Chapter 7 — Processes
Establishing continuity
Once the Growth Lab Team has run a Roadmap task through Research → Prototype → Implement, the resulting new way-of-working has to be made permanent. That is the Process segment's job: convert good behaviour into "the way we do things around here."
"The Roadmap is the scaffolding for future growth."
How Process tasks differ
Process tasks are not discretionary. Once a process is implemented, it is hard to improve or replace. Felix's advice:
- Spend more on Research for Process tasks than for any other segment.
- Be willing to extend Prototype across more than one quarter to be sure the design works before company-wide rollout.
- Hand off ownership to the head of the department that will use it (head of sales, HR director, head of IT). The GLT designs the process; the operating team owns and improves it.
UxR — Utilisation × Recovery = Efficiency
Felix's three-part formula for agency efficiency:
Utilisation × Recovery = Efficiency
- Utilisation = the proportion of available billable hours actually worked on projects, products or services. Requires timesheets per person per project.
- Recovery = the proportion of those worked hours that are actually billed to the client (vs. written off as scope creep, internal time, or unbilled out-of-scope work). Requires accurate billing data.
- Efficiency is the product. A 75% utilised team that recovers 80% of its time runs at 60% efficiency; the lever you can move depends on which factor is the weak one.
Without timesheets you cannot gauge utilisation. A "implement timesheets" project is therefore often the earliest Process task on the Roadmap, because almost every other Process measurement depends on it.
The weighted pipeline (Process side)
Implementing a weighted pipeline is a Process task. It requires defined stages, defined weightings, a CRM, and a reporting cadence. See Chapter 5 for the strategic use of the pipeline.
The risk register
"A risk register is an often overlooked but incredibly useful tool. In essence it's a prophylactic against small things that could have big, potentially disastrous consequences."
A formative story: one of Felix's companies won a contract from one of the UK's biggest retailers. They signed the contract without question. Compiling the first risk register, they discovered they were already in breach of contract — the contract required £1 million of professional indemnity insurance, and the company carried a tenth of that.
Other examples Felix lists: terrorism affecting London transport, an epidemic keeping staff at home (the book was written in 2020), data breach exposure, key-person dependency.
The risk register is a Process task: a standing list of identified risks, each with an owner, a likelihood, an impact, and a mitigation. Reviewed quarterly by the GLT.
Other Process tasks the chapter touches
HR: hiring pipeline, interview process, reference checks, onboarding, scorecards, continuous development. Customer Satisfaction Surveys. Employee engagement. KPI dashboards (with Financials). Hiring CRM. A monthly designers-who-code coffee morning is mentioned as a concrete example of a small, useful Process task.