I start by getting a clear understanding of what your business procedures. I build a list of processes that are currently in place and spend some time with the people who carry out the tasks, to find out how they achieve the result and why they do things in a particular way.
I collate the findings into an audit report, this includes documentation of current practice along with a measure of how long processes take and what resources are required.
The second part of the report highlights areas where I think there is potential for improvement. This is discussed and at this point we agree time-scales and targets for making the changes along with means of measuring success (i.e. how much time is saved per week).