# Scaling Small to Medium-Sized Businesses (SMBs) - Part 3: Ways of Working

In [Part 2: Growth vs Scaling](/content/blog/scaling-part-2/index.html), I defined the difference between growth and scaling, and highlighted the importance of **Ways of Working** to allow companies to grow and scale.

# Ways of Working

Effective and efficient Ways of Working require three elements to be addressed: **Processes**, **People** and **Systems**. Otherwise:

- Having a great team without the right processes and systems to support them in their role is going to hold them back
- Implementing a tool thinking it's going to solve all your problems, and it doesn't
- Adopting Agile practices without a true understanding of the fundamentals means that you miss the real opportunities to benefit from it

## People

#### Why

> People are your most valuable asset, so it's important that they are enabled to be able to perform their role effectively, which includes having the right skills and capabilities (as well the right processes and systems to support their activities)

#### What

- Ensuring that you have the right organisation structure, the right teams with the people that have the right skills and capabilities, in the right roles
- Through coaching teams and individuals, building internal capabilities, knowledge and skills to perform their roles

#### Examples

- [Innovation Coaching](/content/innovation-management/index.html)
- Product Owner/Manager Coaching
- Project Management Coaching
- Agile Coaching

## Processes

#### Why

> Processes are necessary to be able to grow and scale your organisation, so the team's energy can be focused on innovating rather than the inefficiencies of no or poor processes

#### What

- Developing processes that leverage best-practices and are fit-for-purpose to support the goals of your organisation

#### Examples

- [Innovation Management Framework](/content/innovation-management/index.html)
- [Business and Innovation Management Framework](/content/business-and-innovation-management/index.html)  
  - Similar to Innovation Framework, but also supports operational activities, such as customer acquisition, customer success and continuous improvement
- [Rapid Learning Cycles](/content/rapid-learning-cycles/index.html)
- [Agile Project Delivery](/content/project-delivery/index.html)

## Systems

#### Why

> Many system implementations fail to reach expectations due to the poor choice of tools, not implementing and configuring them correctly, and not supporting their ongoing use.

#### What

- Selecting and implementing the best-of-breed tools to support the business processes effectively and the teams to efficiently execute those processes
- Reviewing existing systems, implementing new/replacing tools and cleanup/reconfiguration of existing tools and configurations

#### Examples

- [Innovation Management System](/content/innovation-management/index.html)
- [Business and Innovation Management System](/content/business-and-innovation-management/index.html)
- [Rapid Learning Cycles](/content/rapid-learning-cycles-solutions/index.html)  
  - [Rapid Learning Cycles Certified® Virtual Planning System](/content/rlcc-virtual-planning-system/index.html)
  - [Rapid Learning Cycles Certified® Virtual Knowledge Library](/content/rlcc-virtual-knowledge-library/index.html)
- Idea Tracker
- [Atlassian Platform including Jira, Confluence, Jira Service Desk/Management and addon's](/content/atlassian/index.html)
- [BigPicture Project/Programme Management](/content/bigpicture/index.html)
- Document and Knowledge Management

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If you would like to have a chat about your company, where it is in its journey, and the challenges faced, feel free to reach out.

Cheers

David