What are some effective ways to manage uncertainty when scaling operations?
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Scaling operations is one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of running a startup. However, it also involves a lot of uncertainty and risk, as you need to make decisions based on incomplete information, adapt to changing market conditions, and deal with unexpected obstacles. How can you manage uncertainty effectively and confidently when scaling operations? Here are some effective ways to do so.
A roadmap is a strategic plan that outlines your vision, goals, and milestones for scaling operations. However, a roadmap is not a fixed blueprint that you have to follow rigidly. Instead, it should be a flexible guide that you can adjust and update as you learn more about your customers, competitors, and industry. A flexible roadmap allows you to prioritize the most important and impactful initiatives, experiment with different approaches, and pivot when necessary.
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Hitesh Kakar
Chief Operating Officer @ CPM India
I am a firm believer of a phrase “The Means Matter”, the journey on your roadmap is important and being agile and flexible is extremely important on that journey, what matters is that each milestone that you create on this roadmap should be dealt with excellence and quality input of effort and resources, the outcome of the means that you put in will determine how you want to adjust the roadmap further, keep it flexible, but remember The Means Matter !!!
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Biswashis Gantayet (BG)
AVP and Global Head, BEST - Business Management Office at HCL Technologies
Sales operations scaling from a 40 member team to 180-200 member team as the business expanded, and the areas of operation grew beyond original remits. Key thing was scaling with vision and a purpose, and not just adding headcounts.
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Alex Ruiz
COO | Operations Leader | Innovation | Digital Transformation Leader | Scaling Growth | Risk Management | Advisor | Speaker | Board Member
In my experience scaling operations is about gaining an understanding of how to make one-off processes repeatable and teachable. There is always uncertainty is trying to "scale" a process or person because it can be unclear if that process lends itself to being done faster or by more people. In my roles, I have broken it down to two main components. 1) Can we map out all the components of that process into its key drivers and components? 2) Using that mapping, can you get others to do it as well or faster? Without the first, you are just throwing bodies at a problem. Without the second you can learn and iterate (i.e. scale) the process. Having a strategic approach to how you scale makes processes easier to approach and reduces uncertainty.
Scaling operations requires making a lot of assumptions, such as how much demand there is for your product, how fast you can grow your team, and how much capital you need. However, assumptions are not facts, and they can be wrong or outdated. Therefore, you need to validate your assumptions with data and feedback, as well as test your hypotheses with experiments and prototypes. Validating your assumptions helps you avoid wasting time and resources on the wrong things, and also enables you to discover new opportunities and insights.
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Dr Francis Linnane
Chief Operating Officer
Timing is everything, move too soon you end up scaling the product that was almost what your customer needed, spending too much energy on thinking about scale before the value proposition is clear and accepted. Move too late and you lose out to competition or exhaust your limited runway. The solution is to be as agile and flexible as possible, as early as possible. Consider design for manufacture or design for scale from the beginning. Seek partners with resource capacity to assist with the transition. You may have to sacrifice margin for volume while you build momentum and learn what is needed to support your product in the field. And of course, remember to enjoy it! What could be more fun -)
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Hitesh Kakar
Chief Operating Officer @ CPM India
In my opinion, while we are on the journey to scaling up, we need to test and learn, there has to be a validation of the assumptions made and consult an expert We have resources sitting outside our organisations with skill sets that can be important for different situations during scaling up, don’t shy to seek their assistance and opinion, it might seem a little extra spend at this point, however it is always better than a roadblock on the scale up journey
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Geoff Hucker
🚀 Hire and manage large teams of global independent contractors, ethically | Founder at Work For Impact | 🌍 Best For The World Community BCorp 2022 | Nonprofit Board Chair
In my experience, scaling is a journey of assumptions, like predicting demand and team growth. Yet, assumptions aren't facts; they evolve. Validate with data, feedback, and experiments. It's not just avoiding pitfalls; it's discovering new opportunities.
Scaling operations is not a linear or predictable process. It is a dynamic and iterative process that involves learning from your successes and failures, and improving your product, processes, and systems accordingly. Embracing iteration and learning means that you are willing to try new things, fail fast, and learn from your mistakes. It also means that you are open to feedback, criticism, and suggestions from your customers, employees, and stakeholders. Iteration and learning help you optimize your performance, enhance your quality, and increase your value proposition.
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Mike Diedrichs
COO & CBDO | Strategic Partnerships, Operational Efficiency, and Corporate Strategy
As I expand my operations, I consider embracing iterative processes essential. With a foundation in strategic foresight and a commitment to adaptability, I anticipate shifts and manage risks proactively. By diversifying our approach and fostering transparent dialogue. My aim: a resilient business primed for growth.
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Reddy Mallidi
COO | Author of Upcoming Book on AI for Business Leaders | Operational Excellence, AI, Automation, CX, EBITDA Growth | Autodesk, ADP, Intel | Board Advisor
Not everything goes as planned. When I was managing a background screening business, I was driving scaling for growth and we needed to regroup as I brought Operational Excellence to transform the business. Don't be afraid to make quick decisions, but ready learn from the what worked/not worked and iterate quickly.
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Daniel Cohen-Arcamone
Fractional COO | Turnaround Specialist | Early CloudKitchens, Uber, BCG
Regularly revisit your roadmap, your systems, and your processes. Are they built to address your current focus / customer engagement levels / goals? A great startup will routinely update all the above. Staying stagnant is often the mark of a startup on its way down. Stay nimble and regularly reevaluate everything you're doing.
Scaling operations requires effective communication and collaboration among your team members, partners, and customers. Communication and collaboration help you align your vision, goals, and expectations, as well as share your challenges, solutions, and results. They also help you leverage the diverse skills, perspectives, and experiences of your team, and foster a culture of trust, transparency, and accountability. Communication and collaboration can take various forms, such as meetings, emails, chats, reports, surveys, and tools .
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Hitesh Kakar
Chief Operating Officer @ CPM India
This is an important step for the founder / entrepreneur, it is important to create more intrapreneurs in your organisation through collaborative working and transparent communication, imagine if you as an individual could get to this scale, what a team of 4 to 6 infra-preneurs in your organisation can do for you. Trust, Communication and Collaboration within the team and outside with the supplier network can be the stepping stone to success
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Reddy Mallidi
COO | Author of Upcoming Book on AI for Business Leaders | Operational Excellence, AI, Automation, CX, EBITDA Growth | Autodesk, ADP, Intel | Board Advisor
While scaling operations with business growth, uncertainty is bound to occur. Transparency is key to get the team continued to be engaged and support the mission. Transparency helps build trust.
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Geoff Hucker
🚀 Hire and manage large teams of global independent contractors, ethically | Founder at Work For Impact | 🌍 Best For The World Community BCorp 2022 | Nonprofit Board Chair
This is what our startup is all about! At Work for Impact, it's about aligning visions, sharing challenges, and leveraging diverse skills. It's our culture—built on trust, transparency, and collaboration.
Scaling operations can be stressful and emotional, as you face uncertainty, pressure, and ambiguity. Stress and emotions can affect your judgment, decision-making, and productivity, as well as your health and well-being. Therefore, you need to manage your stress and emotions effectively, and find ways to cope and relax. Some of the ways you can do so are by setting realistic and achievable goals, delegating and outsourcing tasks, taking breaks and vacations, exercising and meditating, and seeking support and advice.
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Hitesh Kakar
Chief Operating Officer @ CPM India
I believe this is probably the most critical thing on the list, if you have followed the philosophy of ensuring processes being in place to deliver excellence, team of infra-preneurs who are working like a cohesive unit, you need to stop micro managing and take a step back, manage your work life schedules, spend time with your family and take short breaks with your team and relax. You have put all that you can and have the right INPUT to your scale up plan, what comes next is the OUTPUT, be assured it will be what works best for your business and remember all roadmaps are flexible, relax and enjoy the ride of scaling up !!
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Tamás Giller
Executive | CFO | COO
Sometimes the stress is a good factor to build something new. If you do not stress when you build a new company, or a new project then you probably don't see what's going to happen.
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Massimo Galli
CEO at EVE electric vehicle consulting company
A team member spends a large part of the day, and sometimes the night, at the workplace and there is a need for people to talk and discuss various issues in the workplace. Productivity increases many times when individuals work in a team compared to an individual working alone. Many times you have to leave your ego behind the moment you enter the workplace. You need to appreciate the work of others even if at the moment you are unable to give it the right value or it may apparently seem less important than yours. You need to know how to stand alongside your colleagues when necessary, to prevent the potential points of friction between different characters or cultures. It is very important to create a healthy atmosphere in the workplace
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Reddy Mallidi
COO | Author of Upcoming Book on AI for Business Leaders | Operational Excellence, AI, Automation, CX, EBITDA Growth | Autodesk, ADP, Intel | Board Advisor
At my previous company, I scaled my Ops org as our revenues doubled, and budgets stayed about the same. Eliminating manual processes, leveraging automation and AI helped in a significant way to scale operations. But through the scaling journey, there was uncertainty on the outcomes and how quickly we could scale. Keeping tabs on ROI, what was working and what was not and ready to change direction quickly as needed, and communicating the progress to the larger team and stakeholders helped us reach the goal.
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Andrew Mullen MBA
Experienced MedTech Leader | Operational Strategist & Implementer | Chief Operating Officer at OxSonics Therapeutics
I would add that there is often a rush to get to the scalable ‘commercially’ ready product stage. Make sure you maximise your learning at prototype stage, and test that all lessons learned have been incorporated at the pilot stage. This allows you to go into scale up with confidence that the design is ‘locked’ and you can confidently talk to suppliers and CMO’s, entering into agreements that will not be subject to constant change. The customer will be happy that they got a finished product and the economics make more sense in the long run with order quantities, pricing structures and product lifespan all working in your favour. First to market is no accolade if it alienates customers, costs ££££ in rework and attracts bad press.
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Patrick Hehir
Our ‘PURPOSE’ is to help you achieve yours. - We drive sustainable value creation via transformational change.
Transparency and Trust: It is common for big Ego’s to be involved in new product releases. Many times products are not quite ready or are woefully missing the mark. However the Prod Manager or CEO or whoever, are not open to a brutal truth that their baby may be a bit ugly. When scaling a product, all sorts of new product issues are discovered. If there is not an open environment for good info flow, coupled with non defensive behaviors then problems can generally not be solved fast enough.