A rapid but powerful check on how the factors that affect your company's efficiency are running - tools, process, culture etc. Designed for small to mid size tech companies or agencies.

It's fast to complete - takes just a couple of minutes, with just 8 slider questions (plus optional 'notes')
You'll probably spot a few areas to check / improve while you're doing it - use the 'notes' field for that.

You'll get a quick report afterwards with your score and notes, followed later by a more detailed set of recommendations and insights. All information provided will be held in confidence, of course. 

 

How to Score Your Business

Anyone in the company should be able to fill most of this in easily - it's about perspective on what's in place and how things work, rather than looking for the exact stats. It's a deliberately light, non-detailed approach - just read the description and go with your gut. Mostly people score things between 2 and 8 - it'd be unusual to have 0 or 10.

Scoring: 0 if zero of the described points are in place; 10 if everything's working great as described, no improvements you can think of. And leave it as 5 if you think you're about average on all the points; what you have is ok though there's room to improve. 

If you don't know some bits of the answer, assume they're average (5), and mention in the comments so I can adjust the detailed response.

Tools (1 of 8)

Consider how your tools and systems support efficient, effective day-to-day work: eg task/ticket management; project management; holidays; HR; internal comms etc. 

• Do the tools enable people to do their job efficiently - are they thoughtfully chosen and adjusted to your company needs? Or are there tools that people complain about?
• Is there good information and training on the tools - eg ‘our preferred practice’ and ‘how to’ guides are easy to find, especially for newbies?
• Do you have a robust approach to let people try out new tools to improve efficiency while managing these so you don't waste money on unused licences (the right people have access at the right time) - or have a chaos of multiple similar tools (people don't know which to use)

Delivery Process (2 of 8)

Think about how revenue-driving projects or products are delivered

• Do you have well-written, generally followed, and frequently improved, defined processes for delivering projects or products with a good balance of speed and quality/risk/governance, which get input from all users of the process?
• Do your projects tend to run to plan (time/budget), with minimal wasted effort, and good quality levels?
• Are clients/customers and teams and stakeholders (eg security, risk, legal, management - and any other governance/compliance) generally happy with delivery?

Measurement (3 of 8)

The ways you measure progress / success / performance in the company, and use it to drive continuous improvement. If you're not on the leadership team, you mightn't be sure of these - leave it at 50 if you don't know but you think it's probably ok.

• Are the core numbers accessible, reviewed and (if they're off) acted on? Bare minimum are: reports and forecasts for margin, revenue and capacity; client/customer happiness though there should be many more.
• Do you have qualitative and quantitative ways of assessing performance for the company and for departments/teams? Is action taken if these are going wrong?
• Do you check annually (or more often) that as a company, you’re measuring the right things in the right way, keeping the measures aligned with strategy?

Innovation and AI (4 of 8)

Making thoughtful use of modern technologies (AI and beyond)  to improve the company and the product / client offering and your competitiveness.

• Do you have a well-written and well-used approach to AI that enables and encourages people to experiment, and disseminate ideas and new practices?
• Do you have a systematic approach to innovation? EG: encouraging and rewarding people for improving processes/services/product, or for experiments using new technology. You'd also need a way to capture the innovations and their results, with a path to rolling out successful tweaks.
• Is someone responsible for each of:
  • optimising ways of working and tools;
  • driving innovation / improvements;
  • looking at competitors, clients and the wider marketplace for change;
  • ensuring risk exposure from changes is acceptable (eg security, privacy) 
  • measuring impact on customers/revenue? 

Culture (5 of 8)

The "way we do things around here" - is this pretty much where you want it to be and aligned with strategy? Whether that’s risk-averse and systematic, or fast paced and proactive.

• Are the teams broadly happy with the culture and actively participate in helping the company do better - and is this measured somehow?
• Is the culture (value, norms, etc) written down - and lived - and nourished? IE: do people's actions align with the stated values?
• Do people feel safe to open up to management with concerns, disagreements and suggestions, without fear of negative consequences - and knowing their feedback will be considered and acted on?

People (6 of 8)

Think about how people are set up to thrive in the company - and to help the company thrive.

• Do people have clear performance goals and progression / development routes, with regular: performance reviews, education/learning support, 121 manager support; and adequate compensation - leading to reasonably low staff turnover? 
• Any obvious skills gaps around the company, bottlenecks around individuals, or other structural changes urgently needed? (Ignore stuff that's being worked on - eg if hiring for a skill, or structural changes in progress)
• Does the leadership team have the right people in key roles, working well together, and seen well by the company? (CEO; operations; tech; product; people; finance)? 

Communications and Knowledge Management (7 of 8)

How you manage information and communications.

• Is it easy for people to access the information they need and know that it's reliable - whether it’s around process, tools, projects or company performance? 
• Are there good practices for internal communications - eg, regular all-hands meetings; agreed best practice for email/slack comms; ways to gather feedback from the whole company, management 1:1s with staff; knowledge sharing between teams/functions/depts; efficient meeting practices; records of tech decisions/preferences; - etc?
• Is there is a permanent 'one stop shop' information repo that is kept reasonably  up to date - a wiki, intranet or similar. This should cover all key company information - eg structure and people; processes; tools; onboarding info and training for new folks; project/product info etc. 

Growth (8 of 8)

Think about how you get new clients/projects/income streams

• Is there a solid approach to ensuring the company is well viewed by potential clients - reputation; outreach; advertising; thought leadership etc
• Is sales/marketing outreach effort/budget proportional to the level of inbound wins?
• Is client retention and satisfaction at a healthy level (and measured)? Overpromising causes low retention rates.

Job done!

To get an immediate email summarising your results, and a  longer email with recommendations - fill in your details below.

All information is held securely and in full confidence.

Your data is held securely and handled with the professional discretion that has built my reputation over 20+ years of working with tech leaders. Only anonymised data is shared:

• if you're a team member, I'll use your information but criticisms won't be shared in any attributable way inside the company;
• if you're a leader testing this tool, I might share information about aggregated responses, but nothing that can be traced back to your company or your input will be published.

You'll see your quick results on the next page, and a copy of these and your data above will be emailed to you; followed by the more detailed, tailored analysis and related questions / observations. No spam, no newsletters, no hard sales.