Should I adopt a Work Operating System such as Monday.com?

by Scaling Up Coach, Andy Clayton

Introduction

Use of software in general has grown enormously during the pandemic, including the category ‘task management software’. Platforms like monday.com, Asana, and Click-up seem to have adverts everywhere highlighting their benefits for organising teams and improving coordination and productivity. So:

·      What do they actually do?

·      Which is the best?

·      How to make best use of them?

·      Are they worth it?

Pretty spreadsheets

This category of software is called ‘Work Operating Sytems’ (WOS), and at heart their functionality is easy to use, collaborative spreadsheets that allow teams to manage workflows, processes, and projects. Here is an example of a recent, live project in our team (I share this one because, a) It’s successfully completed, and b) I was leading it.:

 There’s more to it than that, of course. You can assign actions to people, create automations to create automated workflows, and manipulate data and make charts like you would on a spreadsheet. There are also many ways to view information, such as on dashboards, maps, or a ‘timeline’ view, like below:

For example, one common use is to have Boards to manage all the live projects in an organisation. Here is a template example:

Which is the best one?

We spent months last year researching the best of these platforms, and found that the functionality of the platforms is all very similar. We work with many high-growth companies, and have learned what actually makes a difference in successful use of this kind of software is ease of adoption by team members. If it isn’t immediately obvious how to use within a few minutes, people soon get frustrated, and that friction makes all the difference on whether the platform gets used or not.

 By this measure, the best of the pack for us was clearly monday.com. It has a very clean, intuitive feel, and the interface is immediately obvious how to use. Even my teenage children picked it up immediately (though maybe my elderly mother would have been a better test case).

 Since then, we have been implementing it with all our clients, and the result has surprised us. What we’ve observed is that we introduce the platform for managing key change projects to deliver company strategy, and then managers in the business take a liking to it, and start using it for day to day operations. Time again, we see the same pattern play out, to the point where many of these companies really are running on the platform.

How do you use it to maximum effect?

It’s very easy to watch a video ad for these platforms, and think ‘Wow – wouldn’t it be great if my company worked like that?’. It’s beguiling, more like playing a computer game than actually running a company. It’s easy to then invest in the system, but not actually see any benefits.

The reason for this is that it is only half of the solution. When I was running my first company in China 10 years ago, I was struggling along like so many entrepreneurs, until I joined The Entrepreneurs Organisation, and came across Verne Harnish’s book Scaling Up (strictly speaking, the predecessor book ‘Mastering The Rockefeller Habits’).

 I have since learned that Scaling Up is an example of a ‘Business Operating System’ (BOS) i.e. a manual for how to set the strategy & direction of a company, the rhythms and habits for delivering that strategy, and the tools and best practice of general management (e.g. allocating accountability, or setting KPI’s and dashboards).

 I put all the tools and habits into practice in my company, with great effects, and was able to sell that company after several years of strong growth. Since then, I have been working with other entrepreneurial companies to put these tools in place with them, with similarly great outcomes.

There are other BOS’s, such as the Entrepreneurial Operating System by Gino Wickman, or Metronome, by Shannon Susko. Communities such as Action Coach, Vistage, and Shirlaws all bring their own approaches and processes on how to run a company.

Guidance #1

So, the first thing to understand is that it’s only worth investing in a work operating system like monday.com if you actually have a good set of habits and disciplines in the business, such as:

-       Planning out projects

-       Action items / minutes from meetings

-       Repeated processes and operations

You need a good BOS in order to merit the investment in a WOS (I hope you’re following the acronyms). So it’s wise to buy the book, join a community, or hire a coach before adopting the software.

Guidance #2

Many of the business operating systems have software packages associated with them, such as the examples below. They are specifically built around the BOS, and their core functionality is task & project management, and KPI dashboards. You may want to explore these options as you adopt your BOS.

What’s the Payoff?

I was in a planning session with the CEO of one of our larger customers (no names named) recently. Each of the teams came to present their key projects for the Quarter, and the same phrase came up again and again ‘We built a Monday board for that..’.

He’s the kind of CEO who’s more interested in whether a solution works rather than all the details of how it works. Time and again, he asked the teams ‘Is this delivering bottom line benefits to your business unit’, and each time the answer came back unequivocally, ‘Yes’. For example, one team had used it to understand all the projects they were working on, therefore where they’re actually spending their time. In just one quarter they had transformed from being the “problem child department”, to being a core and valued part of the business again.

Bottom line - it wasn’t just because of the tool, it was the combination of the tool and the right habits and disciplines that made all the change. And it can do the same for you.

Learn more about Coach Andy Clayton by clicking here.