Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

I posted, early in January, about where our bus is headed (you might refer to this as our Vision).  I have progressively refined this, since then, to improve the clarity of this core message.

For those who are interested, I have also started posting more details about some aspects of this Vision – as falling under any of these core headings.  Posts that have preceded this one are:
1)  I posted about my vision for growing clients (and revenues) 20x.

A key prerequisite for this to happen is that our team of employees also grows (in numbers – but more importantly in competency).

Based on the experience we have gained in the past 10 years, we think that our growth in client numbers can be achieved with an increase in staff numbers of only about 3-4x our current levels.

In “Good to Great”, Jim Collins calls this “getting the right people on the bus” … and then “into the right seats”.

We have some work to do in the next couple of years in this respect, as follows:

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A.     Where we are at now

If I was to follow the EMyth Model of drawing up our organisational/responsibility chart to show how we are currently structured, it would look as follows:

I believe that this type of responsibility chart is probably not much different to that of many other start-up companies – in which the founder(s) assume responsibility for everything and only hand this responsibility onto others:

1)  as they can find the right people through which to grow the team,  and

2)  as cash flow allows.

In our case, we have arrived at this situation with a couple of noteworthy milestones along the way:

1)  Two other partners were involved in starting the business but (because of other interests) have not been actively involved with the company for many years; and

2)  A couple of employees who began with us in the early days (back when their roles would be described as “whatever it takes”) have taken extended leave of absence for backpacking trips, and other adventures:

In order to ensure that the experience of these people was not totally lost to the company (and as an added incentive for them to come back to us when they are sick of the cold winters in the northern hemisphere) we have sold them shares in the company as part of our Employee Share Ownership Scheme.

This has had a positive benefit for the company already – though obviously we’d prefer that these people were working with us full-time instead!

Hence we arrived in mid-2009 at a point similar to that described as adolescence in “Ready, Fire, Aim”. As part of this stage, the book notes that employees start looking for more formality in the form of position descriptions, and the like.

Our current group of employees (who have a maximum of 5 years working experience now, mainly with us) were in this boat.  As such, we completed our autopsy 1, as a result of which our software developers organised themselves into two separate roles:

Role 1 = Code Monkeys (a title they coined themselves)

Role 2 = Product Managers.

Following from this initial restructure, we made some improvements, but it became clear we could not get where we are going on our own.  Hence, we began Autopsy 2 towards the end of 2009.

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B.     Where are we headed

As part of Autopsy 2, we have been busy in thinking through the capabilities/competencies we will require to deliver the growth in client numbers outlined last week.

It is clear that the way we have been working in the past couple of years will not get us where we are going.  Autopsy 1 was helpful, but was not the end of the story (by a long shot).

1)     Role of the CEO

As part of the Autopsy 2 process, we have brought in a couple of different coaches/consultants to help us focus on different aspects of improving the business.

One of the coaches (Shirlaws) has been working with me one-on-one to help me to realise that I had not been doing a great job in some aspects of my role as a CEO.  To those this has affected, I would ask you to accept my apologies.

As a result, these communications about vision are one of my attempts to distil and communicate “where the bus is headed”.

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2)     Initial Changes in 2010

In January, we will be implementing two changes with our current employees that will bring us one more step closer to where we want to be:

1)  We are looking to spin-out Shane Gill into a business that we will set up specifically to assist us in developing our “long-tail” strategy for attraction of clients (see Shane’s teaser).

2)  Kim Lerchbacher will move over to the marketing side to assume responsibility of Manager Marketing Processes, with a specific-focus on the iterative development of systems such as our Marketing Management System (broader than just a CRM) – utilising aspects both off-the-shelf and developed-internally.

We’re taking this approach as it’s aligned with a focus on agility that we are trying to instil throughout the company (i.e. quick response to our needs, and those of our clients, and an iterative, learning-by-doing approach to business/software development).

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Some of the largest improvements we’ll see in 2010 will come from the effects generated when we “get the right people on the bus” in terms of two key people who will constitute (with me) the 3-Person Leadership Team for the company.

Recruit #1  -  Chief Software Engineer

Beginning in a couple weeks, we will start looking for our first key appointment – our General Manager for Discerning, Developing and Delivering what the Customer Wants.

Here’s some notes about the type of person we’re looking for.

We hope to have this person in place before too long – but it is a person who will play a core role in our future success, hence we are investing considerable effort to maximise our changes of finding the right person.

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Recruit #2 – GM Marketing & Sales

Once we have the Chief Software Engineer onboard, we will continue the recruitment process, but with the focus shifted to our marketing & sales function.

Here are some initial thoughts on the responsibilities we will be asking that person to own.

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Post 2010 – Other positions

Once we have these two people onboard, we will take some time to bed down the changes and have them start to deliver some initial benefits (quick wins) for us, and our clients.

Claudio Fernandez-Araoz talks about this as the first of three waves of integration in “Great People Decisions” (p260).

Once these benefits begin to be seen, we’ll resume the recruitment process, to fill in some of the other blanks in the responsibility chart above.

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C.     Can we get there?

As with many aspects of our vision, I understand that this will be a challenge for us.

It won’t be easy (but if it was there would probably be no return in it for us, anyway).  Hence, this is just one more part of our “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” (BHAG).

Stay tuned, on this blog, for future updates to our progress..

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Tags: business growth, Chief Software Engineer, GM Marketing Sales, human resources, management of software company, strategic planning, vision

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 11:50 am and is filed under Human Resources Management, Strategy, Vision. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.