I had been managing and documenting the internal processes for the majority of our products for a few years since starting at Cuebiq. I love being able to find better ways to do common day to day tasks, it’s what keeps the company running efficiently and allows for future scalability. We are in a hyper growth mode where you cannot sit back and let the norm be the norm. If you want to have any type of significant growth, you must be able to accommodate your clients and provide them with your service yesterday, not when the time is best for you.
To keep up with the growth we were experiencing, and a Product Engineering team working diligently on developing new products, the Operations team had to develop a solution that would allow us to succeed without needing additional resources. Luckily, we had two talented Operations Engineers on our team already who were privy to our struggles. We put our heads together and decided the only way we could keep up with the hyper growth was to develop our own internal product, our Operations UI.
Having been on the front lines experiencing what the Operations team went through day in and out, I put my head down and mapped out everything that was a pain point in the execution process. It didn’t take long to realize our processes were archaic and would significantly hinder our growth if action was procrastinated further. We found various bottlenecks that could be rectified using scripts via our own personal User Interface. Once I had written out the requirements and discussed them with our Ops Engineering team, they were able to deliver the service within only a few sprints. After we saw the MVP (minimum viable product), we were blown away. Processes taking at times, days, would be cut to mere minutes, allowing our team to focus less on data entry and more on customer support, satisfaction, scalability, and future innovation.
As the Product Engineering team continues to build products that will take Cuebiq to the top, the Operations team continues to develop and enhance the UI. Every two weeks, I meet with the Ops Engineers and discuss the state of the tool, what more we can do with it, and plan points to be placed into production for future sprints. The tool has truly been the sole reason our team has been able to scale to the capacity we are at today. We have been able to forego adding additional personnel to our team and instead focus on technology to help guide us. This allows us to keep costs low and innovation high. The entire Operations team has a hand in the development and future of the product.
Now as we experience significant revenue growth YOY, we can accommodate any request that comes our way and are striving for further improvement every single day.
The recipe:
1000+ bottlenecks
2 Solutions Engineers
1 dedicated team to map processes
Unlimited ingenuity
The hunger for constant improvement
