From Vision to Victory: Escape the Ops Struggle Cycle
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First, a bit of housekeeping. This is the 37th edition of the OpsScale newsletter, a number that I didn’t even consider when I started writing in July 2023. Getting this far has been a journey, and I am grateful you’re here!
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Ops teams often have an ad-hoc and organic beginning. Everywhere I’ve worked, the Ops team has started as a single person, brought in to help with some immediate needs and to start building out a tech stack. The priority is fixing things that are broken right now, and then on building new things. Typically, there’s enough going on that developing a long-term vision or strategy isn’t high on the priority list.
Because of this, it’s common to get pretty far down the path of building an Ops team without having a clear vision of what the team’s specific purpose and goal are. This lack of a defined and communicated vision impacts the perception of the team in the org, and it gets typecast as an order-taking team.
Overall GTM goals will always take priority over time spent on ops work for the Ops team. The requests for Ops are always related to making things better for the teams they support, and Ops-specific vision and strategy development are neglected.
Operations teams are often understaffed and struggle to define a specific approach or strategy, let alone keep up with the requests from their stakeholder teams.
In this case, what commonly happens is that the team will get to the point where they realize there is no vision, and a senior leader will be hired over to the team to “get the house in order.” This means you get passed over for a chance to lead a team - again.
I believe this is an unfortunate situation when it occurs, and it shortchanges the ability of the operators already on the team and doesn’t afford them the chance to grow by leading this activity. I’ve been in this situation a couple of times in my career, perhaps you have as well.
How do you break out of the cycle?
Taking time to examine the current and future needs of the teams you support in the context of your knowledge of what a high-performing Ops team looks like is an important activity to stop the constant struggle.
Prioritization is key to being able to do this. If everything is important and you can’t say “not yet” or “no” to certain requests, then you’ll never have the time to work on Ops-focused tasks. You don’t need much time, a little Operations “self-care” goes a long way.
What should you do?
I recommend working on a concrete vision for your Operations team. This is an important conversation to have at various stages in a team’s evolution, whether you are a manager or not, a solo operator or not.
If you are an Operator on a new team, and/or a team that doesn’t yet have a specific vision defined and written down, you have an opportunity to get ahead of these “hired over” situations and progress in your career by becoming a leader.
If you work on a team that already has a strong senior leader, you can offer your feedback and input on shaping and evolving a vision that already exists or planting the seeds of a new one.
What is a vision document?
“Where there is no vision, the people perish”
— Proverbs 29:18
A vision document serves as the North Star for your team. It aligns efforts, inspires action, and provides clarity in decision-making. In the rapidly evolving landscape of Marketing and Revenue Operations, it acts as a stabilizing force, ensuring everyone is moving in the same direction despite the whirlwind of options that exist in most organizations today.
The vision document is more concerned with the “what” of the final destination rather than the “how” of getting there.
Vision documents are made up of the following sections:
Executive Summary: This encapsulates the purpose of the document and its core message in an engaging way.
Current State Analysis: Use data and insights to paint a clear picture of your starting point.
Vision Statement: It should be aspirational yet achievable, guiding the team's efforts and decision-making.
Strategic Objectives: Follow the goal-setting process of your organization and ensure that you have systems in place to support achieving your goals.
Initiatives and Actions: Prioritize based on impact and feasibility, ensuring resources are allocated effectively.
Metrics and KPIs: Choose metrics that accurately reflect progress toward your vision.
Timeline: Establish milestones and checkpoints to create accountability and celebrate progress.
Whose responsibility is it to establish the vision of the operations team?
CMOs set the vision for the Marketing team. CROs set the vision for the Sales team.
The vision for the Ops team will be influenced by the teams they work closely with. There’s an entire range of things that aren’t on any marketer’s or sales rep’s radar - tech stacks, data cleanliness, reporting, analytics, enablement - the list goes on and on.
These foundational tasks are critical. If they’re not done, the more visible work doesn’t happen. It’s important to highlight their value and prioritize them against other tasks that appear more impactful. To do this, someone from the Operations team needs to speak up and help the broader team understand their importance.
That someone is you!
When setting a time horizon for your vision document, it is important to consider how quickly things can change.
At any one time, multiple factors have a measurable impact on the progress of your organization, and you don’t want your vision to portray something that is so far in the future that you are committed to something that the business might not even need at that point.
Jason Fried, CEO of the company Basecamp, has a famous take on the value of long-term planning. He is quoted as saying, “Unless you are a fortune-teller, long-term business planning is a fantasy.” He also recently posted this on LinkedIn:
You need a vision, but you don’t want to become a prisoner to your plans. One way to address this is to treat a vision as more of a north star - a direction you’re heading. You can make adjustments along the way, but more or less you’re still on the same course.
You aren’t working in marble - vision documents should be reviewed regularly and, as needed, adjusted. Annual reviews make the most sense, but if your business has gone through a significant period of change or there’s a substantial shift in stakeholder expectations, it’s a good idea to make sure it’s still relevant.
How do you use a vision document?
Having a vision document provides a clear advantage as an Ops leader, especially when it comes to setting the direction for your team.
It is a useful tool to leverage in decision-making. It allows you to determine whether a new tool or process gets you closer to the future you’ve envisioned, or further away.
A vision document is a great way to help get new hires up to speed and give them a high-level understanding of the lens the rest of the team is using to make decisions.
You may want a version that is synthesized into a couple of slides in a deck. They can easily be added to team meeting presentations to help remind your marketing, sales, or customer success peers what the charter and purpose of your team are and what you’re ultimately aiming for.
The main thing is that you should be sharing and talking about it frequently. If you create it and it just sits in your Google Drive or on your desktop and no one knows about it, then it might as well not even exist.
Don’t roadmaps and goals show what we’re going to do?
The job of the vision document is to describe the destination. You’re outlining what the finished product will look like, but not getting into all of the details.
You’re trying to inspire and motivate those who read the document, so they can understand the true possibilities of a highly functioning Ops team. You don’t want to overwhelm anyone with excessive details.
A roadmap is the plan for how you will get to the destination.
A roadmap is more specific to a certain area of responsibility. For example, it’s common for a Marketing Operations team to have a roadmap for the martech stack. A roadmap describes things that:
They are in a sequential order and are understood to not happen all at once.
Build upon each other in a thoughtful and strategic way.
The roadmap will see more movement and flexibility than a vision document.
Goals are the milepost markers along your journey.
They are measurable and quantifiable. They are broken up into smaller monthly or quarterly portions that contribute to a larger objective. As you complete each objective, you’ll move along the roadmap toward the vision you’ve created.
Wrap Up + Takeaways
Building out a vision document for yourself and your team is a key step in being recognized as a strategic thinker.
Taking an opportunity to break the struggle cycle and bring a vision and a plan to the table could have a positive impact on your Ops career. Many leaders prefer to hire someone who’s “done it before,” but if you can demonstrate a clear and complete vision with a solid plan to achieve it, you’re positioning yourself for success.
If you want to start building out your vision doc with an example, here is a link to a template I’ve put together in a Google Doc that has a basic outline and some ideas of what to include in each section. Click the blue “Use Template” button in the upper right-hand corner to make a copy.