3 simple tactics to improve organizational efficiency and effectiveness 

Enhancing the effectiveness of your product-led organization (PLO) doesn’t have to be daunting. In fact, it can be quite simple.  

In this article, you’ll learn how to get more done without adding more headcount. 

The three simple techniques I’ll discuss will boost your team’s efficiency and help you use your time more intentionally. 

Let’s get started. 

What is organizational efficiency?

An efficient PLO uses its product to drive user acquisition, conversion, and retention. There’s no need for a large sales team because the product should be able to solve most problems.  

Take a look at these two companies below.  

The core differentiator is that Company A leverages its product for growth rather than scaling up the workforce. This approach is more efficient as it shrinks operational costs since most of your problems can be solved with your product.

So… which company would you like to be?

I’ll take a guess and say Company A. 

To do that, you’ll want to take a thorough look at your current team and understand what might be holding your business back.

You can do that with the next three steps.

Building an Elite Team is one component of the ProductLed System, which takes a holistic view of growing your product-led business and has helped SaaS companies make $1B+ in self-serve revenue. To implement it into your business with the help of Wes Bush, be sure to check out ProductLed Academy.

Step #1: Classify every role on your team 

An accountability chart lays out the hierarchy and everyone’s responsibilities within your organization so you can see who does what. (In this article, I discuss accountability charts and provide a free template to get started.) 

Here’s what it looks like. 

Once you outline all of your company's seats and roles, it’s time to color-code each responsibility with one of the four T classifications: Trim, Trash, Treasure, or Transfer. 

This exercise shouldn’t take more than five minutes and helps your team identify areas of inefficiency and opportunities to save time. 

Let’s define these labels.

Trim (Yellow)

Trim roles that are no longer as crucial. 

Responsibilities you label yellow eat too much of your time, and you want to delegate them to someone on your team or a contractor. Trimming these responsibilities lightens your workload and frees up your time. 

At ProductLed, I enjoy product marketing and drafting content for new program pages, but it’s time-consuming. To manage this, I delegate the work to a contractor and then focus on reviewing the final content. This is an example of a task I’d label yellow on our accountability chart.  

Trash (Red)

Trash outdated tasks that don’t impact core operations. 

Highlighting non-essential tasks on your accountability chart – like social media ads that don't generate valuable leads – is particularly beneficial in startups. Here, founders and team members often juggle multiple roles. By lightening their load, you can reduce the risk of burnout and allow them to focus on activities that help the company scale. 

Treasure (Green)

Treasure the roles that add significant value. 

Green label jobs are critical to business growth and building your core product.

For many founders, their passion lies in building their products. This role should often be treasured because it’s the unique value their company brings to the market, which means other jobs that support it should be transferred so they can focus on that specific role. 

Transfer (Blue) 

Transfer tasks to someone with more time or motivation. 

Use a blue label on your accountability chart to indicate essential tasks that must be transferred to another team member. 

The main difference between trimming and transferring tasks is that you still oversee the task with trimming, but you hand over ownership with transferring.

Classifying every role on our accountability chart drives organizational efficiency by balancing the workflow and ensuring that the right talent completes essential tasks. 

Now, let's move on to the second tactic. 

2. Calibrate actionable KPIs for each role to drive performance

Assigning a quantity and quality metric to each role is a simple but effective way to manage and evaluate performance. 

It's not just about how much a team member gets done but the impact of their actions. 

An example of this for a COO could be:

1. Quantity metric: revenue
2. Quality metric: profit  

For developers, it could be: 

1. Quantity metric: story sprints 
2. Quality metric: The number of bugs 

At this stage in this nine-component system, you and your leadership team have already built a company scorecard. Here, you can add high-level quality and quantity metrics to review in weekly growth meetings. 

As your organization grows, a department may track a separate scorecard, and it makes sense to input relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) there. 

3. Chart your time to help identify your next hire 

A common mistake founders make is hiring for a new role, only to discover a few months later that it's not the right fit. 

How do you determine which hire will give you the most leverage?

Adding a new role not outlined in your accountability chart isn’t the solution. 

Instead, tracking your time is!

This is honestly the easiest way to pinpoint your next hire. 

Initially, I was reluctant to track my time, but doing so paid off big time and led to our most recent hire.

Here’s why: 

I realized I spent 10 to 15 hours each week preparing for workshops and handling client communications. When I started to do the math, I realized that reallocating that time to more one-on-one engagements could easily generate another million dollars in ARR for our company.  

This insight gave me the confidence to hire our first customer success employee. 

You can start by tracking and categorizing your activities in 15-minute intervals using an app like Clockify.me. After one month, you’ll be able to identify what tasks occupy a lot of your time and calculate whether hiring makes sense.  

Time tracking can reveal uncomfortable truths about how you spend your hours. However, if you’re honest, this awareness can help you use your time more effectively. You can be more intentional with your time—whether that means hiring someone new to free up more of your time or simply being more mindful to boost your productivity. 

Pulling these three organizational methods together

To recap, start with the first step: labelling your accountability chart with the four T classifications: Trim, Trash, Treasure, or Transfer. 

Next, calibrate each role. On your accountability chart, each role should have two KPIs. 

Then, chart out your next hire. Begin by tracking your hours to really understand where you are investing your time. From there, revisit the four Ts and decide what to trim, trash, treasure, or transfer on your own activities.

For more insights on building an elite team and product-led strategy, visit ProductLed Academy. You'll work with a team of PLG experts to implement our proven three-phased system designed to scale a million-dollar SaaS without a sales team.