Process Changes at ESco

Alongside our technical evolution, we have modernised how we plan, prioritise, and execute work. We have introduced two significant process frameworks to keep our teams aligned, reduce bottlenecks, and ensure we are building the right things at the right time.

To improve long-term vision and accountability, ESco adopted the foundational elements of the EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) framework. Rather than a rigid, dogmatic implementation, our approach has been an honest, evolving journey of structuring our leadership, our teams, and our milestones.

• The Vision Component & The V/TO: We leverage a version of the Vision/Traction Organiser framework to map out our future, detailing our long-term 10-year targets, 3-year strategic pictures, and active 1-year numbers.
• The People Component: We initially utilized this to restructure our Senior Leadership Team. Following this blueprint, we also restructured our technology division in October 2025, transitioning them from developers who were handed ad-hoc tasks into a collaborative Solutions Team focused on configuring scalable systems.
• The Traction Component (Rocks & Quarterly Planning): Every three months, the team meets to look ahead and establish company Rocks (our highest-priority goals for the upcoming quarter).

EOS has successfully provided ESco with a clear frame and structure to channel our priorities directly into our technology roadmap and delivery pipeline. However, maintaining the framework alongside the intense day-to-day pressures of the business is incredibly hard work, and full, active adoption across the Senior Leadership Team remains a core aspiration rather than a finished project.

⚠️ The Current Bottlenecks & Future Goals:

• Accountability: While we regularly set quarterly Rocks, we still have a way to go in consistently holding ourselves accountable to completing them.
• The Missing Link: Crucially, the Process component of the EOS model was never completed. Documenting core processes is a fundamental requirement for the "Detangle" phase of our business strategy. Without standardizing these workflows, unlocking true AI automation, building efficient system integrations, and executing workflow improvements will remain a bottleneck.

Re-engaging the leadership team with these processes and building a consistent habit around them remains a vital goal for ESco's operational maturity.

The Delivery Process, and the creation of the Delivery Board, was introduced to solve a fundamental problem: prioritisation in isolation.

Before this framework, projects were often kicked off by different teams without cross-company alignment, leaving everyone guessing what the true priority was. The goal of the board and our shared delivery sessions was to bring absolute alignment and transparency to ESco, ensuring we were collectively working on the right things.

While the process initially brought rapid alignment, over time our overall capacity to deliver on everything began to drop. This led to some disengagement with the routine meetings. However, the Delivery Board itself remains an essential structural framework. It serves as a vital shield for our technology resources, ensuring that a project goes through proper Discovery and Definition before any code is touched.

By forcing upfront clarity on requirements and acceptance criteria, we ensure our Solutions Team's time is never wasted on half-baked ideas.

🔍 Note on Testing: While we attempted to embed a highly structured, rigorous technical testing process into this workflow, it proved difficult to execute seamlessly and didn't work brilliantly across the board, though it remains an area we adapt on a case-by-case basis.

• IT IS: A single high-level view of large change projects, feature requests, and system integrations to maintain company-wide visibility.
• IT IS NOT: A day-to-day capacity planning tool or a playground for routine BAU (Business As Usual) tasks.
• The BAU Rule: Minor client updates, server maintenance, and small tweaks are logged for visibility but are strictly excluded from core delivery discussions to avoid dragging the focus into the weeds.