THE REAL ORDER OF OPERATIONS
People first. Tools last.
My husband is a total math nerd—and, by extension, so is my daughter. Yesterday, the two of them were having a casual conversation about algebra (as one does when you’re nearly eleven and about to start sixth grade), and they got into the order of operations. You know the one: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.
It made me think about my own work—operations work—and how there’s a real order of operations here, too. And no, it doesn’t start with a shiny new tool or the latest system you heard about on a podcast.
It starts with people.
Sorry folks, but if you actually want to be good at operations, you need to be good with people. Not just building systems. Not just documenting processes. But building relationships, defining roles, and creating alignment that lasts longer than your next sprint cycle.
If your operations feel messy—things falling through the cracks, repeated conversations that don’t lead anywhere, or a creeping sense that no one really knows what’s going on—it’s easy to assume the problem is a tool problem. Maybe you’re thinking, “If we just had a better system, this wouldn’t be happening.” So you start researching platforms, comparing features, maybe even spinning up a Notion workspace or testing out a new project management app. It feels productive. It feels like leadership.
But more often than not, it’s a distraction.
Most of the dysfunction I see inside small teams has nothing to do with software. It comes from misalignment. People aren’t clear on what they’re responsible for. They don’t know what “done” looks like. They don’t feel confident making decisions, or they don’t feel safe admitting when they’re stuck. And no tech tool—not Airtable, not ClickUp, not a beautifully colour-coded spreadsheet—is going to solve that.
Because that’s not a system issue. That’s a leadership issue.
We think tools will save us because tools feel like action. They let us bypass the hard stuff—the messy, human conversations that real alignment requires. But if your team doesn’t feel supported or clear, no platform in the world is going to create trust or accountability for you. That part has to be built, not bought.
When I come into a new organization as a fractional COO, I don’t start by upskilling or choosing software. I start by finding the friction. Where does work feel heavier than it should? Where does the quality of the output not match the effort of the input? Where is clarity missing?
Then I ask: Do people know what they own? Is there a process they can follow? Do they have the tools, training, and context to succeed? That’s the foundation. If it’s not there, no amount of automation will help.
When I ran operations at RecipeKick, I managed a content team of 14 super part-time contractors spread across nine time zones. Our mission? Teach people how to cook without recipes—live, on camera, every single day.
The team included a script writer, a remote live producer, a post-production video editor, several amazing chefs and home cooks, a marketing lead and copywriter, an operations manager, and me. With everyone working just a few hours a week, I had to find a way to keep things moving without introducing yet another system no one would realistically use. I briefly considered Asana but quickly realized: no contractor contributing five hours a month is going to learn a new task management tool for a gig that’s not their primary job.
So we used Google Sheets.
First, every person was crystal clear on their role. Their contracts spelled out exactly what they were responsible for—where to be and when, what they needed to contribute, and what exceptional looked like. Because that was the standard: exceptional, every time. No guesswork, no grey area.
Content was planned at least six weeks in advance. Each live production had a dedicated row in our tracking sheet, which linked to a Google Doc containing that day’s script, links to additional resources and information plus shooting notes for the remote producer. The chef would use it to guide their live performance. The remote producer would pull from it to shape the structure of the show. The ops manager on the live chat would use it to answer questions. Everyone knew where to look and what to do.
After each live shoot wrapped, the post-production editor stepped in to cut down the footage to its best moments. Then the copywriter wrote the video description. Then the ops manager added it to our content catalogue. It was a tight, clean relay. No drama. No dropped balls.
And we did that every single day.
Would I have loved to put all of this into Asana? Abso-freaking-lutely. I love a well-tagged task board as much as the next ops nerd. But with a team of super part-time folks, most using their personal emails and working on a variety of gigs, Google Sheets and Google Docs gave us something far more valuable than features: accessibility. They were already familiar with the tools. They were getting automatic notifications. There was zero tool training, zero friction—because when your team is that part-time, you literally don’t have time for a learning curve.
What made the system work wasn’t the software. It was the clarity. Everyone knew exactly what they were responsible for, what “good” looked like, and how their piece of the puzzle contributed to the whole. That alignment—not the tech—is what powered our ability to deliver, every single day.
ACTUAL CLARITY
Clarity gets talked about a lot in operations—but often in vague, conceptual ways. So let me be specific: when I say clarity, I mean three things—role clarity, process clarity, and communication clarity.
Role clarity doesn’t mean boxing people in—it means setting them up to win.
But I’ve noticed something: a lot of founders resist this part. They worry that if they write a job description or an SOP, it limits flexibility. That they’ll lose the ability to toss “just one more thing” on someone’s plate when it feels urgent. I get it—most small businesses are chronically understaffed, and everyone is already doing too much. There’s this fear that if you define a role too clearly, you lose the wiggle room you’ve been surviving on.
But here’s the truth: that wiggle room is actually where burnout, confusion, and subpar performance live.
When everyone is kind of responsible for everything, no one is truly responsible for anything. People are working hard but not moving the needle. The effort is there, but the results don’t match—and that disconnect erodes morale over time.
Let’s take marketing. You hire a marketing coordinator and expect them to run the content calendar, write all the copy, handle email marketing, manage four social platforms, analyze metrics, and maybe redesign your sales page while they’re at it. Then you wonder why none of it is particularly strong. I was being clear, you say. I told them all the things I needed!
But clarity isn’t about listing a dozen tasks and hoping someone can juggle them all. It’s about focus. It’s about creating the conditions for excellence, not just coverage. Role clarity works when expectations are realistic—and when the role is designed for depth, not desperation.
If you want great outcomes, your people need space to do great work. Not more work. Better work.
Process clarity means there’s a clear path to get from A to Z—and it’s documented somewhere accessible. Not just in someone’s head. Not buried in an old Slack thread. Whether it’s an SOP, a Loom, a checklist, or a shared doc, the process is visible, repeatable, and understandable even to someone brand new.
Communication clarity means people know how to ask for help, where to check status, and who to go to when something breaks. It’s not just about tools—it’s about norms. Do we ping in Slack or send an email? Do we leave comments in the doc or tag someone in Asana? Are deadlines flexible or sacred? This kind of meta-clarity is what keeps teams sane.
When these three types of clarity are in place, teams move faster and feel better doing it. Morale improves. Accountability strengthens. You spend less time managing people and more time trusting them to deliver. That’s the real payoff of clarity—not just efficiency, but ease.
So the next time you catch yourself deep in comparison spreadsheets for project management tools, pause. Ask yourself: Am I trying to solve a people problem with a platform? Because if your team isn’t clear on who owns what, if they don’t know what good looks like, if they’re still guessing how to get from A to Z—no tool is going to fix that. Not long-term.
Tools are only ever as effective as the clarity and trust you build before you turn them on. And clarity isn’t complicated. It’s communication. It’s thoughtful documentation. It’s contracts that spell things out and systems that make sense to the people actually using them. It’s showing—not assuming—what excellence looks like, and making sure everyone has what they need to get there.
This is the work. People first, then process, then tools. In that order, every time.
THE REAL ORDER OF OPS SEQUENCE
Here’s the sequence I return to in every single organization I work with. Most teams try to start at the end—but it never sticks unless you start at the beginning.
CLARITY
Start with role ownership and expectations. What’s this person actually on the hook for? What does success look like? Do they have an up-to-date job description or scope of work? Is there an internal comms SOP? Do folks know where to go for more information?PROCESS
Document how the work flows from start to finish. Make it plain. Make it findable. Think “so obvious it’s almost boring”—that’s what you want. Are all the orgs core processes documented? If not, pick the highest impact ones (I can almost guarantee internal comms is on the list) and start there.TRAINING
Walk the team through it. Show them what good looks like. Call out common pitfalls. Give them the tools and confidence to run with it. Make sure the training is easily accessible for recall. Record a Loom, pin it to the top of the corresponding Slack channel. Create a “resources” folder in your Google Drive or knowledge database.TOOLS
Then—and only then—pick the platform that supports your system. Not the other way around. The tool should match your clarity, not compensate for its absence.
This order matters. Because when you get it wrong, you end up with a beautiful system that no one uses—or worse, a busy team still stuck in the same old dysfunction, just in a prettier interface.
WTF IS MY TEAM DOING ALL DAY?
Got a Q? Message me on LinkedIn.
Dear MA,
My team seems really busy, but nothing’s actually getting done. Are they jerking me around—or what’s going on?
Signed,
A founder on the brink
Dear on the brink,
I doubt they’re jerking you around. But they might be drowning—quietly.
What you’re seeing is a symptom of overloaded priorities and invisible progress.
When everyone’s working on too many things, nothing gets finished. You get a lot of half-built bridges and no way across the river. The to-do list becomes a graveyard of “started-but-stalled.”
Here’s what’s likely happening:
There’s no shared prioritisation—so everything feels urgent.
People are context-switching all day, which destroys momentum.
You haven’t made space for finishing, only starting.
It’s not laziness—it’s a leadership opportunity.
What to do:
Cut the noise. Identify the three things that need to ship this week.
Push the rest to a clear “Later” list. Not abandoned—just not now.
Use short check-ins to unblock, not hover.
Progress isn’t about hustle. It’s about clarity. Your team wants to win—they just need to know what the game is.
💛 MA
