Winning at Process Design & Strategic Planning
The Importance of Strategy and Process in Getting the Results You Want at Growth Stage Startups
“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.”
W. Edwards Deming
Let’s unpack this quote. Deming makes it clear that systems are necessary for achieving results; we can assume that good systems yield good results and, relatedly, bad systems yield bad results.
If you’re like me and you’ve worked at growth stage startups in an operations capacity, you may have encountered times when you’ve run up against resistance to embracing process. In fact, process may be pinpointed as the root cause of your company’s ability to meet its goals. This is a common pitfall, change management wouldn’t be a necessary skill if this dynamic wasn’t ever present. In you’re in this boat, my advice is to embrace it. Try to get to the root of the real problem. In doing so you might uncover the following themes:
You’ve likely outgrown your current processes and it’s creating friction for your teams. This presents an opportunity for you to iterate and improve the current state.
Your teams may be lacking clear strategic guidance and, as a result, organizational cohesion is absent making process feel unncessary and burdensome. This presents an opportunity to refine your strategy - which is (you guessed it!) a process.
Your teams are flying blind and no one knows what your processes are. This presents an opportunity to document and educate key stakeholders - but please keep it simple.
Uncovering key issues and identifying what new or enhanced “systems” and processes your teams need to meet their goals requires flexibility, active listening, and a willingness to educate your teams and stakeholders. The good news is that this is a common experience and there are simple solutions to uncover the real problems and implement processes that support your goals, in a way that makes sense for you and your team. Let’s talk about what systems are necessary for achieving successful outcomes at growth stage companies.
A Strategic Plan is Key
Any good process starts with a clear strategy. A strategic plan is a North Star, a strategic plan is malleable, and a clear strategic plan keeps teams aligned towards a common goal and aides in creating a culture of decision making and accountability. Simply put: a good strategic plan clearly outlines where you want to be at some point in the future. Most growth stage startups are capable of outlining a 3 year strategic plan; I’ll caveat this by saying that if your business priorities are in flux or your core product is changing (and you haven’t settled on the solution) you should be in research, test, and learn mode until you’re clear about a direction before focusing on strategic planning.
Here are some of my favorite resources for strategic planning:
[Template] If Notion is your jam, they have a great Strategic Plan template
[Template] If Confluence is your jam, Atlassian has a great Strategic Plan template
[Process] My Elements of Strategic Planning Guide
Efficiency is Also Key When Process Building
The best processes make you feel like process doesn’t exist, that things are just working without human intervention. The best operators know that this feeling is a result of expert process design; we strive to minimize and, ideally, eliminate friction for all those who work with us even if that means engaging in invisible work behind the scenes to keep things humming. Efficient processes are critical for executing on your strategic plan effectively. Efficient processes streamline operations, eliminate bottlenecks, and enhance your teams productivity. They enable you to make the most of the resources available to you (talent capacity and monetary) and minimize waste, ensuring that every commitment is carried out in a timely and cost-effective manner.
Here are my favorite resources for building efficient processes:
Scaling Up (IMO this is required reading for anyone in an operations role)
How to Improve Process Efficiency (this is a good primer on process design and the science behind building processes that stick)
10 Better Ways to Improve a Process (if you’ve identified a process is no longer working but are stuck on how to improve it - this is a helpful guide)
Here are my favorite tools for creating efficiencies across your teams:
Zapier (minimize manual interventions and embrace automation)
Reclaim (calendar management is a huge time suck, I use Reclaim to manage the details and help me make the most use of my time)
Scribe AI (automate process documentation)
Learn to Adapt to Change and Embrace Failure
The ability to adapt to change is crucial. It can be frustrating to discover that your “systems” are no longer working, but on the other side of that frustration is an opportunity to learn, grow, and iterate. Teams that can adapt to change are more agile and responsive to market shifts, customer feedback, and emerging trends. These teams are set up to succeed. This organizational ethos requires leadership that can create a culture that embraces experimentation, iteration, and learning from failure. The important piece here is learning from failure. One misstep that I help my clients avoid (or solve) is creating a culture that, on the surface, favors experimentation and iteration but stigmatizes failure and taking risks. That breeds a culture that lacks accountability, fears innovation, and, as a result, isn’t truly goal oriented (connect with me if you’re struggling with this).
Prioritizing change management and creating a culture of adaptability minimizes disruption, increases team cohesion, and allows your teams to seize opportunities that arise from unexpected circumstances. Processes should be flexible and scalable to accommodate shifting priorities and demands.
I’ll leave you with this - think about what “systems” have led to successful outcomes at your company, do more of that.
About me
I’m Ashley, a former executive turned business consultant and coach. I’ve spent a decade in tech, collecting successes and learning from mistakes so you don’t have to. Now I spend my time doing what I love the most: solving problems for growth stage companies. I work with founders/leaders to establish operations that enable growth and I also work with individual leaders to level up their management and leadership skills resulting in better business outcomes and highly productive teams.