Free Operational Self-Assessment
What's actuallyoperation?
Most operational problems are invisible until someone names them. Answer 10 questions and we'll tell you exactly what system is costing you the most right now, and what it's probably worth to fix it.
3 minutes 10 questions No email required Instant diagnosis
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Question 1 of 10
01
When you add people, what happens to your output?
Think about the last hire or expansion. Be honest.
Output grows with the team. More people, more results.
Output improves but not as much as we expected.
We are getting less back for every person we add but we manage.
Adding people mostly creates more meetings and more confusion.
More meetings, more confusion, not much more output.
We've grown the team but I couldn't honestly say it's made us more productive.
This question makes me uncomfortable.
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02
How does your team handle a process that only one person knows?
Think of a critical task that breaks down when that person is sick or leaves.
Everything is documented. Anyone can step in.
Most things are documented but there are gaps.
We've been meaning to fix this.
We have at least one person who is irreplaceable and everyone knows it.
It's a risk we live with.
Multiple critical processes only exist in someone's head.
We learned this the hard way.
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03
When something breaks across departments, what happens?
A problem that lives between teams, not inside one.
There's a clear owner and it gets resolved fast.
It gets passed up the chain and eventually resolved but it takes longer than it should.
People blame each other. It ends up on my desk.
I am the default owner of everything nobody else owns.
Cross-department problems mostly just stay unsolved.
Everyone knows, nobody fixes it, we work around it.
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04
How much of your team's day is spent on the actual work versus managing the work?
Meetings about meetings. Chasing updates. Reformatting data. Re-entering things.
Most of the day is productive work. Overhead is minimal.
Maybe 70% productive work, 30% overhead. It's not ideal.
It's closer to half and half some days.
We have a lot of internal friction.
Honestly I don't know how much time is actually productive.
I suspect the number would shock me if I measured it.
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05
Your last software implementation or major tool change. How did it go?
Think about the last time you changed a significant system or platform.
Went well. The problems it was meant to solve got solved.
Mixed results. Some things improved, others didn't change or got worse.
We still have the old problems plus new ones the software introduced.
The vendor was very helpful until we signed.
We haven't changed anything significant in years because last time was so painful.
We are running on systems that are too small for where we are now.
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06
When you need to understand how your operation is performing, how easy is it to get a clear answer?
Not just the numbers. How things actually run day to day.
I can pull a report and know exactly what's happening where.
I can get the information but it takes time and some digging.
My operational system is a mix of spreadsheets, conversations, and gut feeling.
It works until something goes wrong.
I mostly find out something is broken when a client tells me or a deadline gets missed.
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07
Think about your most frustrating recurring problem. How long has it been happening?
The thing that comes up in every operations meeting.
Less than 3 months. We're on top of it.
6 to 12 months. We've tried a few things.
Over a year. It's become part of how we operate.
New staff learn to work around it from day one.
I am not sure when it started. It may have been a problem before I arrived.
That's how normal it has become.
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08
How does your team handle data that needs to move between systems or people?
Reporting, handoffs, updates between departments or platforms.
It's automated or structured. Data moves where it needs to without anyone doing it manually.
Mostly automated with some manual steps we're working on.
A lot of copy-paste and manual re-entry between systems.
Everyone knows it's inefficient. Nobody's fixed it.
Data exists in multiple places and I'm never fully sure which version is current.
Decisions get made on outdated information regularly.
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09
If your best operator left tomorrow, what would happen?
The person your operation most depends on.
We'd miss them but the operation would continue normally.
There'd be a rough transition but we'd recover in a few weeks.
It would be genuinely painful and take months to recover from.
We are too dependent on one person.
It would be an operational crisis. I don't want to think about this.
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10
When you imagine your operation running the way it should, what's the gap between that and today?
Be honest. This is just for you.
Small gap. We're mostly where we want to be.
Moderate gap. We know what needs to change but haven't gotten there yet.
Significant gap. What we have and what we need feel like different companies.
I have stopped imagining it because the gap feels too large.
We just try to make it through each week.
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