Simple Priorities a Start-up Must

Steve Huey — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:43:51 +0000

Simple Priorities is a start-up must have. This is an old lesson from my days as a Wendy’s manager – always have a simple set of priorities to help the team understand what they should do. At Wendy’s the priorities were hanging on the wall and I never “Got it” until late in my career there (I think I was almost 20 at the time).The simple priorities that Wendy’s set were represented by “QSC” or Quality, Service, and Cleanliness. Most people applied the phrase incorrectly in asking “how’s your QSC?” Really what Wendy’s management had set was a simple list of priorities in that first and foremost serve a quality product, then serve that quality product fast and with a smile, and then keep your restaurant clean. Poor managers would be sweeping the floor when they had customers waiting forever in line or they would serve you fast but forget your frys in the drive through. Good managers would have a dirty store but serve you really fresh food quickly. Usually the customer is ok waiting a few seconds longer to get fresh frys or can put up with a dirty parking lot if they are getting the right food fast but how mad do you get when you get old frys or the wrong sandwich. And I bet you never say “Gee that’s OK that I didn’t get any napkins with my kid’s frosty. I am so glad I waited for five minutes so the manager could pick up the trash from the parking lot.” – NEVER!

It is EASY, CLEAR priorities, QSC in Wendy’s case, that help you and your team deliver a consistent client experience and for your team to focus on doing the things that create the greatest value for the client. So for our IT team QSC equals:

Keep the servers running.
Take care of Client technical issues.
Develop next version of web interface.

for Marketing QSC =

Promote the client’s programs
Promote the company

Simple priorities help everyone on the team to act in a coordinated way to deliver great results.

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Simple Priorities a Start-up Must