It’s easy to overcomplicate operations in a startup and make them hard to manage. It’s comparatively hard to simplify them and make them easy to manage. In 1960 US Navy engineers coined the design principle KISS – “Keep It Simple Stupid”. Here’s how to give your startup operations a big KISS…
At their core, startup operations are no different from those in a larger organisation. Operations consist of people, managing processes, according to policies, via systems. Only a startup usually has fewer people, using less established processes, policies and systems.
So what’s the secret to achieving success with limited resources? You guessed it – simplicity. Regardless of what your startup does and how your functions are structured, you need a solid foundation for growth. Forget about spreadsheets and Gantt charts for a minute. The way you and your people work together is the starting point.
Here are three essential practices I recommend to operations leaders.
Documentation
It’s tempting not to document policies and processes, especially early on, because they’re always changing as the company scales. But if they’re always changing, how will team members keep track of them? And if your startup’s scaling and hiring new employees, how will new hires learn the current policies and processes?
Dynamic documentation solves both of these problems. I advise storing your policies and processes in cloud-based collaborative software like the Google Suite. These can be in bullet point form, prose, flowcharts or whatever works best. This allows you to control who can edit them, track changes and feedback, and automatically update them for every team member to reference. Done well, documentation will also serve as a valuable resource for future process design and optimisation.
Importantly: your documentation should be accurate and comprehensive, yet also as brief and straightforward as possible. Tedious tomes gathering digital dust are no use to anyone. You should aim to create engaging live documents people use in their daily work.
Training
Working hand-in-hand with documentation is training. Your documentation may be accurate and up-to-date, but you still need to validate its usefulness and ensure your team is using it. The best way to do that is basic training for new hires, and periodically for all team members. This is all too often skipped in early stage startups to “save time”. Trust me when I say that is a missed opportunity. Even a couple of hours spent training a new hire will empower them and save you weeks of needless interruptions: “how do I do x/y/z?”
One pro tip from me is to share your documentation with new hires in advance of their onboarding training. If they are able to read and digest your policies and processes, and arrive at training with a good idea of how to apply them, your documentation is probably fit for purpose. If they’re left scratching their heads, there’s a good chance your documentation is lacking and in need of a refresh.
Once team members are comfortable in their roles, it’s a good idea to draw on them to review and update documentation and training materials. Front line employees are likely to do a better first draft than managers with more strategic roles, who as the startup scales may become detached from the realities of the job.
Delegation
Provided you have a solid foundation of documentation and training in place, you’re in a good position to leverage the most valuable practice of all – delegation. Effective delegation is a game changer, and it alone is sometimes enough to transform a mediocre or failing manager in to an inspirational leader.
Delegation is an art more than a science. It boils down to trusting team members to work towards shared goals as they see fit, within clearly defined parameters but without being micromanaged. Crucially, the accountability for the outcome – good or bad – remains with the manager who delegates the work. If the team is successful, the leader may share the glory; but if the team fails, the leader must take the blame.
Leaders who fail to delegate effectively, or at all, often become a toxic influence. Learning to let go emotionally and entrust vital tasks to others is, for me, the essence of leadership. Say goodbye to stuffy line management and over-reliance on metrics and performance management. Say hello to trusting relationships with employees, who take the initiative to do the right thing for your startup – even when you’re not looking!