Topic Cluster

Operations

'Operations’ is a shorthand for ‘factors involved in effective operations’, which is one of the three legs of triad mental model of business expertise. If you don’t know what that is, read this page first.

Operations is a broad topic. Good businesspeople tend to have a firm grasp of the operational details of their firm, though the forms of this grasp can vary widely. This is probably obvious to you: there are many aspects of operational excellence, and the details are often specific to an industry or company. Commoncog’s approach here is eclectic: we sample from a wide range of ideas, with the caveat that our treatment should be differentiated or useful.

Series and Guides

The two big Commoncog publications under this topic are:

  • Becoming Data Driven in Business — a series looking into the ideas and methods of Statistical Process Control, which provide a foundation for a highly effective approach to data in business.
  • The Starter Manager Guide — a free, short guide for novice managers, designed to get you up to speed within six to eight months.

Notable Articles

Some notable Commoncog pieces in the Operations topic cluster:

Focus

Focus in business means a particular, slightly odd thing: you can ignore everything apart from the highest priority thing and still turn out ok.

Org Design

Many people talk about org design as a discipline (or use it as management consulting synonym for ‘restructuring’), but few attempt to talk about the expertise of org design.

Cash Strapped Hiring

How do you hire when you don’t have money?

  • What Good, Cash-Strapped Hiring Looks Like — All cash strapped operators who take their hiring seriously eventually converge on an identical process.
  • Inverting the Cash Strapped Hiring Process —  If every competent bootstrapped or cash-strapped operator develops something that looks like the ’generalise cash strapped hiring process’, you can invert it to identify companies that aren’t that competent at hiring.

Taste in Product Development

What is product taste and what does it look like?

Misc

A grab bag of other articles:

'Operations’ is a shorthand for ‘factors involved in effective operations’, which is one of the three legs of triad mental model of business expertise. If you don’t know what that is, read this page first.

Operations is a broad topic. Good businesspeople tend to have a firm grasp of the operational details of their firm, though the forms of this grasp can vary widely. This is probably obvious to you: there are many aspects of operational excellence, and the details are often specific to an industry or company. Commoncog’s approach here is eclectic: we sample from a wide range of ideas, with the caveat that our treatment should be differentiated or useful.

Series and Guides

The two big Commoncog publications under this topic are:

  • Becoming Data Driven in Business — a series looking into the ideas and methods of Statistical Process Control, which provide a foundation for a highly effective approach to data in business.
  • The Starter Manager Guide — a free, short guide for novice managers, designed to get you up to speed within six to eight months.

Notable Articles

Some notable Commoncog pieces in the Operations topic cluster:

Focus

Focus in business means a particular, slightly odd thing:

This topic overview was last updated .

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Articles //  Page 2

Feature image for Running a Fine Dining Restaurant in a Recession

Running a Fine Dining Restaurant in a Recession

How Eleven Madison Park survived the 2008 Global Recession ... and what this tells us about operating through the capital cycle.

Feature image for A Big Part of Being Data Driven is Will Not Skill

A Big Part of Being Data Driven is Will Not Skill

What it's like being data driven in the restaurant business ... and what it tells us about becoming data driven in business more broadly.

 Members only
Feature image for The Amazon Weekly Business Review (WBR)

The Amazon Weekly Business Review (WBR)

The authoritative guide on how Amazon does WBRs (from former exec Colin Bryar): how it works, how to do it, and how Amazon uses it to win.

Feature image for The Limits of Operational Excellence

The Limits of Operational Excellence

An answer to a puzzle: why is that some businesses go down the Deming path, become data driven, achieve operational excellence, and die, and others acquire Process Power and win?

 Members only
Feature image for The Secret at the Heart of Continuous Improvement

The Secret at the Heart of Continuous Improvement

Continuous Improvement sounds simple, even obvious. And yet there's a profound secret at its heart that doesn't seem to get talked about.

Feature image for Making Sense of Deming

Making Sense of Deming

A comprehensive summary of W. Edwards Deming's ideas, whose System of Profound Knowledge is one of the most powerful things you'll find on the Operations side of the business expertise triad. Read this, so you don't have to read multiple books to apply his ideas.

 Members only
Feature image for Becoming Data Driven, From First Principles

Becoming Data Driven, From First Principles

People often say things like "become data driven" without explaining what that means or how to do it. This is everything you need to know to actually become data driven, from scratch, using the same first principles that Amazon, Koch, and Toyota used back in their day.

Feature image for Data and the Capital Cycle: How Koch Became an Empire

Data and the Capital Cycle: How Koch Became an Empire

How Koch Industries became an empire. We draw on ideas from both the Becoming Data Driven series and the Capital Expertise series.

 Members only
Feature image for Colin Bryar on the practice of Amazon's Weekly Business Review

Colin Bryar on the practice of Amazon's Weekly Business Review

Cedric talks to Colin Bryar, early Amazon executive and former shadow to Jeff Bezos, on one of Amazon's secret operational weapons: the Weekly Business Review.

Feature image for Two Types of Data Analysis

Two Types of Data Analysis

Broadly speaking, there are two approaches to data analysis in business. The two approaches have different worldviews, and express different tradeoffs. Here's why that matters.