The Boom & Bust of Ops Roles

With the rise of ChatGPT and other Generative AI related applications, Digital Transformation meant accelerating a team’s productivity while embedding standardized and disciplined enablers in process (think Amazon’s single-threaded leadership, two-pizza teams, or the age-old Lean Six Sigma practices). It’s a shift from simply adopting digital technologies to integrating them into all aspects of an organization’s operations, creating a more agile and customer-centric business model. It goes beyond automating processes and aims to use data, analytics, and emerging technologies to drive innovation, improve customer experiences, and respond to market changes quickly. It all sounds dandy, right? So how could a change agent like the Ops function become such a high stakes boondoggle?

Simply put: cultural illusion and generic skillsets.

Eric Chen , Director of Jemini — a business transformation consulting firm, described Ops being “the shared friction points across functions.”

For individuals seeking roles in Operations, Lou Ponticas , a seasoned operations professional who most recently served as the COO of MuleSoft, recommended staying informed about evolving business and product strategies, anticipating their implications for the organizational operating model, and swiftly deploying resources as budgets and business conditions permit.

A few pieces of tried-and-true advice:

1. Data determines the fate of organizational transformation
2. Center of gravity affects the runway
3. Be mindful of the tradeoffs

The full article is available on Medium. Check it out, and let me know what kind of questions you would ask to evaluate the success of your company’s transformation!