The Operations Audit

The instruments that tell you where the money actually is.

“Do you know your gross margin from last month within five percentage points?”

Costco runs the same three instruments a 14-person roofing company needs.

Your most important recurring work, written down well enough to survive you.

“Could a new hire run your most important recurring process from a written document, without asking anyone?”

McDonald's built Hamburger University in 1961 to make process the product.

The set of tools a new hire needs before they can do their job.

“If a new hire started Monday, how many tools would they need access to before they could do their job?”

Under five usually means tribal knowledge; over fifteen usually means shadow IT.

No named brand here — categories, not brands, on purpose.

The five numbers a captain reads before touching the wheel: revenue vs. plan · 90-day pipeline · cash + 13-week forecast · customer count + retention · one operating number.

“You can't measure what you haven't standardized.”

Weekly 30-minute stand · monthly P&L review · quarterly strategic review.

“The cadence is the management.”

Every critical vendor gets the Tuesday question.

“If this vendor disappears tomorrow, what do we do on Tuesday?”

Bench Accounting — 12,000 small businesses never asked.

Coverage you can name from memory, matched to actual exposure.

“Could you name your three largest coverages and the deductible on each, from memory?”

The category ignored until it costs $100,000 in legal fees.

Compounds the slowest, costs the most when wrong.

“The bad thing will happen. The only question is whether you have a written answer for the morning after.”

Winter Storm Uri hit ERCOT in February 2021 — roughly 4.5 million lost power.