5 Tips for Designing Nimble and Responsive Rapid-Growth Organizations
If you’re leading a rapid-growth organization, I’m guessing one thing in particular keeps you up at night: scaling. Maybe you’re having dreams of perfect hockey stick growth, or nightmares about everything crumbling under the weight of spawning product teams with no infrastructure to support them.
I want to help you avoid the mistakes that most rapid-growth organizations make by simply throwing more bodies at the problem, focusing too narrowly on scope, or overlooking the operational shifts required to sustain growth.
In this article, I’ll cover three of the most common obstacles faced by rapid-growth organizations—the ones that I observe time and time again when I’m working with organizations of various sizes and industries, from finance to healthcare.
I’ll also share five immediate action items for overcoming those obstacles so you can build more responsive and repeatable systems, including the single most important mindset you need to embrace to make sure your org can flex with the future.
Three Common Obstacles to Designing a Flexible, Scalable High-Growth Org
1. Your scope is too narrow
One of the most common issues I see among rapid-growth organizations is that scaling is focused too narrowly, with most of the emphasis on growing product teams and/or technology teams. This siloed approach doesn’t take into account how the rest of the organization is going to support growth, from ops and sales, to finance and HR. Doubling, tripling, or quadrupling your product teams will require inputs and outputs that the rest of the org needs to be prepared for. The mindset that scaling is something that happens “over there” is prevalent when this issue is at play.
2. Platforms and capabilities can’t support exponential growth
When you’re growing rapidly, people are the most obvious place to start scaling. But does your technology still deliver when you start thinking in terms of exponential numbers? Maybe your current API works when connected with three platforms, but what happens when it needs to connect with 30? Can your hiring process even keep up with your desire to add teams at that pace, based on what you need for onboarding, training, and facilities expansion? If it feels like you’re constantly up against a wall, it might be because your technology and internal processes no longer support emerging needs and new ways of working.
3. The organization is bloated and starting to plateau
Sometimes the rapid growth in product teams happens inside large organizations, with people and teams that do some but not all of the work that product teams will replace. When product teams are scaled rapidly (like multiplying gremlins in a bathtub), you can miss the redundancy bloat that builds up. Though it might feel like slowing the growth of a product org, occasional pauses to asses and address role and team redundancies will, in the long run, keep the entire organization leaner and able to push through the plateaus of growth that might otherwise hold them back.
I’ve helped organizations go from 3 product teams to 130 product teams and, while they weren’t immune to any of these obstacles, we were able to stay the course and avoid major roadblocks by paying attention to a few things in particular.
5 Actionable Tips for Designing Nimble, High-Growth Organizations
Learn to anticipate and address bottlenecks to scaling by thinking systematically about the things happening upstream and downstream of your product. It’s also helpful to think in terms of “what ifs” so you can prepare for likely scenarios.
Build adaptability into organizational structures and processes. Do this by creating lighter teams that are easier to replicate as the org grows. Instead of a huge portfolio, they should have smaller ownership domains. Think about the Spotify model and their “pod concept.” Thanks to their well-defined structure, these self-contained units were easily replicable and allowed the org to be nimble during periods of high growth.
Increase review cycle frequency. When you move to a model with many small teams, you can’t afford to wait for annual or semi-annual reviews to set priorities. In my experience, you need to conduct quarterly reviews at a minimum. During this time, check in on capability funding, evaluate if the right amount of capacity is available for the demand of the work being handled, and make shifts where needed.
Ensure that technological investments align with long-term scalability goals. To do this, build for growth in user loads and complexity of features (that allow for exponential growth). Find modular/flexible systems with low/no-code configuration solutions to expand in multiple directions with minimal tech debt.
Finally, one of the most important things you can do is accept this core truth: The growth model you have today won’t necessarily apply to your company when it grows to its next level. To that end, hyper-growth companies always need to build for what’s next—and by next, I don’t mean building for tomorrow: I mean building for five levels beyond. In periods of high growth, you may skip a few steps, but that’s okay. The point is to embrace the mindset that growth requires constant change, evaluation, and evolution.
Designing POp Models for Flexibility and Scalability Requires Daily Recommitment
In rapid-growth organizations, building for flexibility, responsiveness, and repeatability is key to scaling. Sure, there are some common obstacles, but awareness of them only gives you a leg up as you try to build an organization that can pace with your growth.
Feel free to send me a note if you want to talk about the specific challenges your org might be facing. I know that running a team, an IT practice, or an entire organization can sometimes be a lonely job (I myself had a few reality checks last year operating at the crossroads of decision maker and content expert). If that resonates, check out this article with 3 actionable leadership insights for scaling that might help you stay the course (and celebrate the wins along the way!).