Raman Bhatia shares five levers that can be leveraged to maximize results when scaling processes.
Processes are critical to run the businesses as well as support the growth. Often early-stage products require significant investments to become mainstream however businesses are consistently under pressure to achieve more with less i.e. decouple outcome growth with the increase in input, often referred to as SCALING. Scaling processes in a business context usually mean doing at least 5-10 times better or more without any additional investment in human capital. This trend is common across all early-stage digital products and organizations are constantly brainstorming on the appropriate approaches to scale programs as well as processes. Many of us would be dealing with similar situations and I have experienced that there are five levers to scale (by no means it is exhaustive). Below are listed five levers that can be leveraged independently or usually in combination to maximize results.
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Automation – Identifying the steps which are repeatable and leveraging an automated system to complete it instead of an individual doing it manually e.g. use of chatbots for customer support. Automation opportunity often seems easy but if not executed properly, it has the potential to cause disruption alienating users as well resulting in low adoption. Change management, timely communication, and cross-functional alignment are some of the key success factors that lead to a smooth transition as well as widespread adoption
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Process reengineering – Understanding the biggest bottlenecks in the process and critically evaluating if the process can be eliminated. If not, then the second question that should be explored is how can that specific process be made lean or it can undergo redesign that will support better throughput. For early-stage products, the right process is often derived by quick iterations (trial and error) or by running well-defined pilots.
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Policy formulation – Having policies in place is crucial for standardization and creating a level field for everyone. However, policies should constantly be evaluated to support growth. For example, Wikipedia (successor of Nupedia) had few articles in the first couple of years but when it changed its policy from ‘strict vetting by expert writers and rigorous fact-checking’ to ‘editing by anyone’, it got more done in weeks than it did in initial years.
Key points include:
- Policy formulation
- Involving ecosystem players
- Rotate talent pool
Read the full article, Levers to SCALE processes for fueling early-stage digital products, on LinkedIn.