An operations manifesto

About 1 year ago my small team, consisting of myself, Lauren Cahill , Dejan Anti? , and Cassidy Evans , was preparing for the operations function to be meaningfully growing and we decided to create an artefact we called the Carbon6 Operations Manifesto.

Why does it exist?

The goal of the document was to help new hires assimilate to our culture and philosophy of operations as seamlessly as possible, and to accelerate their speed to impact.

It would also become a bar to which to hold ourselves, a tool for coaching and accountability, and a measuring stick for "what good looks like" on our team.

Process vs. outcomes

The ops manifesto is not as much about outcomes as it is about how you do the work. In fact, I strongly believe using outcomes as an exclusive measuring stick is dangerous. By luck, you can have an outstanding outcome based on poor process or flawed decision making (and vice versa).

Of course the ultimate measuring stick is impact. But we believe this operations manifesto is the recipe for maximizing your chances of impact.

I often share the document with candidates in the interview process at C6 and last week one of them said to me "It almost feels like a list of affirmations I could read every morning and if I embrace these every day then I will be successful."

That is my hope.

Iteration

When we wrote this, we applied our own principle "build with the intent to iterate" and expected to adjust this as time went on, adding or removing things.

Build with the intent to iterate.

Over the past year, we made one addition of a sub-bullet about 4 months into adoption. We were having a lively debate about something and it made me realize we were missing a really important element in the ops manifesto - "We relentlessly drive towards single sources of truth."

We relentlessly drive towards single sources of truth.

I am sure there are many iterations of this ops manifesto to come.

When I look at it I notice what is missing.

I feel it is too long.

I wonder if the artefact itself embodies the principles it puts forth.

I wonder if it's good enough to share outside my team.

But, seeing the impact it has made on my team and the way we are able to work in alignment and use shared language, I always think of what Todd Scheidt said when I asked him for his feedback on the ops manifesto: "If it's working well, it seems great to me"

So, 12 months later I am finally ready to share it publicly.

The C6 Operations Manifesto

Impact

I don't say this kind of thing on social media often, but I'm incredibly proud of our operations manifesto because of the impact it has had on my growing team, who operate at the intersection of all things Carbon6, and therefore by extension also the impact it has had on the company.

When Alex Paglia , one of our key stakeholders on the sales side of the business, was about a month into his time at C6, I sent him the ops manifesto. He said to me a few days later, "It's really cool to watch your team in meetings after reading the ops manifesto -- I can now see this is exactly how they are operating, thinking, and communicating."

The ops manifesto might not be "perfect," but it is doing exactly what we wanted it to do when we first put it together. So, in at least one way, it is perfect.

To give you a sense of impact, here are a few screenshots of my team organically talking about the manifesto in action in Slack:

Would love to hear your questions, comments, and feedback into the manifesto.

Do you have any central operating principles like this for your teams?