digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: Build a business playbook (also called an SOP, or standard operating procedure) by starting with a simple program overview for each department, reviewing new or updated procedures in a weekly meeting, making procedures mandatory to have open during work, and organizing everything in a three-tab spreadsheet of procedures, references, and templates. The speaker says this approach keeps documentation current and frees the business from daily firefighting.
Key Points
- Start small: document only the high-level steps, inputs, outputs, and expected results for each department before adding detail, screenshots, or checklists.
- Use a weekly meeting agenda item to review and communicate new or updated playbooks so the team can give feedback and stay aligned.
- Make procedures a must-follow culture rule: if a procedure exists for the work, people must have it open and reference it, so they update it in real time when the software or steps change.
- Avoid scattered folder structures by keeping one central reference sheet that links to documents stored in other tools such as project management software or Dropbox.
- Training can be self-directed: have new hires read all procedures during their first two days, then test their understanding before they start working.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions:
- Step 1: Create a program overview document for every department (sales, marketing, operations, delivery). List the input, output, expected results, and the main things each person monitors, creates, and collaborates on. A useful prompt is to ask, "If I hired someone to do my job for two months, what would they need to know?"
- Step 2: Add a weekly agenda item to review new or updated procedures. The speaker recommends starting with the recruiting process, since predictable hiring and retention is what allows the business to scale.
- Step 3: Set the culture rule that existing procedures must be open and referenced during the work, and update them immediately when steps change.
- Step 4: Build a Google Sheets file with three tabs: Procedures (checklists or how-tos), References (information needed for the work, such as employee contact details), and Templates (such as new-hire emails or termination documents). Templates are linked from the sheet, not stored inside it.
- Step 5: For onboarding, have new hires self-study all documents in their first two days, bring questions to you, then take a test on the content (example question: how much vacation after three years).
- The speaker says he previously used Confluence, then Google Sites, and found that both led to unfinished or outdated documents. He says the spreadsheet structure is what worked for him.
- He says he has scaled remote teams from zero to dozens of employees and helped set up this system for portfolio companies as an investor, as context for his experience.
Bottom Line
A playbook only works when it is kept simple to start, reviewed weekly, and treated as mandatory, so the team actually uses and updates it.
