Discipline
Critical operations and crisis
Regaining control of an operation that is going down and holding it while it gets fixed properly.
5 services in this discipline
This is yours if
Three signs that this is yours.
- There was a recent incident and its root cause is still open.
- First line resolution has been below the agreed target for months.
- In the last serious incident, the official communication arrived after the rumor.
Use this today, without hiring anyone
Operations counsel
The one page format for bringing a decision. It is the input this engagement runs on, and it works just the same if you use it alone. Six lines, and the discipline of writing them resolves a good part of the decisions on its own.
- What is being decided. In one sentence. If it does not fit, there are several decisions and they have to be separated.
- What options exist. At least two real ones. "Do it or do not do it" is rarely the true pair.
- What is known. The facts, with their source. Kept separate from what is assumed.
- What is still unknown, and whether it can be found out before deciding or not. Many hard decisions are only waiting on a cheap piece of data.
- What is lost by deciding late. It is the line that sets priority and it is written down nowhere.
- Who has to agree. If that person is not in the conversation, the decision will not be executed even once it is made.
Use it for two months and you will find out on your own which of your decisions get resolved internally and which do not.
It comes from Operations counsel. Every service in this discipline brings its own.
The 5 services in this discipline
What exactly happens the day your operation fails, and who answers?
We know that if it goes down, it goes down. No one has wanted to write what happens next.
Where your operation stops, who answers at each point and what evidence you are missing to prove it.
See the situationService operation turnaroundHow do you get an operation that has plateaued moving again?
Everything escalates, nothing gets resolved at the front line and the internal customers have already complained upstairs.
Your first line indicator taken to the agreed target and sustained for two months, with the gap attributed by cause. If it does not move, you do not pay the balance.
See the situationMajor incident commandWho is in command in your organization when something big goes down?
When something big goes down, we find out late and we communicate it worse.
So your leaders know how to command and communicate during a crisis, with a real incident of yours reconstructed in the room.
See the situationOperations counselWho do you consult about the decisions you cannot consult on internally?
The decisions that weigh most, I make without an independent peer in the room.
Independent judgment on a schedule: you bring your decisions and you leave with something written on each one.
See the situationToil reductionHow many hours a month go into work that could simply not exist?
They gave me a productivity target without any extra headcount.
On the data from your own tickets: how many hours go into repetitive work, which ones get eliminated and in what order.
See the situationThe other disciplines
AI strategy
12AI governance and compliance
9Automation and agents
8Data and analytics
5Cybersecurity and resilience
4Mergers, separation and diligence
4Cost of AI and software
5Infrastructure and platform
5Or see it by the cycle: Vanguard, Forge and Taskforce. Or by the question you arrive with, in the seven questions. And if you already know the name, there is the full list.
What is the decision you have in front of you this week?