Scaling is the preparation and capacity for your business to meet its growing demands in a cost-effective manner. What good is the growth you’re striving for if you’re not ready and able to handle it?
You risk doing irreparable damage to your product and it’s reputation before it even really had a chance to fly. Many a start-up has been hamstrung from these growing pains but ‘a stitch in time saves nine’, as they say. Good documentation of your product and it’s process can ensure you stay on top every step of the way.
And here’s why…
It Ensures You Are Organised & Efficient
This is the very foundation on which your project is built. A thorough and comprehensively-documented workflow ensures everyone’s responsibilities and expectations are aligned.
As you work through your original plans, through development and all its necessary iterations, ’til it reaches the happy hands of the consumer, and beyond. Everyone knows who is doing what and when.
Which leads me onto…
It Is Systematic and Accountable
It’s your roadmap and your rota.
The process documentation has everyone on the same page regarding the scheduling, the projections, and the reporting as you go along. Everyone knows their respective responsibilities and timescales. Which also makes trouble-shooting any production issues that much easier. You’re not having to reverse-engineer to work out where exactly the problem stemmed from.
There Is Clarity for All Stakeholders
With your proper documentation in place, it’s all there in black-in-white. Agreed upon and signed off. There are no grey areas when it comes to anyone’s remit or jurisdiction; no responsibilities slip through the cracks.
Clarity of who is doing what. Clarity over when it is expected.
Clarity over which changes were made, by who and why.
Clarity over where you have been, where you are going and when.
This leads to clarity not just for the existing stakeholders but also for any prospective investors.
At its core, it allows all parties to feel so much more confident in the whole process.
It Reduces Risks In Your Project
Managing a successful project has many parallels with the demands of managing a successful sports team. Please, bear with me on this one…
Aside from the risk-management, the tactical/logistical choices, the discipline and the teamwork, success can depend on an accumulation of marginal gains. Those are the little details a good manager won’t let pass them by – the little wins all over the pitch that gives the team the best chance of walking off with their hands on the trophy: End of tenuous sports analogy.
There are things that’ll crop up that you couldn’t possibly have prepared for. And they’re not worth losing any sleepover. Put out those fires when they come along. But what you can do is mitigate those known variables. Proper preparation on this front not only gives the project a better chance of succeeding, but it also demonstrates an infrastructure and organisation that makes it an infinitely more investable prospect.
In summary, if you want to scale, you need to be ready. And preparing yourself with correct and sufficient documentation all the way through the process is a key driver. Not only is it quicker and easier to fix the inevitable missteps along the way, but it’s quicker and easier – in due course – to take your project to the next level.
Properly documented coding is much easier to transfer, maintain and scale; and the clarity and efficiency of your processes make the whole project that much more attractive for any outside investor to get you there.
