Operating model

An operating model is the way a company runs. It describes how you set and make priorities visible, how roles and responsibilities are defined, what rhythm you keep, and how decisions get made without everything running through the founder.

In small companies the operating model is implicit: it lives in the founder's head and in the habits of a small team. That works fine up to a certain size. As you grow it has to become explicit, otherwise the founder becomes the bottleneck and decisions get stuck.

Here lies a common misconception. Companies think that buying software is the same as getting an operating model. It is not. A tool is an empty vessel; you already need to have your own way of working. A generic canvas still asks you to build the model yourself, and a rigid method lays a foreign model over your company. What you need is an operating model that is explicit and visible.

Read more in Software doesn't solve your operating model.