The Game of Business v2.0

Intelligent People. Uncommon Ideas.

The Game of Business v2.0

By, Bhavin Turakhia

CEO, Directi (http://directi.com)

http://directi.com/

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”

- Leonardo Da Vinci

1. Build the best team

2. Ensure that they make the right decisions most of the time

Business is like a Game …

Principle 1 – “Hire the Best”

Hire the Best

Hire the Best

Can a hundred average high-jump athletes beat one Javier Sotomayor?

Hire the Best

Can a 100 average musicians create what one Beethoven created?

Excellent Players + Poor Training = SUCCESS

Hire the Best

Poor Players + Excellent Training ≠ SUCCESS

Excellent Players + Excellent Training = DIRECTI ;)

Hire the Best – The Directi Way

A “Rockstar” will •make 1/3rd the mistakes•require ½ the mgmt bandwidth•ideate 3x more•and deliver work 2x faster than a average recruit

COST

VALUE


Cost Comparison Graph

* Cost of mgmt assumed at 4x employee. 1 Manager manages 10 employees* Opportunity cost of mistake assumed to be 1x salary

* Cost of a Rockstar assumed to be 25% higher

A “Rockstar” costs 25% lesser


A “Rockstar” delivers 140% higher value

Value Comparison Graph

* A regular Employee creates value => 3x their salary and value of his/her ideas => 2x salary

Hire the Best

Hiring “Rockstars” is 4x more profitable!!!

What takes lesser time?

Hire the Best

a. Controlling the quality of individuals you hire

b. Controlling the quality of the work they do 365 days a year

The Directi Way - “Spend extra time in getting the right person, so that we can avoid having to

spend extra time in getting the job done right”


“Only hire candidates who are above the mean of your current employees”

Hire the Best

Hiring above the MIN

Vs

Hiring above the MeanSource: Google Lake Wobegone strategy


“Expect to spend about 2x-3x the time in sourcing Top Talent as opposed to

sourcing average talent”

SmartNiceArticulateParanoid about Perfection&Gets things doneOut of the box thinker


• Process at Directi Don’t hire for a specific Project Hire continuously Multiple rounds per candidate (3-7) Interview rounds are always one-on-one Rounds <= 60 min There is no MAYBE. Its either Yes or No Everyone is IN or the candidate is OUT Top Management spends 40% of their time

on recruitment• I still take every final interview and still draft and finalize

every interview process


• Directi - Decision making pointers Did we learn something from him? WOW effect!! Exciting Interview? How badly do you want

him?


As a Manager expect to spend 30-40% of your time in Recruitment and Training

Hire the Best

Hire the Best

“Recruitment is amongst the most valuable activity you can focus on”

• Other Advantages Smart people attract other smart people Constant learning and knowledge sharing Lesser Management time required Compounds the fun

Hire the Best

Principle 2 – “Teach them how to play”

“All the players must know how to play the game”

Everyone must know how to play

OR

“When all the employees understand the dynamics of business, everyone can feel,

think and act like management”



“If you COACH you don’t need to MANAGE”

• At Directi - Technology is our friend when it comes to knowledge sharing CR – Wiki Mailing lists Blogs Microblogs Custom applications …


“We are all Teachers, and we are all Students”


Principle 3 – “Define the Long term vision”

“All the players are aware of the final objective”

Win the season? Play for the nationals? Compete in the worldcup?

Share the Macro Vision

Principle 4 – “Set Short term Targets and Iterate rapidly”

“Each season is broken into multiple games, each independent from the other”

Near/Short term targets

Near/Short term targets

• Safeguard – Ballistic Missile Defense System Project

1969-1975 – 5407 person years Hardware / software went through rigorous design phase to

avoid changes Specs were set in stone Project was delivered perfectly according to specs at a cost of

$25 billion

Stop-gap vs Iterative development

Operational for 133 days – terminated in 1978

By the time the 6-yr project was completed, the new missiles were faster than the anti-missiles

• Bi-annual long term planning• Per-team Priority Log• Items added asynchronously by anyone• Monthly / Weekly Iteration meetings

Allows information seepage

• Release fast and iterate (every week)• Learn constantly and evolve• Advantages

Fewer deviations Agile to change Reduces wastage

Goal Setting – The Directi Way

Principle 5 – “Keeping score”

“The Score is always visible on a public Scoreboard”

Keep Score

Keeping Score

• Advantages Statistics are fun Numbers make work

challenging – give a sense of purpose

Provide a sense of accomplishment

Numbers help set targets Noone wants to fail a target

– especially one they have set themselves

“Scoring makes the game Exciting”

Keeping Score – The Directi Way

• Critical Numbers per team

• Multiple monitors – live reporting

• LCD screens everywhere

• Blow up the scoreboards – the bigger the better

• Measure everything and publish it to everyone


Weekly Support Stats of an Individual vs Team


Average ticket handling times by Product and Business Unit


Average phone call handling times


Current Support Monitor


Hourly Support Performance


Sales - Weekly Minute by Minute views, clicks and therefore revenue


Daily Sales chart for a LogicBoxes Product (2 weeks)


Test result scores for trainees in a module


Daily attendance of an individual in the company


Daily attendance of a team


Health of our servers for a set of products


Multi-dimensional Sales report


Recruitment report

Principle 6 – “Maintain a Playbook”

“In Sports, the playbook is sacred”

Maintain a Playbook

“Knowledge sharing can be accomplished in 2 ways – Write OR Wrong”

People Impacted Value

Read it yourself 1 100Email to select Colleagues 5 500

Post on team mailing list 10 1000Post in wiki 20 2000

Post in wiki and link it appropriately 50 5000

Maintain a Playbook

Processify, Processify, Processify

Document, Document, Document.

Automate, Automate, Automate

PDA

Maintain a Playbook

Stats from our internal Wiki

• Our knowledgebase is 1,932,735,283 bytes (1.9 billion bytes) on disk ~ 3500 books

Principle 7 – “Line of Sight”

“Each player can link their actions to the outcome of a game”

Line of Sight

Line of Sight – The Directi Way

• Monthly PnL discussions

• Open Book Management

• Transparency

• Keeping Score (Everything is measured)

• Constant Communication

Principle 8 – “Celebrate your Victories”

Celebrations – The Directi Way

The Game of Business

• Principle 1 – Hire the Best

• Principle 2 – Teach them how to play

• Principle 3 – Share the Long Term Vision

• Principle 4 – Set Near Term Targets

• Principle 5 – Keep Score

• Principle 6 – Maintain a Playbook

• Principle 7 – Line of Sight

• Principle 8 – Celebrate your Victories

"A company performs best when its people see themselves as partners in the business

- when they concern themselves not just with doing their jobs, but with the business

objectives of the company"

“Would you rather be - a Business of employees, or a Business of Business-

people”

“Play the Game of Business as you would any other Game and build a Business of

Business people”

Intelligent People. Uncommon Ideas.

Questions?

Email me: [email protected]

Follow me: http://twitter.com/bhavintu

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bhavin.t

Blog: http://bhavin.directi.comWebsite: http://directi.com

Download Slides: http://wiki.directi.com

The Game of Business v2.0

Business

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