At some point, organizations find themselves needing to formalize their processes and “level up.”
Maybe you’ve seen quick growth, an influx of funding, a merger or acquisition, a global pandemic, or some other major change that means it’s time to clean house. Growth makes you need to clean house and cleaning house allows growth to continue.
At Fiddlehead, we found ourselves needing to manage quite a bit of change in a short period of time. From a rebrand to a reorganization of the leadership team, to adding more team and clients, the organization we started out with in July 2020 looked completely different by October. All this while managing a seemingly never-ending global epidemic.
In order to grow, it was clear that we had to clean up the mess that comes when a company goes through a lot of growth in a short period of time. It wasn’t enough to have that one person who knows how to do that one thing or to onboard clients or new team members in a haphazard ‘however we felt like doing it that day’ manner.
Start at the Very Beginning
The first problem? We had almost zero process and even less documentation to support those processes. Each process had an exception. We didn’t even have a good place to put this documentation, but we couldn’t ignore it and hope things got better—the only way out was through what we named (lovingly) the “Ouroboros of Shit.”
This is where we could have totally stalled out.
When we looked around, it was overwhelming. Everything needed an overhaul—where do we even start?
Here’s how we managed to get a handle on the project as a whole. We named it “Project Simplify” (which is a lot more diplomatic than our ouroboros moniker).
Here are the steps we took:
Commit, in the form of bodies
Fiddlehead had tried to implement some processes before, but it was clear we needed someone dedicated to steering the project, someone who wouldn’t get sucked into top-priority client work day-to-day. This is where internal programs die.In our case, it helped to have someone brand new come in and start lifting up rugs and looking in cupboards. That’s where I joined as a part-time employee along with a creative operations consultant to help us get moving. Since then, my part-time role has evolved into our Director of Operations, and I have lots of job security; there’s a lot to do.
How to copy this for yourself:
Start small and hire a contractor to help with a specific problem or project, like implementing a new project management system or systematizing a set of services/client deliverables. This approach is a smaller investment than hiring a consultant to audit and overhaul everything, both in time and money. It also allows you to shine a spotlight instead of a floodlight, which can overwhelm your team.Get buy-in from stakeholders and agree on priorities
For us, this came in phases because the work had to start somewhere and decision-by-committee doesn’t always work. We started with a very clearly defined WHY and asked for trust in the process.Once we started breaking down the chaos and wrapped up some low-hanging fruit, we worked with the leadership team to prioritize the next series of processes. To find the chaos, we started looking around the edges of our people’s job responsibilities. Where’s the handoff from one person to another? Is it clearly defined? Does each party know their responsibility? What tasks in the process have no owner?
It’s an ongoing conversation as we keep pulling at this chaos to ensure we’re working on the most important things across the organization. We evaluate each area or project quarterly and decide where we want to shine our flashlight next.
How to copy this for yourself:
Start simple and small. What gives your team the most grief? Losing due dates? Internal communications? Client or contractor onboarding/offboarding? Look at what needs to be documented, but just isn’t yet.
Some other ideas on where to start: timekeeping procedure and policy, setting up a document/client deliverable correctly, setting up a client meeting, how to use the company calendar—when you haven’t done any yet, anything is fair game!
Then document the obvious: sure, it may seem like onboarding a new client is just something you do, but as you grow and more people are involved, it’s helpful to have an actual checklist and description of what, who, and when. (Here’s a cleaned-up version of our client onboarding process.)
Ask yourselves: if we were to get 25% more clients in a month, would our current process be able to handle that?
Iterate! It’s probably not going to be exactly right the first time, especially when you have someone outside the organization imposing order. There will always be evolutions, tweaks, and changes—it’s inevitable.
3. Don’t forget transparency and communication.
Communication about internal initiatives was a huge pain point in past attempts at internal programs. So that’s where we started. We did an overhaul and formalization of our meeting types, cadence, and even how we run our meetings.
We created a holistic plan addressing the cadence of meetings throughout our organization. We instituted
quarterly all-hands for employees and contractors
a bi-weekly leadership meeting
daily stand-ups for the expanded leadership team
Why? Because, although people dislike meetings, we were experiencing a lot of confusion and frustration over the status of internal projects and really wanted any meeting to have a solid purpose and outcome. (See Traction by Gino Wickman. His EOS system is awesome.)
How to copy this for yourself:
Identify your biggest pain points. Ours (at the time) was communication around internal projects, so we started there. We also sent out an internal survey around meetings, meeting times, and preferences so we could create our guidelines.
Focus on outcomes. Once you know your pain points and what needs to be fixed, you can focus on what you want 1) out of each meeting, and 2) overall for your business to run well. This should keep you laser-focused on what actually moves your needle.
Draft and implement v.1 of the policy. Again, you’re going to have to just start! Once your small team agrees on the policy, write it up, show it to the other stakeholders and go!
Setup and hold a retrospective. It is really helpful to have this set in advance, 60-90 days after you launch the new policy (and probably any new policy!). If you have skeptics on the team, you can give them reassurance that in 60-90 days you’ll all meet and discuss its efficacy—deciding together what’s working, what needs adjusting, and what just isn’t going to stick around.
Iterate, iterate, iterate. Yep, sorry, nothing is just “done,” you’re going to constantly be moving, evolving, and changing the things you’re putting into place. If you don’t, they won’t be helpful and may cause more issues than they’re worth.
What Not to Do
There’s a lot of ways to go about this the wrong way, and I think we tried a few of those. The caveat here is that you can’t let fear of it not working stop you from trying again. In fact, this may be the biggest obstacle to overcome. It was for me. As the new kid on the block, I was very bright-eyed, enthusiastic, and confident that I could make meaningful change. But the team here had already been through some false starts and stops and new things that were half-implemented or never fully realized. What made this time different? See #1 in the list above.
There are a couple of traps for progress, so let’s look at those:
Trying to change too much at once. Humans are creatures of habit and we like routines. When organizations try to revamp everything at once, it feels like too much; people will reject changes and your efforts will backfire.
Timelines that are too ambitious. If you’ve committed a body to this project, they’ll be hyper-focused on getting things done. But everyone else? All the subject matter experts and stakeholders? They’ll still be doing their normal jobs. Though a little frustrating, timelines may need to be stretched to accommodate folks’ realities.
Lack of leadership support. Sure, someone in leadership can bring in a body for the project, but without their unwavering support, the project could easily stall out.
For us, this meant a detailed memo from our CEO on WHY we’re undertaking the project and what the outcome will be. She set expectations from the beginning that all the work was for the benefit of the organization, not any one individual, and that the rest of the leadership team would support all efforts. She also consistently prioritized her parts in the process and ensured other stakeholders did the same.
Final Words of Wisdom
And after all of that, you’re still just starting. But as you start working away, you’ll add up your victories and it will get easier. You will find a flow within the organization and stakeholders will likely become more cooperative as they see progress (and see that you’re sticking to your guns).
This is hard work. Once you start, it takes vigilance to keep the process going as you continue to find places where processes and documentation need to happen AND to continually revisit and revise the ones you already did. You know, like painting the Golden Gate Bridge.
The work is worth it. We’ve seen progress already (that someday I’d love to quantify). At the very least, I’ve seen changes in the willingness of our team to embrace the process and give honest feedback about what’s working for them. If we can do it, so can you, you just have to start. Good luck!