Key Takeaways: Operations Series #1

[maggiebutler]

Thanks a whole bunch to all of you folks who showed up for our conversation on Wednesday. It was the first of what I hope is many convos about Operations and how we as HubSpot can support you in this area, in any way you need.

You can find the recording here (Password: 8v.5.$34).

This week, the first session was pretty introductory - we first talked about who are the major stakeholders in managing a large Hub. We agreed that generally, the major players are -

• Operations
• MOps, SOps, depending on your Hub
• GTM teams
• VP Marketing / Sales
• Marketing / Sales managers
• Users of the product
• IT

We then talked about the skills needed for managing a large Hub. I think my favorite takeaway was the importance of problem-solving and, as a descriptor, ‘being good at solving puzzles’. It’s 100% true and a really easy way to describe an Ops professional - a professional problem solver.

More specifically, we noted these skills as being important -

• Ability to see big-picture problems
• Organization, project management
• Programming knowledge a bonus
• Detail-oriented
• Influential
• Empathy
• Process-driven

That’s not a be-all-end-all list, of course, but a great start for the guide we’re putting together. By the way, all of our raw notes are here and here if you want to get more detail.

Finally, I think my biggest key takeaway was that there is so much more to talk about (Campaigns? Defining lead stages? Consolidating into one portal guidelines?), and down the road in the series, maybe we can start to thoughtfully create breakouts so folks with like-size companies or company types can congregate together. If you’re interested in that, let me know.

Next on our agenda is business process & business process optimization. We have an expert in CS joining us from HubSpot to share some of his insight with us. But I want to hear from you - what kind of discussion should we have? What should we cover? Does anything resonate for you below? Let us know via a comment, and if you’re not already registered for the session, you can do so here. 

• What business processes matter when managing a large Hub?
• In Marketing Hub? Sales Hub? Service Hub?
• What about all three at once? Which ones are most important?
• How often should companies evaluate their business processes for optimization?
• What are the steps to actually doing this?
• Which processes are important to your business? Which ones are you using well, poorly, and which ones are you missing?
• What is processing mapping - do you need to know it? Why does it matter?
• How do you analyze a business process for improvement? What are the steps?