Very early start today – around 5am. No particular reason – but up with lots of ideas.

So, first, thinking of how to organize the company for rapid execution – we are stretched fairly thin – so in terms of hierarchal teams not enough people to staff independent project teams (not yet at least). So matrix structure came to mind. But with that in mind I asked the EO crew about experience with matrix organizations in China – and the answer was a resounding “NO”. Basically culturally top down with clear lines of authority is needed. Multiple bosses don’t work so well.

So, with that in mind, I’m looking for a solid methodology how to manage internal tasks. Given the workload we are taking on and the pace we want to go at – my concern is that we will overload and burn out people – and not get things done – without a clear system. So, over few days I will be focusing on tasks, project, individual workload visibility – and directives to team leads and senior management on how we should work together.

Yes, we are not so big yet, but getting this right is critical to rapid growth – so it’s now on my focus list for this week.

Rest of the day I spent with Gerry framing the tasks and procedures for rapid site rollouts. All effort supporting the above point. It was a good day – we took a word doc that was our SOP and converted it into an online sharepoint list – with actionable items, kpi and responsibility assignments. Basically what this gives us is a cookie cutter system for managing internal work related to site rollout. All in all, about 100 decision points – governed by Policies – which is then fed into some 300 tasks – which are governed by SOP – which are the assigned go departments and individuals for execution.

So, the beauty of this is that we will have a system where with a click of a button we will be able to create a visible project structure with automated task assignments, documentation, and tracking for a new site.

So, given that our goal is to have 10 sites this year, it means 1000 decision points and 3000 tasks to manage. Without a system to handle this – we would stand no chance to pull this off. As is, it’s all within reach.

So, we will further have to make a corporate cultural shift to a way of using lists, and statues to give feedback to each other about workloads, slippages, etc.

So, good day, but early day. By 4pm I was spent – and took the evening off (most of it) to chill the brain.