What is a Growth Engine?

A “Growth Engine” is our general term for a system within an organization that has been engineered (according to the principles of Growth Engineering) to achieve one or more specific objectives.

And by “system”, we don’t mean just an app or other piece of tech. But rather, a holistic and integrated configuration of elements, tangible and intangible, needed to achieve the objective.

While a Growth Engine will run internally according to the Growth Engineering concepts, it will also interface with the surrounding existing operations.

A business can build multiple Growth Engines in different areas of the organization, and they can be built simultaneously or one at a time.

Ultimately, an initial Growth Engine can be continuously expanded one component at a time until it encompasses the entire organization. Or, several Growth Engines in different locations can be gradually expanded until they merge into one larger Growth Engine.

The ultimate goal of Growth Engineering is for the entire organization to function as a single Growth Engine, running at a consistently high level of performance.

How are Growth Engines built?

Growth Engines are built by following a “recipe” and “blueprint”, which we create with you to achieve your business objective (see how we can work together here). The following briefly describes how recipes and blueprints are developed and implemented to build your Growth Engine.

Conceptual framework

Growth Engineering is an unconventional methodology for designing and operating businesses to achieve exponentially better results. This is achieved by improving the quality of human and operational output (qualitative growth) to drive better business results (quantitative growth).

Growth Engineering achieves exponential results by integratively employing innovative organizational models following guiding concepts while building business soft skill best practices we call disciplines into the workflows that make up your Growth Engine. The guiding principles are the engineering design principles for the Growth Engine. The organizational models are mechanisms that sustain high performance over the long term. And the disciplines provide the competence, or lubrication, required for the Growth Engine to run smoothly. Please note that the disciplines are used to create and maintain the Growth Engine as well as being integral to its operation.

A practical approach

Like any engine, Growth Engines are built from various components. These components consist of both human and non-human elements. Each Growth Engine is uniquely engineered to achieve the stated business objectives. Growth Engines are modular and scalable making them efficient to construct and maintain and easy to adapt to changing needs. Growth Engines interface with the other systems and operations in the organization as needed.

The design of your Growth Engine starts with using a robust procedure to thoroughly define the final business objective you want to achieve. Once your final objective is defined, we collaborate with you to create a recipe to achieve it. This recipe will include everything, operations, procedures, skills, systems, interfaces, connections, etc., necessary to achieve the objective.

The recipe will also include the workflows through which the inputs will flow to be processed into the outputs that drive objective achievement—much as gasoline enters an engine and is burned to produce the power that drives the vehicle. Workflows operate like a Toyota production line with inputs arriving just when needed to be processed by employees having the precise expertise and support needed to produce the required output as specified. Quality control and metrics are built in to ensure subpar output is not passed on to the next process. Evaluation and feedback are given in close to real-time to facilitate continuous improvement.

For complex objectives, workflows are combined into workstreams. The workflows and workstreams are incorporated into the Growth Engine, which is designed according to systems thinking principles to optimize the final objective results. This is possible because Growth Engineering takes a holistic approach to organizational and operational design to optimize synergies and thus results. This includes reducing the management overhead necessary to oversee operations.

Specifying the details

When the recipe is completed, we move to creating the blueprints, i.e. the specifications. This is where we get into the nuts and bolts of the design. Specifications will be created for every element and component of the Growth Engine—whether it be a soft skill requirement, such as problem-solving, a hard skill like statistical analysis, an IT system integration, a process flow, or a single human or non-human action.

When everyone involved is reasonably sure most if not all of the specifications have been properly created, implementation plans including scheduling, project management, change management, and risk management are drafted in preparation for implementation.

Building the Growth Engine

The Growth Engine will be built following the prepared blueprint. We collaborate with your team and any subcontractors to keep the build on track. We’ll monitor the metrics that have been put in place to track progress and flag issues early on. If any issues do occur, we’ll be there to help work through them. We’ll test that the various components and the entire Growth Engine are functioning properly. We’ll make sure your people can operate the Growth Engine before exiting the engagement.

What does a Growth Engine involve?

Many businesses today are not even remotely reaching their potential because they operate under legacy models that are not well-suited for modern business. Many of these models are so ingrained in our psyche that we do not recognize them as the root causes of many organizational problems even though we are painfully aware of the symptoms they cause.

Following are some examples of unsuitable models to give you an idea of what we are talking about.

Academic learning model

With this model, large audiences are given the same large quantities of information with the hope they will retain it for some future use. Most often, there is very little practical training and feedback received during the instruction. The instruction is broad and often includes much history and theory. Very little of this received instruction is retained and applicable when an occasion to use it arises.

When the same instruction model is used within a business, the same low retention and application issues occur, resulting in poor ROI and unachieved business objectives.

Military-style management model

With this model, a very strict chain-of-command hierarchy is established to enforce the execution of orders from the top commanders. The orders must be executed without question. Intelligence is gathered to inform the decision-making of the top commanders, but often the truthfulness of this intelligence is affected by the quality of the top commanders. If the top commanders value validation (yes men) over the cold, hard facts (listening to those on the front), their decisions will be detrimental to the war effort.

We all understand all too well what happens when this management model is used in a business and the top management starts getting the idea the job of the staff is to serve them, do what they say, and not cause any trouble. The office politics heat up, everybody is focused on how to stroke the boss's ego, the workplace becomes toxic, people forget about serving the customers, and a lot of really, really bad business decisions get made. Enough said.

Rather than listing more such legacy models, let’s talk about the innovative models used by Growth Engineering to build Growth Engines.

Innovative Organizational Models

Just-In-Time Performance Support

Just-in-time is the concept of providing what is needed, when it is needed, how it is needed, and in just the amount/intensity needed. When applied to performance support this means moving as much of the training, job aids, references, checklists, guidance, etc., to the moment when the person performs the action. This is done to reduce the burden on the person’s memory and the time it takes them to perform with the required competence. It also facilitates better quality and compliance.

When prerequisite training or practice is required, this is restricted to the minimum necessary for job execution, and refresher support is provided in the workflow.

If a person realizes they need some support when executing an action, the required support materials and connections for human assistance are provided in the workflow for immediate access.

Real-Time Feedback and Evaluations

For various reasons, in most organizations feedback and evaluations are separated by time and distance from the action in question. This limits their effectiveness and precision. Further, the more displaced they are from the action, the more they tend to be subjective and not based on fact or the current reality. Additionally, evaluations and feedback tend not to be evidence-based or standardized resulting in arbitrary and irregular assessments that vary greatly from case to case and among managers. All of which creates doubt regarding their validity and fairness—leading to serious employee dissatisfaction.

To solve these problems, Growth Engineering builds feedback and evaluation into the workflows. The workflows contain checklists, standards, regulated processes, and desired output examples by which both executer and evaluator can objectively evaluate the output and the competency in the disciplines [Disciplines] used to produce that output. A feedback or evaluation workflow is designed for the evaluator and linked to the relevant executor workflow to ensure timely, accurate, and immediately helpful feedback.

Structuring feedback and evaluation in this manner also reduces the oversight burden on evaluators, especially managers. This is because everything they need to conduct the evaluation is readily available and conducting the evaluation is made part of their regular workflow. Further, the workflow includes a means for recording and storing the feedback and evaluations. This archived information is then available to the executer for reference and to the manager for review in preparation for regular performance reviews.

Thus, real-time feedback and evaluation serve two major purposes—to promote continuous improvement and development through coaching-like support and to standardize performance evaluations and ensure their objectivity to keep employees enthusiastically engaged.

Cascading Alignment

“Why are we doing this?” “What’s the reason for this?” “What are we trying to achieve?”

In far too many businesses, these types of questions are a daily occurrence among people lower in the organization chart or on the frontline who are trying to make decisions on how best to move forward. Often, they cannot get a clear answer from their manager because they aren’t sure either. Thus, they are left to their own devices resulting in decisions that are misaligned with top management strategy and policy. This is a huge waste of resources and a cause of lost opportunity. It also causes unnecessary friction between management and the rest of the troops.

For these reasons, there is much talk about the necessity of alignment but how often is it achieved? Alignment is one of the guiding concepts [Guiding Concepts] of Growth Engineering and thus alignment is built into workflows and the Growth Engine using the Cascading Alignment Model.

Briefly described, cascading alignment requires the major decisions, policies, and strategies of top management to be passed down (“cascaded down”) the organization all the way to the frontline. Here, cascading has a deeper meaning than just issuing a general directive and having it repeated down the line. Cascading consists of four major components: 1) Explaining the purpose and rationale (the WHY) of the directive, 2) breaking down execution responsibility by business unit and role as the directive cascades down the organization chart, 3) providing a protocol for cross-functional alignment, and 4) providing a communication feedback channel that allows business units and roles at the lower levels of the organization to request and promptly receive clarity and confirmation when needed.

To facilitate alignment, Growth Engineering builds the alignment cascading mechanisms into the workflows to ensure the people at each level have the information they need to make informed decisions.

Enabling Management/Leadership

The management of most businesses would deny their leadership model is structured after the traditional order-giver/order-taker pattern claiming their people are “empowered.” An objective observation of how “work gets done” in their organizations, however, often reveals a strong order-giver/order-taker dynamic. Further, in many organizations, being elevated to a management role means “Now I’m a boss” for many people who view their role as “serving their boss and being served by their reports.” Their goal becomes “making their boss happy and expecting their reports to make them happy.” Such a dynamic is the inhibitor or destroyer of high-performance organizations.

The enabling management/leadership model used by Growth Engineering turns this dynamic around. Order-givers and order-takers are abolished and replaced by enablers and executers. Executors are those who do the actions necessary to produce the specified output. Enablers are in charge of executers and are tasked with making it easy for the executors to execute. A single person is often both an executer and an enabler. They are an executer for their supervisor while also being an enabler for their reports. Their supervisor, in turn, is their enabler.

In other words, enablers serve the executers by facilitating the execution of their tasks, and executers serve the people downstream, whether that be an internal or external customer, by providing them with timely, high-quality output. Thus, according to Growth Engineering, the president or CEO serves as enabler for the entire company, and the entire company serves as executer for the end user. The value provided by the company to the end user is rewarded with money, which is shared among all the company stakeholders.

This is not some clever wording gimmick like reclassifying waste collectors as sanitation engineers who perform their work the same as always regardless of the name change. Under Growth Engineering, the organization and its operations are designed and set up to facilitate enabling management. This includes incorporating cascading alignment and a unified problem-solving methodology among other required elements to make enabling management possible and practical.

Systems Thinking-Based Objective Achievement

Systems thinking means to view your entire business—the entire value stream, the entire customer journey, the entire business environment—holistically taking into consideration the impact one element has on the others and the final outcome. What happens in most businesses is that actions are not fully coordinated resulting in optimization in one area that causes suboptimal results in other areas.

For example, optimizing the operational cost per unit of a major piece of production equipment by running it at peak operation could actually hurt profits due to producing more product than can be sold, causing raw materials to be processed before necessary, intermediate products taking up more space in the factory, and finished product piling up in warehouses—slowly deteriorating and becoming obsolete. Not to mention Sales offering discounts in an effort to move this overstock. So while somebody somewhere may be getting a slap on the back for reducing the per-unit cost of a certain process, the business as a whole, and the bottom line, are suffering.

Growth Engineering designs Growth Engines to prevent such “localized optimization” by evaluating and balancing the myriad of tradeoffs to achieve the overall optimum result.

Built-In Problem-Solving Culture

According to CEOs, a lack of sufficient problem-solving ability is one of the major weaknesses of many businesspeople. However, few companies have a standardized and objective problem-solving system against which to compare employee performance. Thus, problem-solving skill becomes one of those “You have it or you don’t” or “I know it when I see it” kind of things. This leads entire companies to be poor at problem-solving.

Problem-solving is teachable and can be standardized. Growth Engineering is used to reengineer workflows, departmental operations, and even the entire corporate culture to build robust problem-solving into everything that people do. This is one of the fundamental and more beneficial aspects of Growth Engineering.

Problem-solving is not the same for everyone in the organization, however. For the CEO, it will be highly focused on strategy formulation. For middle managers, it will mainly be used for troubleshooting. Planners and developers will also use it for risk management. People on the frontline might be focused more on problem awareness and reporting than on being the ones tasked with solving the problem. Growth Engineering takes all of this into account to build practical, sustainable, and effective problem-solving systems into daily operations.

Such a built-in problem-solving capability is also key to achieving enabling management/leadership as responsibility for identifying, mitigating, and solving problems is pushed lower down the organization chart and bottom-up reporting and feedback becomes an increasingly valuable asset to top management.

Guiding concepts

These concepts serve as the guiding principles for developing a Growth Engine. The more faithfully they are followed, the more effective and powerful the Growth Engine will be.

The Golden Rule: Treat others how you want to be treated and act in the way that you want others to act.

Don’t Blame; Enable! The Growth Engine is lubricated by trust, transparency, and teamwork. Playing the blame game is like dumping sand into your engine. Blaming people when performance is below expectations is not only lazy, it’s incompetent. But why?

Because poor performance is an organizational problem.

But what about bad actors, you say. Well, if bad actors are infiltrating your business, then the root cause likely lies in the hiring process—an organizational issue. If you are not weeding out the bad actors, that’s an organizational issue too.

What about in other cases of poor performance? The root causes for these are also found somewhere in the organization. Are the wrong people being hired? Is onboarding and training not delivering? Is the organizational structure or culture getting in the way? Are unsuitable people being assigned to new roles or promoted? These are organizational problems. To fix them you must remove the organizational root causes.

Further, fixing organizational problems requires bottom-up cooperation—teamwork. This is only possible if there is top-down trust and transparency. Employees who are afraid of blame or are evaluated against each other will not feel it is safe or beneficial to bring up issues or cooperate in fixing them.

Focusing on building the necessary trust, transparency, and teamwork necessary to identify and fix such organizational issues is a key benefit of Growth Engineering. Another key benefit? Understanding how to enable people rather than blame them will transform the workplace environment into a vibrant engine for growth!

Believe in synergy. 1+1=5. Plus 1 more = 15. That’s the math of synergy. Synergy is the torque generated by the Growth Engine. And this torque grows exponentially as you build out and maintain your Growth Engine.

This is not hype or deception. It’s science. These guiding concepts combined with the Disciplines and Engine Components discussed here allow us to collaborate with you to build immediately effective Growth Engines, no matter how small the start, that with each added element or component produces ever greater synergies and thus exponentially more power.

Growth Engines need to be strategically built and methodically maintained but when humming along they produce fantastic results.

Systems thinking means focusing on the collective optimization of all components to produce the best end result (output) from the system. Individual component optimizations or efficiencies that hurt the output of the larger system are to be avoided.

Alignment means all actions in the organization need to be aligned with the higher-level strategies and policies for the organization to perform at a high level. This means all top-level strategies and policies must be effectively cascaded down through the organization such that each person is always correctly aware of how their role must support those strategies and policies for them to be effective and be able to take action accordingly.

Built-in is a state. It means that the competencies and support needed by people to execute a workflow are built into that workflow. The acquisition of any competency or support that cannot be built into that workflow is made prerequisite to authorization to execute that workflow. The provision of prerequisite competencies or support is done in a way that will provide the necessary competence in a timely manner.

In a timely manner means the individual has had sufficient time and practice to acquire the required level of competency and has been able to begin applying that competency in the corresponding workflow before the effects of passing time have caused that competency to decline below the required level. In other words, people are not up-skilled so early that they lose the skill before they are required to use it.

Mechanisms for maintaining and supporting prerequisite competencies will also be built into that workflow (reference material, pointers, quick reference guides, etc.).

Built-in also means that things such as quality and compliance are built into the workflows in a way that makes following them a routine part of work performance that that not following them will be identified by the checks and balances incorporated into the workflow.

Just-in-time is the concept of providing what is needed, when it is needed, how it is needed, and in just the amount/intensity needed to execute the workflow.

This applies whether what is needed is a part, device, supply, training, feedback, guidance, information, assistance, etc.

Real-time means providing input such as feedback, information, evaluations, metrics, etc., as closely as possible to a related event (need).

This is equivalent to “striking the iron while it’s hot” and means the closer input is to the event/need, the more efficient and effective it is.

Always current means that whenever or wherever a decision, change, modification, or adjustment is made in the organization, that change is promptly propagated throughout the organization to update all relevant materials. Promptly means as close to instantly as is feasible to satisfy the need for immediacy.

In particular, all related workflows will be promptly updated in a manner that will allow the worker to seamlessly handle and incorporate the change.

Top-down enablement is a management concept. It means that rather than managers being order-givers and direct reports being order-takers, direct reports become aligned objective executers and managers become enablers, meaning they enable their direct reports to execute on the objectives.

Top-down enablement goes hand in hand with bottom-up engagement.

To facilitate top-down enablement, as much of the administrative and supervisory workload as possible is redistributed and automated or semi-automated and firefighting is significantly reduced through proper problem-solving methodology to free up managers to focus on high-value enablement of their reports.

Note that almost all employees will wear two hats: for one activity they will be an enabler (supervisor/manager) and for another they will be an executer (a direct report to another person).

Bottom-up engagement is an organizational management concept. It goes hand in hand with top-down enablement. Bottom-up engagement is achieved by implementing proper problem-solving methodology throughout all levels of the organization to shift the responsibility and authority to identify, escalate, and solve (when appropriate) problems to the people who are facing those problems.

There are built-in mechanisms in place to enable workers to efficiently and effectively communicate with their supervisors and other related staff to identify problems and solve them or get the organization to solve them.

Bottom-up engagement is also about making bottom-up continuous improvement and innovation part of the corporate culture. There are built-in mechanisms in place to enable workers to efficiently and effectively communicate their insights and ideas to the organization where they are properly evaluated and acted upon. How those insights and ideas are being handed is made transparent.

Bottom-up engagement means people are fully empowered and expected to participate in improving the workplace and the business in line with top-level strategies and policies with their managers focusing on enabling them to do so.

Growth balance and harmony. Unbeknownst to most organizations, they are engaged in an eternal battle between Sustainers and Innovators.

Innovators are those people who disrupt the here and now to ensure the organization’s viability into the future.

Sustainers are those people who make sure what the innovators have already established continues to run smoothly.

So what’s the problem?

Well, when people lose sight of the big picture, they become myopic.

Sustainers are tasked to dot the i’s and cross the t’s but if they become myopic they will forget why they are dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s in the first place. Dotting and crossing become the goal rather than being a way to achieve the actual objective. Many Sustainers continue to dutifully dot and cross when the objective for doing so has vanished long ago.

When myopic, a Sustainer will view any change to “the way things are done” as a threat. Thus, they tend to view Innovators as disruptive rule-breakers who get their thrills by trashing and destroying a perfectly good status quo. Fraternizing with, let alone cooperating with, such outlaws is out of the question.

The job of Innovators is to constantly look for ways to make things better, of course. But they are also continually prowling for better things to do. Change is their name. Often really big change. To get such changes sustainably implemented, they will work closely with the Sustainers to shake out the kinks and get everything running smoothly again in the new direction.

If Innovators become myopic, however, they’ll act more like a bull in a china shop than trustworthy guides into the future. They’ll become geeks who are drunk on change for change’s sake. Their lust for change will blind them to organizational needs and objectives. Instead of valued partners, they’ll view Sustainers as old-fashioned stick-in-the-muds who just get in the way. They will mock them and scorn them.

Things might not be that bad in your organization but it likely suffers from some of the symptoms. One common problem is putting the wrong type of person into a position. Roles that require innovation will be useless if assigned to a Sustainer. And putting an Innovator in charge of managing routine operations will cause a lot of stress for everybody.

Thus, Growth Engineering focuses on harmonizing and resonating the Yin and Yang between Sustainers and Innovators—making them an awesome partnership that drives synergies and exponential growth.

Continuous improvement is doing things better. Continuous improvement is the act of always looking for and thinking of ways to make incremental improvements. This is done in a systematic and methodical way that is built into operations. It is supported by the problem-solving discipline.

Innovation is doing better things. Innovation is the act of purposefully exploring and discovering significantly new and different ways of doing things to solve difficult problems or unlock new possibilities. This is done in a systematic and methodical way that is built into operations. It is supported by the problem-solving discipline.

Disciplines

Within Growth Engineering, a discipline is the portion of a body of knowledge in a certain skill area that is necessary to make a Growth Engine run smoothly and/or at a higher level. The disciplines are key competencies. The following disciplines are interrelated and mutually supporting such that the more expertise in one discipline that is applied to a Growth Engine, the greater the synergistic results output by that engine. Conventionally, businesses treat these disciplines as discrete skills that they hope are learned and applied by employees in the course of their work. The reality is that when such skills are applied to work, it is most often done haphazardly with inconsistent results. To overcome these shortcomings, Growth Engineering builds the necessary best practices into the workflows with easy access to support materials when review or further guidance is necessary. When acquiring a skill necessitates instruction and practice in advance, this is kept to the minimum amount necessary and is provided through asymmetric means where possible. Further, the time gap between acquiring a skill and applying it to work is minimized to prevent acquisition loss. Brief descriptions of the main disciplines used in Growth Engineering and built into Growth Engines are given below.

Metrics and measurement form the backbone of data-driven decision-making within organizations and thus are critical for Growth Engineering. This discipline involves systematically collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data to quantify performance, track progress, and evaluate the effectiveness of strategies and initiatives. By defining key performance indicators (KPIs) and establishing measurement frameworks, businesses can gain valuable insights into various aspects of their operations. The goal of metrics and measurement is to enable continuous improvement by providing actionable insights that drive informed decision-making and optimize organizational performance.

Data analysis is the process of examining raw data to uncover patterns, insights, and trends that can inform decision-making and drive strategic action. It involves transforming data into meaningful information through various statistical and analytical techniques. By systematically analyzing data sets, businesses can identify correlations, outliers, and relationships, enabling them to understand customer behavior, predict future outcomes, optimize processes, and mitigate risks. Data analysis plays a crucial role in Growth Engineering, helping organizations derive actionable insights from their data assets to achieve their goals, improve performance, and gain a competitive edge in the marketplace.

Problem-solving is the systematic process of identifying, analyzing, and resolving challenges or obstacles that hinder the achievement of desired outcomes. It involves critically assessing a situation, localizing and prioritizing where to search for root causes, identifying the root cause of the problem, generating potential solutions, evaluating alternatives, and implementing the most effective course of action. Effective problem-solving often requires collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking skills to develop innovative solutions that address complex issues. Problem-solving is a critical discipline that supports Growth Engineering and underpins all the other Growth Engineering disciplines.

Critical thinking is the process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information gathered from observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication. It involves questioning assumptions, examining evidence, identifying biases, and considering alternative perspectives to make well-informed decisions and solve complex problems. Critical thinkers are adept at distinguishing between fact and opinion, recognizing logical fallacies, and applying sound reasoning to form judgments and draw conclusions. This discipline is essential for Growth Engineering as it fosters intellectual independence, drives innovation, and enables more effective problem-solving, decision-making, and communication.

Decision-making is the cognitive process of choosing a course of action from multiple alternatives to achieve a specific goal or desired outcome. It involves evaluating available options, assessing risks and uncertainties, considering relevant information and criteria, and weighing potential consequences before making a final choice. Effective decision-making requires critical thinking, analysis, and judgment to navigate complexities, uncertainties, and trade-offs inherent in decision situations. Whether it's selecting the best strategy, allocating resources, resolving conflicts, or addressing organizational challenges, the ability to economically and expeditiously make sound decisions is crucial for Growth Engines to operate at a high level.

Risk management is the systematic process of identifying, assessing, prioritizing, and mitigating potential threats or uncertainties that may impact the achievement of organizational objectives. It involves recognizing and analyzing risks related to various factors such as financial, operational, strategic, regulatory, environmental, and reputational aspects of business operations. The goal of risk management is to minimize the negative impact of adverse events while maximizing opportunities for growth and success. This discipline encompasses activities such as risk identification, risk assessment, risk mitigation, risk monitoring, and risk communication. Risk management is an important part of Growth Engine function since by proactively managing risks, organizations can enhance resilience, protect assets, optimize performance, and make informed decisions to navigate uncertainties and achieve sustainable success.

Strategy formulation is the process of deciding what to do and what not to do using available resources to achieve organizational goals and objectives in a competitive and dynamic environment. It involves analyzing internal and external factors, identifying opportunities and challenges, setting clear objectives, and defining the overall direction and scope of the organization. The outcome of this process is a strategic roadmap that outlines the key initiatives, priorities, resource allocation, and performance metrics to guide decision-making and execution across the organization. Effective strategy formulation enables organizations to build Growth Engines that leverage their strengths, capitalize on opportunities, address weaknesses, and mitigate risks to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

Project management is the systematic approach of planning, organizing, executing, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals within defined constraints of time, budget, scope, and quality. It involves the coordination of various tasks, activities, and stakeholders to deliver a unique product, service, or outcome according to predefined objectives and requirements. Project managers oversee the entire project lifecycle, from initiation and planning to execution, monitoring, and closure, ensuring that project deliverables are completed on time, within budget, and to the expected quality standards. They utilize project management methodologies, tools, and techniques to manage risks, allocate resources, track progress, communicate with stakeholders, and resolve issues throughout the project lifecycle. Effective project management is essential for achieving project success, maximizing efficiency, minimizing costs, and delivering value to stakeholders and is thus a critical part of smooth Growth Engine operation.

Change management is the structured approach of planning, implementing, and managing organizational change to achieve desired outcomes while minimizing resistance and disruptions. It involves understanding the need for change, assessing the impact on people, processes, and systems, and facilitating the transition from the current state to the desired future state. Change management encompasses a range of activities, including identifying stakeholders, communicating the rationale for change, building support and engagement, providing training and support, and monitoring progress. Effective change management is essential for Growth Engineering as it helps organizations adapt to new technologies, processes, structures, methodologies, or strategies, enabling them to stay competitive, improve performance, and achieve their goals. It also promotes a culture of agility, resilience, and continuous improvement, ensuring that changes are implemented smoothly and successfully.

Total Quality Control (TQC) and Lean are management approaches focused on achieving excellence in all aspects of organizational processes, products, and services by focusing on maximizing customer value while minimizing waste. They involve the continuous improvement of quality and reduction of waste through the involvement of all employees and stakeholders, from top management to frontline workers. TQC and Lean emphasize the importance of customer satisfaction, employee empowerment, and data-driven decision-making to identify and eliminate defects, errors, and inefficiencies at every stage of the value chain and thus are essential disciplines for Growth Engineering and improving Growth Engine design.

Expertise capture is the process of identifying, documenting, and transferring knowledge, skills, and techniques from experienced individuals within an organization to others to preserve these valuable intangible assets that may otherwise be lost due to departures, or other reasons, and to make them accessible to a wider audience within the organization.

Expertise capture is an integral part of Growth Engineering as it is used to build your Growth Engine and is also built into the Growth Engine to capture and utilize both legacy and new expertise to improve performance, reduce reliance on individual experts, and build a more resilient and capable workforce.

Components

Action: A general term for any performance executed by a human or non-human mechanism (this includes all processes, workstreams, operation sets, and their constituent components).

Module: A discrete functional unit that receives inputs to be processed using a collection of actions to produce a specific output. Modules have connections as needed for linking with interactions, integrations, and other modules. Modules can be created from templates or produced bespoke. Modules are used to facilitate quicker Growth Engine construction.

Interaction: An input/output exchange between actions, between modules, and between actions and modules.

Integration: An automated interface for data exchange between different software applications allowing output from one application to be automatically used by another application.

Scheduling: This is the action that incorporates time into the Growth Engine. It is used to set the pace of actions and plan their execution, intervals, etc.

Tangible system: A physical system constructed of tangible components, such as a computer system. Such systems most often have intangible guidelines and operational concepts.

Intangible system: A conceptual system consisting of intangible components, such as a problem-solving system. Such systems most often have tangible tools and job aids.

Journey: A grouping of related workflows, operation sets, and processes designed to achieve high-level strategic or governance objectives. Examples are the customer journey and the employee journey.

Process: A specific sequence of steps that may consist of human or non-human actions or both with a specific outcome. (This may involve one or more workflows, operations, etc.)

Recipe: A recipe is a formula for creating a Growth Engine function to achieve a specific business objective. A recipe consists of a combination of modules, interactions, integrations, systems support, workflows, disciplines support, etc., applied in a systematic way to achieve the desired result.

Growth Engineers collaborate with clients to create bespoke recipes and then follow these recipes to create the blueprints that are followed when building out the company’s Growth Engine.

For example, if a client wants to improve the quality of hires for a specific role, a bespoke recipe for doing so for that role will be developed. This recipe will be created following the systems thinking concept and include all of the elements and factors, as well as how they should be implemented, that are necessary to achieve the set objective in an effective, sustainable way.

Culture: Building a great culture is the ultimate output of a full-fledged Growth Engine.

Culture is “who” a business is. Culture is how a business believes, behaves, and reacts. It’s not the lip service, the PR, the spin. It’s what is thought, said, and done behind closed doors, in private gatherings, and when others are not looking.

A great culture is consciously designed, built, and sustained. It requires constant watering, fertilizing—and weed pulling. It must be fed with nutritious principles and best practices. It requires real-time monitoring, short-term improvement sprints, and long-term vision.

A great culture trumps all—it’s better than any one individual and will outlive all individuals.

A great culture is like a great civilization—it’s the ultimate competitive advantage.

Non-Human Actions

Operand: An action performed by a non-human mechanism that is part of an operation.

Routine: A series of operands performed by a non-human mechanism.

Operation: A specific sequence of steps consisting of operands, routines, etc., with a specific outcome taken by a non-human mechanism. (This may be all or part of a process.)

Operation Set: A grouping of related operations that collectively produce a specific outcome. (This may be all or part of a process.)

Human Actions

Task: An action performed by a human that is part of a procedure.

Procedure: A series of tasks performed by a human that is all or part of a workflow.

Workflow: A specific sequence of steps consisting of tasks, procedures, etc., with a specific outcome followed by an individual. (This may be all or part of a process.)

Workstream: A grouping of related workflows that collectively produce a specific outcome. (This may be all or part of a process.)