Looking for real efficiency? Build just-in-time information ops for your startup
Close. Your. Tabs. They’re killing your company’s efficiency.
Supply chain nerds love just-in-time inventory operations for good reason. A “pull” system of operations, JIT Inventory Management makes sure that inventory is available as required to meet consumer demand. Keeping minimum levels of stock reduces waste, and increases productivity by reducing the time and resources required for manufacturing. At the same time, it improves the quality of products by ensuring a model that allows you to sell the highest quality products to meet consumer demands while allowing for flexibility to address behavior changes and trends.
When we think about how most of us maintain our working environments and build our day-to-day operations, our information management, communication, and approach to work look quite the opposite. We’re buried in tabs, making sure we save every last site to access the important ones quickly while not even being able to discern which site is which from squint-sized favicons floating above our browser bar. We’re searching feverishly for old process docs or Excel sheets, and give up when the search becomes too much, starting yet another document from scratch to ultimately fill up our drives. We expect to collaborate efficiently with each other and get frustrated when our colleagues don’t fill out their documents or follow processes even when we’re operating the way we are personally.
how DO you build a team operating structure that allows you to find information where and when you need it?
Design a team-wide system that brings you to information when and where you need it.
Why This & Why Now
Every minute you spend time searching for information, you’re wasting resources you need to do valuable work for your business. Small system changes can have big reverberations. Joining the “searching” with the “working” together will make a big impact.
And simple leader-led operating systems turn into cultural habits that scale. Start now.
how We Do: Just-in-time information management as a core operating principle
There is an inherent power in workers being able to answer their own questions when it comes to efficiency and productivity. Creating systems that allow information to be accessible and easily referenced by all relevant team members becomes a huge value to your organizational ops.
Tools 🛠️
Leverage built-in AI bots in the tools you use every day.
Whether you use your existing tool’s beta chatbots or you build a tool of your own, lean into information gathering through the robots. Give the pulls a try and stop Xing out of the beta pop-ups. 😎
Reimagine your browser to clear the deck and pull what you need from the internet.
Tools like the Arc browser allow you to cleanly organize external internet resources you use often, and “clear the deck” of the old stuff at the end of each night to build you a pull system each new day.
Reimagine how you take notes.
Tools like Fabric allow you to sync all of your notes, tabs, and information and pull the content when and where you need it, allowing you to find anything with AI search.
Rules (Process) 📝
Build a just-in-time meetings strategy:
Attach agendas to calendar appointments on meetings.
For standing meetings, where possible, keep agendas in one document to keep the communication together and consistent.
For 1:1s, link key resources like 1:1 agendas with feedback, quarterly or annual performance reviews, and performance management tool links to the calendar appointments to re-reference key feedback from previous conversations. Help your teams progress towards their goals by bringing information in at the right time.
Set Slack, Teams, or Email reminders to be sent to meeting participants, depending on the team norms and culture of communication, to surface agendas and key documents at the time of the meeting.
Adopt a culture of meeting notes by leveraging recording and transcription tools.
Build a just-in-time project management strategy:
Build nudges into your process: when building out your plan, build out communication reminders for team members to update key planning documents to make sure the team is accountable for completing updates in advance of key meetings. Link to resources for team members to quickly pull the location of updates.
Learn the right short-cuts to pull information quickly:
Knowledge management and communication management tools have different keyboard shortcuts that allow you to search for the right information quickly. For example, using cmdK allows Notion users to search their entire workspace instead of hunting and pecking around sidebars to find the page that suits them. Leverage tool shortcuts to pull information quickly on the tools you use most often.
People 🫶
Keep who’s in the room lean but distribute the outcomes:
Just-in-time inventory management optimizes for more locally sourced products. Only add people to meetings when they’re contributing to the conversation or responsible for meeting actions or outcomes. Otherwise, set a cadence of sharing meeting notes and recordings directly with stakeholders. Putting outcomes in place allows stakeholders to pull the information into their relevant conversations where required.
While some members of the team may not need to be present in a meeting, it is vital to ensure that they have access to the context and decisions as needed. Establishing a culture that optimizes including team members on your distribution list or providing access to a notes repository allows them to “listen in” without the expectation of contribution.
Take It Up A Level
Using AI to Improve how You Do:
Going deeper into what you know:
Spot check. Ask questions you assume your knowledge database can answer. if you don't get back what you expect, might be a sign to dig deeper in your documentation.
Develop your second brain: Learn about Notion Q&A with Tiago Forte.
Actually Actionable
Nice article. Now what?
We’ve taken the ideas above and created an action plan for you and your team.
Deep Work Sessions
Session 1: Build your Just-In-Time Meetings strategy (45 min)
Attach meeting agendas to calendar appointments
Consolidate standing meeting agendas
Link key resources to 1:1 calendar appointments
Use reminders to share agendas and key documents
Adopt a culture of meeting transcriptions tied to a team workspace
Session 2: Build a just-in-time project management strategy (60 min)
Implement communication reminders for key updates.
Include nudges for team members to update key documents.
Session 3: Implement shortcuts with SOPs to expedite data retrieval (30 min)
Find, learn, implement, and share key shortcuts that support efficient information retrieval.
Add a section to your internal wiki to groom and retain shortcuts and distribute them widely.
Before you go
McKinsey’s “The State of the Organizations” Annual Survey states increasing efficiency is a top organizational priority for 2024, and this is likely true due to the advancements in AI. There’s a promise that we actually can be more efficient without having to invest in professional behavior change and call on the robots to do it for us. Between new AI tools and quickly designed internal operating processes, we can design our internal ops to look much more like a just-in-time system, one that actually works for us.
Writer: Britt