Do you have an ops problem? Some solutions from a former Uber exec.

Do you have an ops problem? Some solutions from a former Uber exec.

If you’re a scaling tech startup with a heavy operational side to your business (a group of non-R&D/corporate people who need to do physical things for your product or service to work), then…

Treat it like a machine with one major goal: increasing efficiency and repeatability over time.

Use techniques like…

1. Separate it into a distinct department

2. Hire a strong operational leader

3. Create very specific and tightly defined job descriptions, org chart, KPIs, and playbooks that tightly define what success and vectors or scalability look like

4. Make it everyone’s job to refresh and socialize the playbooks as they learn

5. Remember that you’re ultimate efficiency is to automate most things with software

6. Strongly consider a "Product Operations" role for each of your key squads that connects your product thinking and planning to your ops thinking (and vice versa)

7. Remember that when you automate most things - you may need to start creating and hiring for more junior roles that are less creative but more productive using your tools

As a result, your operations org should be…

1. Getting measurably more efficient all the time

2. Continuously self-renewing/refreshing as staff rotate out (because your ops leaders are continuously hiring at pace)

3. Infinitely scalable (and elastic) by just adding (or removing) bodies to a scalable org and process

4. Eventually able to 10-100x its capacity so you can scale globally