Business readiness checklist

A practical checklist for Australian small businesses to find where work is getting stuck.

Why use this checklist

Use these steps to spot where work is getting stuck before you invest in new software or hire another consultant. Each item maps to common bottlenecks we see in Australian SMB assessments.

Checklist steps

• List every tool your team uses weekly — highlight duplicates and manual exports.
• Track one recurring task: how many people touch it, and how long it takes end-to-end.
• Note where customers wait on you (quotes, callbacks, status updates).
• Identify one report someone rebuilds manually every week.
• Ask: if this broke tomorrow, would anyone notice within an hour?
• Score each problem area: impact (revenue/time) vs. effort to fix.
• Book a 45-minute external perspective before committing to a big software purchase.

Next step

Use this checklist to find where work is getting stuck, then take the free Operations Readiness Scorecard for a scored view of priorities.