You may need to help your clients to get useful management information from their computer systems. An example would be project tracking; by recording the status of each project and the date that it changes they can create a simple traffic-light system that shows at a glance how projects are progressing. This illustrates a general point that efficient management is about the efficient use of information.  Efficient in this context means to provide the information necessary to make a decision in the quickest time with the least amount of data.  You can teach your clients to do this by using a generic management model: All businesses can be thought of as a series of flows and balances (or pipes and buckets if you prefer). Management information tracks the speed of these flows, the volume of flow and the level in the buckets.  Examples of flow volume are number of new enquiries per day, value of invoices issued per month or, in my client’s case, projects completed per week.  Examples of f