDF of show notes from keys to the shop.com on the resources tab as keys to the shop.com where you can find the show notes. And if you like this episode, please subscribe to the show, share it with a friend and be sure to rate us on iTunes. These things will help more people find the show and we'll get the information that is shared on the show in front of more baristas and more coffee service pros. And it's going to be great for everybody. And I really appreciate you doing that. So thanks in advance. While you're at the website, you can also sign up for an email newsletter that essentially alerts you to new episodes and new content on the website, blogs, and helpful tools for your journey in professional coffee. And you can also send me your questions to Chris at keys to the shop.com. Your question could be a comment episode, it could make it on the show. I would love to hear from you. And then a feedback you have about the show, how can we improve and what can we do to serve you and make it a great resource for your professional journey? So yeah, it would be great to hear. It would be great to hear from you too. So thanks a lot. And I hope you have a really great day off for an amazing shift or lunch break or wherever you are right now listening to this show. Keep being inspired by people and coffee because they are keys to the shop.