As organizational advisors, we regularly help entrepreneurs achieve growth and improve the scalability of their organization. Because we want to share our knowledge and experience about effective growth, we have started an article series about the 6 focus areas for effective growth among scaleups. In addition, we draw on our experience in helping entrepreneurs and our own experience with the growth of Summiteers. In this article about processes, we will discuss the focus area 'The machine' in more detail. We talk about improving processes in scale-ups with Paul van Bekkum, one of the founders of Summiteers.

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The 6 focus areas for effective growth

In the previous article in this series, we took you into the importance of a good plan. In it, we talked about the big buttons you want to turn to in the near future. Now it may be that improving (work) processes is one of those major concerns. In this article, we therefore explain that setting up good processes is not just for corporates, but rather argue that process improvement is one of the important pillars for effective growth for scaleups. After all, it's basically about being able to quickly transfer knowledge to new people: “This is how we do things here.”

“If you don't do that (well), for example, you won't be able to train new talented staff properly, people will leave, you will have to explain everything again, all your investment in recruitment and selection will be lost, and so on. And that's exactly what you don't have time for!” says Paul.

If you feel any aversion to the word 'processes', you are definitely in good company. Because formally record things? Startups are often averse to that. “While core processes actually become important as you grow. How do we get someone on board, how do we process a new order, how do we add a new software user? By looking at this from a process-based perspective, you give a head and tail to all activities,” says Van Bekkum. “This way, you can keep an overview, you can better train new people and identify improvements and communicate them more quickly. The smoother the machine runs, the easier it is to scale.”

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When do you use processes?

For scaleups, it is first important to realize that the way of working changes as you grow. A startup often works on a project basis and experimentally, because they are still looking for what works. You do that project-based work when you do something unique, it has a head and a tail, you always have to think carefully in advance how you're going to go about it and most importantly: you often only do it once.

Once you have then found your focus as a startup, you will enter the phase where there are a lot of tasks you know about: we will repeat this method very often, because it works. And it is precisely when it comes to these repetitive tasks that you use process description and improvement. “Scaleups who want to be effective and have little time should actually tackle processes. Especially if you have to do something very often, such as onboarding a new employee or customer, then as you grow, you waste too much time and energy trying to figure out how to do that over and over again,” Paul explains.

When you describe processes for repetitive tasks, your machine becomes more efficient and effective and you use resources smarter. Things will also work as you imagined, you can further limit risks within those processes and, above all, it ensures that you can easily transfer things to others. “The fact that you put something on paper and that everyone knows: that's how we do it here, that's what makes your organization scalable,” Paul confirms.

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Four process tips for the healthy growth of scaleups

When you start working with processes, you can probably use some tools. That's why we have four concrete tips for starting (er) working process-based. And of course, describing processes is not an end in itself, but a means of improving your scalability. And prioritizing where you start helps with that.

1. First, see where the repetitive work increases

First, consider, what are high-frequency activities? And where does repetitive work increase significantly as we grow? Map these tasks carefully so that it is clear to everyone how best to carry them out. And make sure that information is easy to transfer. “If the onboarding of customers or temporary workers explodes, you tackle that first. But if you expect a lot more calls in your help desk due to growth, you might need to pay attention to them first,” says Paul.

At Summiteers, the bottleneck was recruitment and selection for a while. “For example, we spoke to a lot of applicants, but who spoke to that applicant depended on where our office manager randomly found time in the agenda. As a result, the order in which various colleagues spoke to an applicant was not always well thought out. Now we have drawn up clear guidelines for this. For example, the most busy colleagues are at the back of the process, so there is a good chance that we will actually make an offer to the candidates they speak to,” says Paul. These are small adjustments that you can improve in a process, so that you can better deal with scarce resources.

2. Don't make it too heavy - improve a process in three easy steps

When recording processes, it is quickly possible to imagine a thick book that disappears somewhere in the drawer, and the image of a supervisor who must ultimately conclude that things are completely different in real life. “Exactly that doesn't work. Documenting processes has no formal requirement, it doesn't have to be stored in a tool, but write it down as it suits your organization,” says Paul. So write down the minimum, tackle one important process first and follow these steps:‍

a. Pack a process and think about how you would like it to work in a one to one and a half hour meeting

• How does the process start (what is the trigger)?
• What activities do you always go through? Which activities are optional and based on what criteria?
• For each activity, note: What is the input (how does it start)? What actions are performed? What is the output?

b. Explain how it works to everyone involved

c. Make sure you maintain the working method and evaluate it periodically

It can be that simple. “It's not about recording, it's about prescribing and in order to prescribe it, you have to record it,” Paul concludes. “At Summiteers, for example, we have 'the big book', where we regulate our knowledge transfer (e.g. 'how do we develop our people? '). Each page in the book has an owner. The owner ensures that the processes on the page remain up to date. We change those pages regularly. So we're not writing it down to put it in concrete, but as a means of keeping everyone in the company informed about “how we do things here.”

3. Test the process with larger numbers

When you're actually striving to scale with large volumes, it's essential to test the process for long-term scalability. “Ask yourself: if the volume increases by a factor of 10 or 100, does the process still work? This means that your processes can keep up with growth,” says Paul. At Summiteers, for example, we now sometimes onboarding 3-4 people at the same time, but when it comes to 10 or 15 people, the same process no longer works. “People now send a resume, write a letter, then we do an interview, then an assessment, then another interview and so on. If this process were to go times 100, you might start with the assessment and only those who go through would want to speak, otherwise it would not be doable. So you have to make different choices.”

4. Lead by example and share responsibility

Executing processes requires discipline. If the MT or the founders do not comply with the procedures, no one does. As a leader, it is therefore important to lead by example. “So don't just expect others to work by the rules, but show them how to do it for yourself,” says Paul. On the other hand, it shouldn't be too much about prescribing rules top-down, but about sitting down with the people who know exactly how things work. Ensure strong buy-in from colleagues. Listening to colleagues who work according to the processes every day provides important insights into how things are doing and what can be improved. On the 'floor', they often know much better where things could be better and where the friction lies. “Also give someone within that process the ownership and the mandate to improve the way they work and update the work instructions,” Paul advises.

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Want to know more about the challenges of effective growth?

In our next articles in this series, we will discuss the following four areas of focus for effective growth. In the next edition, you'll read more about 'The Organization', where we'll discuss how your role as founder can change dramatically when you scale up and how you should formalize or change your organisational structure to enable effective growth.

The six-part model that this article series is based on results from the scale-up organization scan developed by Summiteers. The scale-up organization scan helps companies to zoom out, quickly identify possible pain points and reveal any noise between founders and the organization. If you want to exchange views on your challenges to grow effectively or explore whether the organization scan is interesting for you, please contact Paul whether Casper.

Of course, you can also get in touch with us via LinkedIn and our website.

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