"50 to 100"

Since the inception of the technology firm I'm part of, we've experienced an amazing 35% growth year over year. As the company continues to expand, maintaining that type of growth clip is going to be an increasing challenge with several dynamics at play. While the future is always an unknown, I hope to be able to capture the progress of our growth at our current number of 50 employees (actually 54 as we just brought on four more developers over the past few weeks) to 100 employees. It would be great to hear your stories and comments of similar challenges you face in your companies and organizations as we press in together....

Some key challenges as I see them today:

• As the project manager (and also involved in some operations), my drive has been to raise the bar in our customer experience and processes within our projects and company. Our ability to continue to improve in this area while growing with new people will be an interesting dynamic.
• Currently we have three Sr. Managers each overseeing one of our 3 groups (ERP, Developement, and IT). They are extremely gifted technology gurus who will have to learn to grow into more management function or reshape the structure of their teams. (Either shift from be a do-er to a leader or find some alternatives). This goes for me too, I need to be preparing for what 100 team members looks like...
• Our internal processes for leveraging information (task coordination, emails, budgets, scope, proposals, etc...) need to make critical improvements. Implementing and syncing the functionality of SharePoint, MS CRM 4.0, and Outlook with other tools will be essential. Gaps in communication will only grow without continual tightening of our systems...
• Outside leaders are going to have to be able to succeed and assimilate into our group. We'll be able to pull some up from within our team, however, most are talented "do-ers" that should stay exactly where they're at...already adding huge value...
• Management is going to have to look at the number of direct reports they currently have- typically 6-8 is the max- currently we're exceeding this in all three groups...
• Without acquisition, finding top calibur talent to come to South Bend/Elkhart, Indiana will continue to be a hurdle. We may need to stretch our boundaries and be creative with work locations, mobility, and communications to bring on new team members...
• We will need to have a plan to help each individual grow in their expertise', feel connected to the team, know how what they do makes a difference, and that they matter and are cared for...
• Our service needs to be at a level that's remarkable... something worth talking about as Seth Godin would say....

I love this team. I look forward to this run. While I'll be limited in some of what I can share, I hope to be able to report the core of the experience along the way... stay tuned....