‘BizOps Perspectives’ from Biz Ops Con

Through Biz Ops Con, here are three great articles, rather perspectives on Business Operations model, business operations team, and why speed matters.

NO “ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL” APPROACH: BIZOPS OPERATING MODELS by Mehdi El Hajoui and Brian Keller

While there are myriad ways to organize a BizOps team, two critical decisions determine how the team will operate:

Scope: Should BizOps have a focused scope, zooming in on one set of topics and issues, or should it have a broad scope, operating across any and all aspects of the business? This answers the question “What should BizOps do?”

Organizational alignment: Should BizOps be a stand-alone (centralized) team or aligned (distributed) to specific parts of the organization (e.g., a functional team, a business unit)? This answers the question “How should BizOps be set up?”

This yields three distinct operating models that we see in practice, which we describe below along with some of their associated trade-offs.

Operating model 1: Stand-alone, broad

BizOps teams with this operating model are autonomous entities — usually reporting directly into an executive function — and tackle a range of issues across the organization. Their members are opportunistically deployed on critical initiatives and work cross-functionally to drive enterprise-level impact. In many ways, these BizOps teams serve internal strategy functions. Some of the associated benefits include flexibility and neutrality. The main tradeoff is a relative lack of subject matter expertise, which may translate into longer project ramp-up time.

Operating model 2: Aligned, broad

In the second operating model, BizOps is deliberately aligned against a specific area of the business (i.e., either a function or a business unit) and works on all key issues faced by its leaders. How the alignment occurs can vary — some teams embed individual contributors in teams, while others fully embed the entire team. This allows team members to develop a more in-depth context, but it also creates a bias against company-wide or cross-functional initiatives.

Operating model 3: Aligned, focused

Our third operating model is characterized by focus: BizOps teams that fit this mold are not only embedded in a business or function, but their role is also clearly delineated. While this allows for a very targeted impact, it comes at the cost of lesser flexibility and a more limited perimeter of intervention

Theoretical model 4: Stand-alone, focused

The one quadrant without a specific example combines a stand-alone team, but with a focused scope. We haven’t seen any sizable BizOps teams that take this approach, but it could exist if the company had a need for a specific “center of excellence.” For example, a central BizOps team that worked with different teams in the company, always on projects related to pricing and go-to-market.

In going about choosing a BizOps operating model, there are a few things to keep in mind:

GROWING A BIZOPS TEAM: A PRACTICAL GUIDE by Olga Narvskaya

Tech companies like Google have popularized the term “BizOps” in recent years; a LinkedIn search for “business operations” returns 15.5 million people. BizOps can be a lot of different things in different companies, from internal consulting (“advise, not do”) to project-based, high-impact cross-functional work with lots of implementation baked in, as well as highly operational work (e.g., performing non-ENG functions like HR).

I’m a big fan of simulation interviews that ask the candidate to solve problems representative of those they’d need to solve on the job. For Segment BizOps, we run the following interview loop:

Recruiter screen: Test for excitement about Segment, having most of the must-have skills/qualities, things making sense on the resume. Ask about timeline and comp expectations.

Hiring manager screen: Test for excitement about product, scrappiness, overall caliber.

Hiring manager case study (real-time consulting-like case): Test for top-down structured thinking, precision with details, root cause analysis, application of meaningful frameworks to the problem at hand.

Take-home challenge (“tell us your thoughts/recommendations given this dataset”): Test for quantitative analysis chops, drive for insight and business implications, presentation clarity.

Onsite case study (real-time work + presentation): Test for ability to get stuff done in an organization, stakeholder management, thinking on one’s feet.

Onsite interview with a cross-functional stakeholder: Test for ability to drive complex, multi-stakeholder projects and build productive relationships.

Onsite interview with bar raiser/ core interviewer (standard for all roles at Segment): Test for match with Segment’s values.

BIZOPS: WHY SPEED MATTERS by Shiyan Koh

First, look at the things that can slow you down.

Decision-making — What to do?

Operations — How we do it?

Hiring / People — Who should do it?

Decision-making — Metrics and Analytical Support

To make good decisions quickly, companies need to understand what metrics they are trying to move as a business, and assess the impact of their decisions on those key metrics. The role of BizOps is to work with management, to determine the right metrics to orient the business around, and then, when critical decisions arise, provide the analytical support to help make the right call. Is this particular initiative working well? Should we invest more here?

Operations — How are we running our business?

As businesses go through hypergrowth, processes that worked at 50 people can break at 100. Maybe you launched with two partners; now you have 100. Processes that span multiple functions and possibly external partners can require reworking. BizOps is well-positioned to help diagnose issues and design new processes to enable teams to deliver more effectively.

Hiring / People

As a business scales, it takes time to fully build out functions. At times, there may be a need to address mission-critical risks or challenges that may fall between functions, or into the court of a function that has yet to be built. BizOps folks can then step up to play the role in the interim, evaluating strategic decisions, or even fulfilling a functional role while a team is hired. This helps the business continue making progress even while hiring occurs. It also improves the hiring process to have someone doing the job to help identify what the company should be hiring for, and how to evaluate those candidates.

Why have a central team, vs. locally embedded analytical capability? It goes back to managing incentives. If folks are embedded at a team or functional level, reporting into a team or functional leader, their incentives will be centered on increasing the investment / resources of their team. From a company-level perspective, it’s important to have a neutral third party with sufficient distance and perspective to provide recommendations that are best for the business as a whole.

In the next decade, I fully expect BizOps-trained professionals to grow into CEOs and COOs.