What are some effective ways to manage uncertainty when scaling operations?

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.

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 well or faster? Without the first, you are just throwing bodies at a problem. Without the second you can’t learn and iterate (i.e. scale) the process. Having a strategic approach to how you scale makes processes easier to approach and reduces uncertainty.

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 !!!

When growing your business, be ready for things to change. Look at the market carefully and make plans that can change if needed. Instead of doing everything at once, try growing in smaller steps. Keep an eye on how things are going using key indicators, and make sure your money is managed well. Use technology to make things easier, and talk openly with your team about what's happening. Build a team that knows different things and ask for advice when needed. Listen to what your customers say and make improvements. Follow the rules and laws, and you'll be better prepared for any surprises that come your way.

Agree with this as long as you are using a roadmap as intended which is to set and guide strategic direction. Not to be executed against or used for tasks which is a common misconception.

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 -)

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

Assumptions are the foundation, but validation is the key to sustainable scaling. Leverage data, customer feedback, and experiments to test and refine your assumptions continuously. Stay agile, pivot when needed, and be open to discovering unexpected opportunities. This iterative approach ensures your scaling efforts align with real-world dynamics and customer needs.

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.

Candor here is critical. The leaders can set the tone for the kind of data, feedback, and insight the organization wants to gain in order to inform critical changes. Organization are a human entity and humans are expert at picking up subtle signals about what can be talked about openly and what can't. Validation takes real courage. There may be work needed to determine how to unlock the insights that will help validate or invalidate assumptions, no matter who made the assumption, their title, or political capital.

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.

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.

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.

Embracing a culture of continuous iteration and learning is crucial for successful scaling. It enables rapid adaptation to market changes and customer feedback. Regularly assess performance metrics, solicit input from stakeholders, and foster a collaborative environment. This approach not only refines your operations but also strengthens your team's resilience and agility, key factors in the dynamic startup landscape.

Having an agile mentality with your operations is important however it's more important to understand the dependencies. Unfortunately operations requires change of processes that people participate in so constant iteration and change will cause change fatigue and could decrease team morale. Having a top down and bottom up approach to operations strategy will be important to increase visibility and feedback early (before anything is implemented) so that iteration happens in the operational ideation phase rather than implementation phase.

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.

We are a fully remote team. We require constant a-sync communication. We track everything. This can seem like heavy process to newbies but it means that we have only 1-2 hours of meetings/week, which ends up saving time. Forcing thoughtful written communication is a critical step to efficient collaboration.

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

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.

When leaders ask "what are we learning" or "what is in our way" and listen intently, they gain a tremendous amount of insight and engagement.

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.

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.

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.

It's fascinating how so many companies try to create stability and certainty in inherently unstable situations. The best way to create stability and certainty is to create the capability to respond dynamically and quickly to rapidly changing circumstances. By analogy, companies seem to be bent on creating vehicles where the steering wheel never changes position and think they can navigate a windy twisty road without ever having to turn the wheel. Creating the ability to respond takes a way of looking at scaling, growth, and operations that we aren't taught in business school. There's a lot we can learn from lean, theory of constraints, and a culture of learning, safety, and candor that dramatically reduce uncertainty.

What else? Ensure the goals and value being created are clear to everyone (by asking them what the goals are) and easily measured. A few, helpful, accurate and up-to-date metrics are very helpful. A good validation to consider. Ask the teams delivering the work, "What's the one metric we all agree tells the best story?" Then validate that one metric is accurate and up-to-date. Leaders are often surprised by the results.