Irish 35-strong Software Company's Growth Challenge
Had to address team leads' inability to address performance issues, before increasing headcount to absorb 585% revenue growth
Case study - intuition limit growth stage
MD Knew Current Team Lead Couldn't Absorb Headcount Growth
Have you:
- Recently grown revenue & headcount yet struggle with delivery or quality?
- Team Leads/Managers who avoid difficult conversations?
- Great ideas but continuously fail to embed them into BAU?
Building upon several years of high growth & a revenue-growth strategy, MD recognised that business needed to substantially increase in headcount. However, he knew their current structure & capabilities wouldn't support such increase & maintain their high reputation for quality.
Working with the MD & CTO of a Dublin-based 35-person software company with ambitions to break into America, I facilitated a ½ scoping workshop, to determine what the real issues were. We concluded that:
- Good at designing processes but not embedding into BAU
- Some team leads couldn’t, or wouldn’t, deal with poor performance.
- Introducing a manager level would cause more friction but needed, to deal with increased volumes of work & people.
- Very clear strategy but disconnect in knowing how to deliver it.
- MD managing 2 teams & needed to develop people to step up, to free him up to focus on sales.
The underlying issue wasn’t strategy. Management capability hadn’t kept pace with growth. Lower-value tasks were drifting up to higher-paid employees to complete. Piling on additional projects would erode margin.
Our solution included:
- Building Role Dimensions™ framework, articulating purpose & expectations for each dept, from entry-level to MD
- Communicating what was expected of each of employee & linking to performance management & development
- Coaching MD clarify thoughts & consider options
- 3 key skills/mindset training sessions for team leads & managers
- Redesigning & embedding 3 core processes into BAU
- Converting strategic business goals into tangible functional & individual SMART goals, to achieve strategy
Case Study Outcomes
- Poor performers chose to leave business. MD freed up to promote successors
- Newly promoted team leaders stepped into management role more effectively
- Role Dimensions™ framework enabled business to on-board new staff more effectively
- Teams aligned & focused on delivering business goals
- MD promoted senior account manager to manage team, allowing him to focus on sales
- Company grew 585% over 5 years & acquired
If you’re managing a company between 30 – 70 employees & seeing similar issues, there are usually 2-3 key issues causing them.
We can quickly show you what they are & how they can be addressed.
Otherwise, increasing headcount costs with falling quality may result in loss of clients & financial strain.