Hi Joe,
I lead a small internal MOPs team of just 2 people at my company.
Recently, the company has been growing rapidly and we’re quickly realizing our MOPs team must also grow to keep up.
The trouble is, we do things a very particular way in our platforms – so getting new members up to speed is going to be difficult.
Any advice on how we can save time while keeping all new team members trained and aligned?
Thanks,
Growing Greg
Hi Greg, thank you for the great question.
“High-quality documentation is an important part of keeping up with rapid growth.”
I’ve seen countless in-house MOPs teams go through this exact journey. High-quality documentation is an important part of keeping up with rapid growth. Your team must prioritize it to ensure it’s consistently maintained.
Here’s why:
1. Good documentation is an essential training resource
When it comes to most small to mid-sized companies, there might only be 1 or 2 employees who are experts in a specific platform like Marketo, Hubspot, or any other MAP.
If this person suddenly leaves the company or gives a standard 2-week resignation notice, there will be a substantial knowledge gap for the person who takes over their position.
This is where good documentation practices will go a long way.
You’ll have the perfect resource for transferring missing knowledge over to other employees, resulting in far less downtime during transitional phases.
And the same can be said when your MOPs team begins to expand as a result of company-wide growth anticipation. Up-to-date, digestible documentation will get new employees trained fast.
2. Documentation creates consistency and enables optimization
As your MOPs team grows, you’ll want to make sure everyone is following the same processes.
This way you can create consistency across your tools. The level of team uniformity you can maintain will have a direct impact on the efficiency and clarity of your platform instance.
For example, if your MAP has 3 or 4 different processes that all achieve the same thing, the entire instance becomes more convoluted and difficult for your team to interpret.
Recording these processes through good documentation practices will create a clear picture of your instance for the entire MOPs team to assess, optimize, and align themselves towards.
3. Standard operating procedures emerge from documentation
Historically, MOPs teams would be highly flexible, fast, and loose.
But over the years, the value and importance of MOPs as a discipline has become increasingly acknowledged and recognized by leadership teams.
And with this recognition comes the need for MOPs to take on more consistency and structure within the organization.
With that said, creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) through good documentation is an effective way to simplify complex processes and promote efficiency. SOPs will also further assist you when it comes to training new employees and reducing confusion.
Documentation responsibility
Be clear about who is responsible for creating documentation
The documentation process itself can be time consuming, which often means it won’t be completed.
With this in mind, it’s important to be specific about who is responsible for creating it and how they will do so.
Some efficient methods for both production and consumption are things like cloning workflows and recording demos – rather than word documents that have lengthy explanations. This is especially useful for “How To” documentation that can be used for internal training.
By turning this process into a regular practice that’s performed on an ongoing basis, you’ll ensure proper documentation is always complete and up-to-date in the event that a key knowledge expert leaves the company.
Get ahead of the problem
Seeing as your MOPs team is currently quite small, it’s best to get ahead of things and start creating good documentation and SOPs as soon as you can.
Doing so will equip you with a clear, birds-eye view of the processes that exist within your MAP instance, so you can eliminate redundancies, create consistency, and train new hires fast when your team starts to grow.
You’ve got this,
Joe
P.S. New hires may find this blog post interesting: How Should I Approach My First Days in Marketing Automation?
