CS Ops Communication Cadence

Dorota Ziakova

Hi everyone,

If you have a dedicated CS Ops function, what is your communication cadence with them? And vice versa - if you are in a CS Ops function how (what channels and how frequently) do you communicate with the CS Leadership and CS teams?

We've established CS Ops (1 analyst - me) this summer and are struggling to find the right communication cadence for optimal results. Our CS is a distributed team of around 40 (NAM & Europe) across a few different functional groups, always growing.

My question is above, but I will describe below how our cadence works now, for those who'd like to read on:

CS leadership -> CS Ops information flow: As I am not in a leadership position there are reservations around letting me access the leadership meeting and get a holistic picture of our strategy, planning, and enablement. Instead, I have 1:1s with selected members of the leadership team where I rely on them bringing this information to me. They mostly don't, and I don't know what I don't know. However the feedback is that I am now an order taker and don't elevate the role into proactive & strategic.

CS teams -> CS Ops information flow: In the beginning I planned on attending all the individual (functionally) team meetings to keep my ear to the ground and understand how the teams are doing/feeling. Basically to discover opportunities for improvement, but this has proven to not be time well spent as this was mostly irrelevant information for Ops. I also get ad-hoc requests/questions on Slack from various team members, which is fine.

CS Ops -> CS Leadership & Teams information flow: I work individually with teams on different initiatives and keep everyone informed on what is relevant to them via 1:1s with leadership, occasional team meeting appearance & training on new things.

Luis Barbosa

Hi Dorota,

It looks like the first challenge you have to overcome is with the leadership team...they must provide you with a complete view of the company's broad strategy.

Side note: OKR's helped me be aligned with strategy in the past.

To communicate with teams and receive feedback, take a look at these small texts I've written about it.

https://luisfbarbosa.medium.com/cs-ops-collecting-and-prioritizing-next-actions-e2547074fcc0

https://luisfbarbosa.medium.com/how-release-notices-are-helping-me-in-cs-ops-59b40e8910f4

I hope you find my answer helpful.

Ido Barnoam

Hi @Dorota Ziakova

I'm heading the CS enablement function, and while our CS ops are located in a different part of the company, I feel that much of what you describe is very relevant to what I had when starting this function. 

I'll share what is currently happening now and some insights as to what I learned from setting this function up. hopefully, it would help

CS leadership -> CS Ops information flow:
Currently, I have weekly 1:1's with all the VP's of the teams. The CCO has his own leadership meetings with the VP's which I am not part of (I am in a leadership position), but that's okay. I feel that my input for the teams is heard and acted on at certain times. When I started in this position one of my requirements was to have direct access to the VP's of the team in order for the role to have an impact. 

I'm actually in talks with the CCO to be part of the leadership meetings as well on the grounds that you mention (I.e do you want the enablement function to be proactive or reactive?). Since the ops/enablement function has a horizontal view of the CS org, it can have many useful inputs to increase productivity.

CS teams -> CS Ops information flow:

Like yourself, at first, I tried to be part of all of the teams' global meetings which was too time-consuming. Currently, I'm only part of the CSM global and local team meetings (for the most part) and I join other meetings either when requested or when I have something to say to the teams. This happens more often than not. So I'm able to be part of the day-to-day of the teams.

I also constructed a process that allows everyone from the teams to open a request to the enablement team using Jira. That way it's organized and monitored and does not come via Slack. It also gives free access to people to reach out with ideas that my team, later on, follows up with.


Hope this helps
Happy to arrange a call if you want to discuss further.

Jeff Breunsbach

@Dorota Ziakova - your leadership team needs to be pulling you in and closer to their day-to-day actions. You might not have to sit in their main Leadership Team meeting but you should have a session where you are present with them.

I think this comes down to how you manage your backlog of activities - typically we are starting to work in Agile/Backlog/Sprint type of mentality. We house all of the projects on a Monday.com board so we can keep a method to madness.