My initial goal with any team is to first achieve "clockwork"

Startups for example almost always throw out most of what they did initially because they changed focus. So far better in my view to focus on getting the process right.

Many teams start off by thinking a lot about what they should do.

They go into detail over tasks and strategy.

I do not.

Rather I focus on process and achieving what I call “clockwork” with the team.

Now i’ll explain why.

Particularly with startups…. you throw out most of the stuff you do early on

My experience has consistently shown that when you first start out…. you end up changing your strategy a lot later.

Because you begin to understand your customer better, etc.

And so you end up throwing out a lot of what you do during those initial weeks.

So in the end.. it almost doesn’t matter what you did. Because it will get thrown away. LOL

What is more important to me early on is ‘how’ you worked rather than the nitty gritty of what you did

By ‘how’ I mean the processes, the responsiveness, etc. And I have a specific term for this, which I call “clockwork”.

What I mean by clockwork is… i want the team to begin getting consistent about:

• All tasks that take more than ~10 minutes to do are created in the project mgmt system (Clickup in my case).

• They are written up clearly with a context and goal

• The correct people are assigned to do it or to follow that task

• A system of prioritising what to do is put in place and starts to work

• Due dates are set and respected. And when things delay the due date is updated with an explanation.

• People clear their notifications regularly thus setting a strong precedent for responsiveness.

These are the things that I am measuring early on. To see if that team has what it takes to scale.

Once you achieve clockwork… you now have the horsepower to move quickly on any task

At some point when you’re doing the tasks that are truly valuable.. you’re able to achieve them quickly. Because the systems are already working.

An example to me is when I played high school basketball for my school.

Before the season started we would play a lot of ‘scrimmage’ games either amongst ourselves or against some nearby schools.

And it didn’t actually matter who won or lost. Rather the coach was focused on getting the teamwork down.

• Did we run the plays correctly?

• Did we communicate well?

• Did we have a good attitude?

These things were far more important than whether or not we won the game.

And so my approach to working in new teams is almost no different. You prep early on to get your teamwork down… so that when the games count… you’re flying.