How we work
What you get: what a plan leaves behind in your business
Every plan leaves working tools in your business, not a report. This page shows eight of them, filled in for a made-up business, with when each one arrives and how it helps. Yours are built with your people, from your own work, in the tools you already use.
In one line: the first four weeks leave you a picture, a Keep list, one fix and a plan; the months after leave the rhythm, the numbers and a team that runs them.
Who is the business in the samples?
Vikram's business, made up for this page. A family-run distributor of electrical goods: 140 people, three warehouses and about 2,000 retailers. Vikram started it in 2002 and still approves discounts, credit and most hiring himself. His daughter Isha joined as a director two years ago.
It has two of the five problems, so it runs one programme: everything still goes through Vikram, and growth has outrun the way work gets done. Priya is the operations head who owns the plan; Arjun runs sales.
Every name and number on this page is invented, and none of it comes from a client.
End of the first four weeks
The one-page picture
Where the business depends on a few people, against the four questions from our book, with the evidence the four weeks found and the first fix.
How it helps. Everyone sees the same problem on one page, in the words of the people who do the work, before anything changes.
Comes with every plan.
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Decisions Under strain
In two weeks, 52 approvals went to Vikram. 34 were discounts or credit a branch head could approve within a written limit.
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Rhythm Under strain
There is no weekly meeting. Priorities change on calls and WhatsApp, and Vikram's mornings go to chasing.
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Information Holding, with gaps
Stock and dues sit in three spreadsheets, so sales books orders without seeing what a retailer owes.
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Standards Holding, with gaps
Credit checks and returns are done three different ways in the three warehouses.
First fix. Discounts up to ₹10,000 approved by branch heads, with every exception reviewed on Monday. Agreed in week two, running from week three.
Week two, then checked at every step
Your Keep list
What must not change as the business moves onto systems, written down with you and the people who built it.
How it helps. The change protects what built the business: if a change would cost something on the list, we redesign the change.
Comes with every plan, and the successor's route.
Vikram's Keep list
- Vikram still meets the top 25 retailers himself.
- An order in by 11 am leaves the same day.
- A branch head can say yes to a loyal retailer's urgent request.
- The monthly lunch for the whole team stays.
- Nobody loses their job because their work is written down.
Weeks one to four, then every month
Where your time goes, today and next
The owner's week in hours, by the kind of work, as it is today and as the plan sets it by the end.
How it helps. You see what the plan gives back to you, and every month whether it is happening.
Comes with the plan for “Everything still goes through you”.
| The work | Today | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Approving discounts, credit and purchases | 14 | 3 |
| Chasing orders and payments | 10 | 2 |
| Fixing the same problems again | 6 | 1 |
| Retailers and suppliers | 8 | 14 |
| Direction, people and new business | 4 | 16 |
| A week | 42 | 36 |
Month two
The operating model on a page, today and next
Who does what, who decides and how the work flows, on one page, as it is today and as it will be.
How it helps. Everyone can see what changes and what stays the same before it changes, which is when people can still shape it.
Comes with the plans for “Everything still goes through you” and “Growth has outrun the way work gets done”, and the successor's route.
| The part of the work | Today | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Discounts and credit | Vikram approves each one | Branch heads within written limits, the credit desk above them, and the exceptions to Vikram on Monday |
| Orders | WhatsApp to each warehouse | One order desk, in the tool |
| Stock and dues | Three spreadsheets | One dashboard, updated daily |
| Reviews | None: problems reach Vikram by phone | The Monday review, run by Priya, and a monthly business review, run by Isha |
| Returns | Each warehouse its own way | One SOP, with one owner |
| Hiring | Vikram interviews everyone | Branch heads hire for existing roles; Vikram meets the final two for new ones |
End of the first four weeks, then updated every month
The 90-day plan
What gets built in the next 90 days and in what order, with an owner on your side and a date for each piece.
How it helps. Progress is visible every week, and nothing depends on remembering who promised what.
Comes with every plan.
| What | Owner | By | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discount limits for branch heads | Priya | Day 28 | Done |
| Credit limits and the credit desk | Priya | Day 45 | On track |
| One order desk, in the tool | Arjun | Day 60 | On track |
| A dashboard of 12 numbers | Priya | Day 60 | Started |
| One returns SOP for the three warehouses | The warehouse heads | Day 75 | Not started |
| The monthly business review | Isha | Day 90 | Not started |
From week three
The weekly rhythm kit
The agenda for one weekly review, and the decision log and action list that go with it.
How it helps. Decisions and exceptions come to one meeting instead of someone's phone, and what was decided stays decided.
Comes with every plan.
The Monday review, 45 minutes
- Numbers that moved 10 min
- Exceptions above the limits 15 min
- Decisions needed 15 min
- Actions and owners 5 min
The decision log
- Retailers more than 60 days overdue get no new credit. Owner: Priya. Review: Week 10.
- The discount limit for branch heads rises to ₹15,000. Owner: Vikram. Review: Week 12.
The action list
- Call the five largest overdue retailers. Arjun, by Friday.
- Move the second warehouse onto the order desk. Priya, by Week 9.
Month two or three
The programme dashboard
The 10 to 15 numbers your reviews act on, drawn from the tools you already use.
How it helps. Nobody has to ask where things stand, and the reviews start from the numbers.
Comes with every plan.
| The number | Now | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Orders delivered on time | 88% | 95% |
| Orders waiting for an approval | 9 | Under 5 |
| Discounts approved by branch heads | 71% | 80% |
| Days to collect | 58 | 45 |
| Retailers over their credit limit | 37 | Under 20 |
| Stock-outs this week | 14 | Under 8 |
| Returns | 2.6% | Under 2% |
| Decisions waiting more than a week | 4 | 0 |
| Vikram's hours on approvals | 6 | 3 |
| SOPs written and in use | 7 of 18 | 18 |
| Orders through the order desk | 64% | 100% |
| New people onboarded the standard way | 3 of 4 | All |
The last month
The handover kit
What your team needs to run it without us: role charters, SOPs, the Project Management Office playbook for the weekly and monthly reviews, and the people trained to run them.
How it helps. The system keeps running after we leave, and the handover test shows that it does before we go.
Comes with every plan.
Vikram's handover kit
- Role charters for the order desk, the credit desk and the three branch heads.
- 18 SOPs, each with one owner and a date to review it.
- The Project Management Office playbook: how the Monday review and the monthly business review run, with their agendas and logs.
- Priya trained to run the Monday review, and Isha the monthly business review.
The handover test: Vikram took two weeks away in month six, and no decision inside the written limits waited for him.
Where do the outputs start?
In the PPS Backbone Review, the first four weeks of every plan: the one-page picture, your Keep list, the first fix and the plan are yours at the end of it, whether or not you go on. The rest are built over the months that follow, with your people, until your own team runs them.
The first four weeks, step by step- 100+ engagements
- 62,000+ delivery hours
- Top 1% Expert-Vetted on Upwork
- 100% job success, independently verified
Across Upwork and direct contracts, including the people on our project teams.
- MIT MicroMasters, Supply Chain
- Six Sigma Black Belt
- PRINCE2 Practitioner
“Rahul brings a strong combination of analytical rigor, practical judgment, and reliability.”
Questions about what you get
Are these real client documents?
No. The business on this page is made up, and so is every name and number in it. Client work is under a non-disclosure agreement, so we show what the outputs look like with an invented business instead.
Who keeps the outputs?
You do, from the day each one is made. They are built in your tools and your files, and if you stop after the first four weeks, the one-page picture, your Keep list, the first fix and the plan stay with you.
Do we get all eight?
Every plan ends with most of them; which ones depends on the problem, and each problem's plan lists its own. A business with two problems runs one programme, so it gets the outputs of both plans without paying for them twice.
Will they be in our own tools?
Yes. The plan, the logs and the dashboard live in the tools you already use, such as Excel, Google Sheets, ClickUp, Monday.com or Zoho, so your team can keep them up to date after we leave.
Tell us two things.
What you're trying to achieve in the next 90 days, and what's breaking in execution. We'll tell you plainly what we'd fix first.
Book a discovery callFree, no obligation, and under an NDA if you prefer.
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