Scaling Small

Best practices for small teams and startups looking to make a big impact

Scaling Small

Outcomes vs. control

Make sure your future is (mostly) in your hands.

Scaling Small

Why spreadsheets are bad for OKRs

You might be obfuscating risks if you're tracking OKRs by replacing values in a cell. Being green does not always mean being on track.

Scaling Small

Objectives vs. Key Results vs. Projects

There's a simple way to explain the difference between outcomes and activities in OKRs.

Scaling Small

5 mistakes to avoid with OKRs

It can take a few quarters to get OKRs right. Here are some practical tips that many had to learn the hard way.

Scaling Small

Managing OKRs in a crisis

How can you adjust your plan when the world economy hits the breaks overnight?

Design

Building Better Brands

Over the past 8 years, I've worked as a brand designer for several different tech companies, on different levels of involvement. I've worked with teams like Color Genomics [https://www.color.com/?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=9992496908&kw=color%20genomics&pos&mt=e&device=c&gclid=

Scaling Small

How to build a Pragmalith

There's a heated debate about microservices vs. monoliths and I'm here to introduce my answer:

Scaling Small

5 low-hanging fruits to make your team more outcome-driven

Stop asking your team to be customer-driven. Instead you should be blending outcome-driven practices as part of your weekly rituals.

Scaling Small

Remote habits are also good for colocated teams

Every company would benefit from working like a remote team, even if people are sitting next to each other.

Scaling Small

How to measure progress for long term outcomes

How can you stay confident about future outcomes if your project takes 6 months to ship? (A: use success proxies)

futureofwork

A team first approach

OKR tools optimize for leadership, and forgot about the rest of the organization needs. Managers love you, but users hate the tool. This needs to change. We are focused on making your team happy first.

start up

Why company values are important, even for a start up

Fundraising, interacting with investors, pitching your product are all parts of a startup that no one who's starting a startup wants to do. We're designers, developers, product people; we want to focus on making things. Regardless, it's important to talk to investors (whether you're raising or not) because they have

Scaling Small

5 simple ways to help your team keep track of progress

Are we working on the right things? Make sure that your work is having the right impact by keeping track of progress.

Scaling Small

Minimize the cost of being wrong

The best way to reduce the costs of mistakes is to catch them early.

Scaling Small

Objectives vs. Key Results vs. Projects

Stop getting projects and OKRs mixed up with a simple set of questions inspired by Simon Sinek's "Start with Why".

Scaling Small

Cascading OKRs is costly, and you should avoid it

Cascading OKRs gives you a comforting view of your business. It feels like everything is under control — but this sentiment comes with a high price tag.

Scaling Small

Preparing the next quarter — part 2: planning

Here's a simple approach to help you define success metrics and plan your roadmap while keeping things flexible.

Scaling Small

Preparing the next quarter — part 1: retros

See how you can take a step back and run a quick retro with your team before planning the quarter.

Scaling Small

How we use Tability to build... Tability

"Eat your own dog food!" — Using Tability is about much more than testing our own product. It's what keeps us focused and flexible.

Scaling Small

5 questions to build your own goal-setting framework

OKRs are great but a simpler language might be best for your team. See 5 questions that can help you build your own goal-setting framework.

Scaling Small

Intercom part 2: How Intercom helps us scale customer success

We stopped using Intercom for announcements, but it's still the best way to scale customer success — the right tool for the right job.

Scaling Small

How we replaced (part of) Intercom with 100 lines of code

Designing solutions too early can be harmful. See how we let go of our initial approach to replace Intercom announcements with a bit of code.

Scaling Small

Execution beats strategy

Slow execution puts a huge pressure on a team to get their bets right. Competition that can move faster will catch up even if they had a false start.

Scaling Small

Why visionary leaders don't scale

Visionary leaders can be powerful drivers during early days, but they'll become bottlenecks unless they switch from giving answers to providing questions.

Scaling Small

Scaling Small — a Newsletter About Growing Lean

Throwing more people at a problem is not a sustainable solution. You need to look for better ways to work as well as finding the best people to help