The 15-Question Diagnostic

These questions reveal structural weaknesses that impact performance. Answer each one with a clear “Yes” or “No” based on how your organization functions today—not how you wish it worked, not how it used to work, and not how it might work later.

Accountability Leaks

• Do key workflows have defined owners who are accountable for outcomes—not just tasks?
• Does your team know the exact process for getting decisions approved quickly?
• Is there a single, authoritative home for current information (no dueling documents)?
• Does every employee know how success is measured in their role?
• Are cross-functional handoffs clean, predictable, and documented?

Capacity Leaks

• Does your organization maintain a limit on active projects (a project cap)?
• Is there a clear intake process for new work to prevent overwhelm and backlog?
• Are deadlines realistic and based on capacity—rather than hope or urgency?
• Can your team absorb growth without burning out?
• Does leadership have visibility into who is at or over capacity?

Revenue Leaks

• Is your customer journey cohesive across marketing, sales, product, and support?
• Are revenue-generating activities documented, measurable, and repeatable?
• Do bottlenecks in operations delay revenue recognition or delivery?
• Are there clear owners for retention, expansion, and customer success?
• Can you step away for 30 days without revenue dropping or systems breaking?

Scoring & Interpretation

Patterns matter more than totals. The distribution of your “No” answers reveals which part of the operation is under strain:

• Mostly accountability leaks: Roles, ownership, and authority are unclear. Decisions stall. Execution slows.
• Mostly capacity leaks: Too many priorities. Too many active projects. Not enough guardrails. Burnout risk is high.
• Mostly revenue leaks: The business may be growing, but without the systems to support that growth. Money is left on the table.

Your Operational Profile

Your answer pattern places your organization into one of three profiles:

• The Overloaded Organization: Work expands beyond capacity. Execution quality varies. Key initiatives stall.
• The Under-Governed Organization: Decisions bottleneck. Teams improvise. Processes drift or duplicate.
• The Fragmented Organization: Systems don’t align. Information lives in silos. Revenue potential is constrained.

The profile is not a judgment—it’s direction. Each one points directly to the first stabilization step in Phase 2.

From Audit to Architecture

The Audit names the chaos. The next phase builds the structure to eliminate it. The Operational Spine provides the architecture your organization needs to create clear ownership, predictable execution, and systems that scale without strain.

Continue to Phase 2 →

Spine 1: Define

Define establishes the single source of truth for your operation. When organizations operate without shared definitions, structure collapses under conflicting interpretations. This phase creates alignment by implementing foundational elements that every team relies on.

• Naming Conventions: Universal labels for projects, assets, roles, and workflows so nothing is ambiguous.
• Operational Taxonomy: A clean, hierarchical structure for how your work is organized and accessed.
• Single Source of Truth (SSOT): One authoritative hub that replaces scattered documents and outdated files.
• Command Center: The primary dashboard where priorities, owners, and deadlines are visible in real time.

When Define is complete, the organization can finally “see itself”—clearly, consistently, and without confusion.

Spine 2: Govern

Govern establishes the rules, decision pathways, and accountability patterns that prevent systems from drifting or collapsing. Without governance, even the best-designed systems degrade over time. Governance ensures that structure is honored, maintained, and improved.

• Decision Rules: Clear criteria for who decides what—and how quickly.
• Workflow Ownership: Defined leaders for every recurring process, removing ambiguity and backlogs.
• Approval Protocols: A streamlined, standardized approach to keep work moving.
• Cross-Functional Alignment: Shared rituals and communication rhythms that eliminate gaps between teams.
• Governance Cadence: Monthly system reviews to ensure consistency as the business evolves.

Governance is not bureaucracy—it is protection. It guards the structure that enables growth.

Spine 3: Scale

Scale determines how the organization grows without compromising quality, speed, or team health. This phase replaces heroics with sustainable mechanics so teams can expand output without exhausting capacity.

• Capacity Model: A clear understanding of how much work the organization can carry at once.
• Project Cap Protocol: Limits that prevent overload, ensuring only the most strategic initiatives remain active.
• The Parking Lot System: A controlled space for ideas, preventing constant scope expansion.
• Scale Rhythms: Defined cycles for planning, stabilization, and expansion.

Scale is not just growth—it is intentional expansion supported by the right mechanics.

From Structure to Sustainability

With the Operational Spine in place, the organization becomes stable and predictable. Phase 3 ensures that this stability is sustainable for the humans who run it. Systems break when people break. The Hard Stop Protocol protects against burnout, overreach, and operational collapse.

Continue to Phase 3 →

The Hard Stop Protocol

Hard Stops are intentional closures—not pauses. A paused project continues to drain mental load, resources, and time. A closed project creates clarity, frees capacity, and preserves the integrity of the system.

• Shut Down the Thread: Archive or close the project formally—no “open loops” left behind.
• Log the Asset: Save templates, drafts, decisions, and deliverables to the SSOT for future use.
• Document the Lesson: Capture a single insight: “What would have made this project successful?”
• Notify Stakeholders: Close the loop with clarity—no vague “we’ll circle back.”

The result is predictable: a dramatic reduction in cognitive load and an immediate increase in productivity.

The Proof Filter

Growth stalls when proof is sought from the wrong audience. The Proof Filter directs attention to those who can correctly evaluate progress:

• The Right Evaluators: Industry peers, economic buyers, and experienced operators.
• The Wrong Evaluators: Family, friends, or people whose expertise sits outside the domain.
• The Filter Question: “Whose opinion would change the quality of my next decision?”

This reframes feedback as fuel, not friction. It refocuses energy away from unqualified evaluators and toward meaningful signals.

The Weekly Rhythm

Capacity is best protected through predictable patterns. A structured week reduces decision fatigue and minimizes context switching—two of the largest contributors to operational breakdown.

• Named Days: Assigning each day a theme (e.g., Money Monday, Delivery Tuesday, Systems Wednesday) anchors workflow.
• Focus Blocks: Dedicated windows for deep work, light work, and admin tasks.
• Cap Protocol: No more than three active strategic projects at any time.
• Reset Ritual: A weekly 20-minute review to re-align priorities with the Operational Spine.

When the weekly rhythm is in place, the entire organization feels calmer, clearer, and more efficient.

From Stability to Scale

With sustainable rhythms and governance in place, the system becomes self-supporting. Phase 3 ensures that growth is not achieved through strain or heroics but through clean mechanics and disciplined capacity management.

Continue to Conclusion →

Next Step: The Operational Audit & Revenue Story

If you’re ready to identify your top bottlenecks and begin the stabilization process, schedule your Operational Audit. This is the entry point into all Executive Operator engagements.