Operations Playbook Development

1. Playbook purpose and structure

Before we write a single page, we clarify:

• Who the playbook is for – founder, core team, VAs, contractors, future hires.
• What it should help them do – onboard, make decisions, handle common situations, maintain quality.
• How detailed it should be – enough to guide, not enough to suffocate.

We then design a high-level structure – the "table of contents" for how your business runs. Typical top-level sections might include:

• Foundations & Principles – what this business exists to do, who it serves, and how it thinks about work.
• Operating Rhythm & Focus – how weeks, months and quarters are structured; key rituals and check-ins.
• Services & Offers – the core offers, who they're for, how they are positioned and delivered.
• Client Journey & Experience – how clients move from first contact to offboarding.
• Delivery & Quality Standards – what "good work" looks like in practice, and how it is achieved.
• Roles & Responsibilities – who does what today, and how that may evolve.
• Systems & Tools – what you use, what each tool is for, and basic usage patterns.
• SOP & Knowledge Library Index – how more detailed process documents plug into the playbook.

The point is not to list everything. It's to define a backbone that can hold the most important knowledge in one place.

2. Core content and key sections

Once the structure is set, we start filling in the pieces that matter most. The exact content depends on what you already have and where you're going, but typical sections include:

a) Foundations & principles

We capture the essentials that inform every operational decision:

• The purpose of the business in plain language
• The kinds of clients or situations you say yes or no to
• A handful of operating principles – e.g. "low drama, high clarity", "no silent clients", "we protect deep work time" – written for reality, not slogans
• A short statement on what you don't do operationally (e.g. no emergency response, no unmanaged device fixes, no unbounded scope)

This isn't brand fluff; it's decision guidance for everyday trade-offs.

b) Operating rhythm & planning

We embed the rhythm you've designed:

• How weeks are structured – planning, delivery, review, admin.
• Key recurring rituals – weekly review, pipeline check, active client review, financial check-in.
• How goals and priorities are set and revisited (monthly, quarterly, yearly).
• What gets written down after each cycle – e.g. decisions, learnings, changes.

This section makes your invisible operating habits explicit, so others can join and maintain them.

c) Services & offers overview

We summarise:

• Each core service or programme, with:
  • • Who it's for
  • • The promise and main outcomes
  • • Core elements and boundaries
• Which offers are currently core, experimental or retired (and why).

We link out to more detailed internal docs where needed, but the playbook holds the big-picture map of what you sell and why it's shaped that way.

d) Client journey & experience

We bring your client journey work into the playbook, including:

• A visual map of the client journey stages.
• The key moments that matter for clients – enquiry, decision, onboarding, early delivery, milestones, wrap-up.
• Core experience standards, e.g.:
  • • How quickly we respond to new enquiries
  • • How we set expectations about timelines and communication
  • • What clients should never have to chase us for

We link from here to concrete assets like email templates, checklists and CRM stages.

e) Delivery flows & quality standards

We summarise your delivery flows for core offers:

• The main stages of delivery for each offer.
• What must be true at the end of each stage (quality gates, approvals, decisions).
• Recurring moments where quality can slip and how you guard against that (e.g. reviews, internal checks, client sign-offs).
• Any specific patterns or frameworks you lean on in your work.

This section captures "how we do great work here" in a way that's reachable for future collaborators.

f) Roles, responsibilities & collaboration

We describe the current shape of the team (even if that's mostly you):

• Core roles (now and near future) and what they are responsible for.
• How decisions are made – who has authority over what.
• Collaboration rules – how you use communication channels, how you escalate issues, how you hand work off.

This isn't a corporate org chart. It's a clear statement of who holds which parts of the system, so work doesn't fall into gaps.

g) Systems, tools & usage patterns

Here we define:

• Which tools are part of your core stack.
• What each tool is for and not for (e.g. "this tool is our source of truth for tasks; this one is only for meeting notes").
• High-level usage standards:
  • • Naming conventions
  • • Basic folder / space structure
  • • Where final decisions or files should always end up

We link from this section to more detailed SOPs or tool guidelines where needed.

h) SOP & knowledge index

We don't repeat every SOP in the playbook. Instead, we provide:

• A curated index of the most important SOPs and reference documents.
• How to find them and when to use them.
• A simple way to see which SOPs are most critical for new team members or specific roles.

This turns your scattered SOP library into something that can be navigated from a single starting point.

3. Navigation and usability

A playbook only works if people can:

• Find what they need quickly
• Understand what they're looking at
• Trust that it's reasonably up-to-date

We design your playbook for actual use, not just completeness:

• A home page that explains:
  • • What the playbook is
  • • Who it's for
  • • How to use it
  • • Where to start on day one
• Clear section intros that show what's inside and when to come here.
• Consistent page patterns and layout so people don't have to relearn how to read each section.
• Intentional linking – where each section points to relevant SOPs, templates, trackers and tools.
• A simple search strategy and naming conventions so you can find things even when you don't remember where they live.

Think of it like designing a small, well-organised house instead of a storage unit full of boxes.

4. Governance and evolution

An operations playbook is never "finished" – but it can be stable and dependable.

We help you put basic governance in place:

• Ownership – who is responsible for different sections (even if, for now, that's mostly you).
• A review cadence – which sections are reviewed monthly, quarterly, annually.
• A simple change process – how updates are proposed, approved and recorded.
• A basic version and change log pattern – so you can see what changed, when and why.

This doesn't need to be heavyweight. It just needs to give your playbook enough structure that people can trust it, instead of assuming it's out-of-date.