Using Process to Accelerate Growth

If I’ve learned anything from my big company experience it’s that documentation is key. Very little gets done without an approval or a tick on a spreadsheet that says the VP of XYZ approves this. And with good reason, many industries are regulated and these decision archives become necessities in doing and staying in business.

But what about in smaller, ever-changing organizations like startups? In the nimble start up, often decisions are made on the fly or in the kitchen area over the free snacks and artisanal brew. Documenting decisions or process feels like overhead, when in reality it can be the jumping off point for next-level growth.

Earlier this year I met with a startup CEO with his sights set on scaling the organization. The team had grown exponentially and the reach of its product set was expanding. The company’s growth was outpacing its day-to-day operating model. He asked me how I could help them manage change within the organization. My answer, I’d write stuff down. After a month of working for this CEO, we had a plethora of project plans, process flows and accountability matrices. Laying this information out visually helped the team identify opportunities for improvement that would align standard operating procedures with the current size and scale of the organization. In addition, these newly defined processes were extensible enough to support future growth.

Another client hired me to build a pitch deck for a prospective ad agency. My assignment was to tell a cohesive story about the product, the brand and the market. I asked my client to send me whatever documents she had that I could turn into a presentation. She sent me roughly 20 multi-page emails containing discussion threads amongst the leadership team with cogent ideas, random thoughts, decisions made, decisions overturned, decisions remade. Email was this team’s only way of keeping track of what they were doing. From that stream of information I was able to build an easy to follow presentation that was used as the baseline for investor presentations and business plans.

When done right, taking time to document and archive ideas, processes and plans is an accelerator to growth. After all, you have to know where you are in order to see where you can go.