Operations Team of Five

D04 - Team Structure Clarity

Definition

A reference five-role specialization model for a growing operations function comprising a Head of Operations, a Vendor/Procurement Coordinator, a Customer Operations Lead, an Operations Analyst, and an Operations Coordinator, each hired when the function's complexity reaches the threshold that role is designed to address.

Without a reference model for how an operations team should be structured, hiring decisions become reactive — adding people in response to pain rather than in anticipation of it.

The operations team of five model provides a sequencing logic for when each role is needed and what a correctly structured operations function looks like at a mid-market scale.

Indicators

• Operations hiring has been reactive, such as adding people in response to a crisis rather than based on a structural plan.
• A single operations person is covering more than three distinct functional areas simultaneously.
• No sequence exists for which operations role should be hired next.

Quick Win

• List your current operations team's roles.
• Compare them against the five-role model — Head of Operations, Vendor/Procurement Coordinator, Customer Operations Lead, Operations Analyst, and Operations Coordinator.
• Name the operational role that is missing or most under-resourced.

Assess

• Take the HQ Score Assessment

Apply

• The Operations Team Structure Starter Kit
• The Operations Role Job Description Builder

Related

• Functional Specialization
• Generalized COO Model
• Organizational Inflection Point