👷🏽 Don't make the same mistake twice

3 min read

Hey friends - this is Tushar from Savvy Operator, home of COOs and BizOps leaders 👋🏽

On the menu today:

• Tushar’s week in the life

• WTF is a project ‘postmortem’

• Why you need to conduct one at the end of every project

• My favorite postmortem framework

Btw, I’m planning a few private curated events for Founders, COOs, and BizOps & Strategy leaders during NY Tech Week in June (June 3 - 9 in NYC). You can sign up for the waitlist to be the first to know before I open them up to the world.

Let’s get it 🕺 

Tushar’s week in the life

Over this past week, yours truly

• connected with 5 startup founders who reached out with interest in working together (I support founders of high-growth startups as a fractional COO/Head of BizOps to help scale their companies)

• spoke with 3 subscribers of this newsletter who reached out about advice regarding interviewing for new BizOps roles and making the jump from a 9-5 job

• jammed to the new Justin Timberlake Tiny Desk concert (certified banger)

• attended a private NYC Founders and Operators dinner with 20 badass founders hosted by Costanoa Ventures 👇🏽

Last week I talked about the concept of ‘premortems’ and my favorite framework to increase the likelihood of success of a new project or product launch (link to the post about premortems here in case you missed it).

But sometimes despite the best premortems, you’re going to run into unforeseen issues.

Botched launches, messy rollouts, missed timelines, team burnout etc.

Say hello to another solid Ops weapon - a postmortem.

WTF is a postmortem

A postmortem is an essential debrief conducted at the end of a project, product launch, or process rollout.

It's a deep dive into the Ws and Ls experienced along the way.

By dissecting both what did and did not unfold as planned, a postmortem provides a structured opportunity for teams to discuss the events and decisions that led to the project's outcome.

Why you need to conduct a postmortem

Conducting a postmortem is crucial for several reasons:

• 🤦🏽 Prevent future facepalms: By examining the root causes of failures or issues, you can identify and mitigate similar challenges in future projects so you don’t make the same mistakes twice

• 💭 Encourage team reflection: These sessions are a safe space for teams to collectively assess their performance, fostering shared understanding and learning

• 🤝🏽 Build a stronger culture: Regular postmortems cultivate a culture of transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement. They shift the focus from individual blame to collective growth

• 🛠️ Enhance problem-solving: Through structured reflection, teams enhance their problem-solving capabilities by developing a more nuanced understanding of project dynamics and decision-making processes

My favorite framework for an effective postmortem

My favorite postmortem framework is called the ‘5 Why’s’.

Developed by Sakichi Toyoda (founder of Toyota 🚗) in the 1930s, this method digs deeper than your average postmortem.

It’s time to bring back your child-like curiosity.

Kick off with the issue at hand. Ask "Why?" and solicit answers from the team.

Rinse and repeat up to five times or until the root cause emerges.

Then, collaboratively design a solution and document the insights gained.

Let’s see it in action with a simple example.

Issue: We ran out of food at the team offsite.

• 1️⃣ Why did we run out of food at the offsite? We underestimated the number of attendees

• 2️⃣ Why did we underestimate attendees? We had last-minute confirmations that increased headcount

• 3️⃣ Why did we get last-minute confirmations? The RSVP deadline was too early, not accommodating typical scheduling habits

• 4️⃣ Why was the RSVP deadline set so early? We believed it would help in finalizing logistics and reduce last-minute stress

• 5️⃣ Why didn't we plan for changes after setting an early RSVP? We didn't think to ask the caterer for a flexible plan that could handle last-minute changes in how many people were coming

Boom.

Root Cause: Lack of foresight in creating a flexible planning process that could adapt to unexpected changes in attendance numbers.

Solution: To prevent a similar issue in the future, we should

• establish a more adaptable approach to event planning. This means negotiating flexibility with caterers and other vendors from the outset to easily adjust for last-minute changes in attendance

• improve the RSVP system to allow for later confirmations once team members travel plans are solidified. This will help ensure a more accurate headcount

Takeaway

Next time a project goes sideways, whip out the ‘5 Whys’. It's like turning on a flashlight in the dark, helping you see exactly what went wrong.

During my time at Noom, bringing team members together to conduct a ‘5 Whys’ after something went wrong helped us all learn from our mistakes and improve our decision making.

I hope this framework is helpful for you and your teams as well.

See you next week!

Tushar
^{Let’s be friends on Linkedin or X / Twitter}

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