Documents, Tools & Meetings
While we do our best to keep our processes as light as possible, we do need some. The following section describes the core documentation and tools that we use to run our Advice Process at Equal Experts.
Advice Process Template: The basic outline the provides the types of data we look to capture when creating an AP (we ran through this in section 4 - Run your own AP).
Advice Process Drive: A Google Drive folder, containing all historic and current APs.
Advice Process Tracker: Lists all APs created, alongside relevant data (e.g. Decision Maker, value, tracked monthly spend)
We use Slack intensively in Equal Experts – so it’s the natural choice for us to communicate information about the Advice Process, too.
We have the following channels set up to help move everything along:
#ap_learning_group – the global governance group of the Advice Process. Each country has its own learning group to aid with the roll-out and ongoing improvement of the process. You’ll find more info on this later in this section.
#ap-decisions – a global channel, where all Advice Processes and associated updates are published (including meeting minutes from governance groups).
#ap-bul – a place for Business Unit Leads to discuss and share appointments of AP decision makers and other related items.
#ap-operations – a place to discuss the day-to-day operations of the advice process.
#ap-XXX – when people create an advice process they will often create a temporary channel to discuss it with interested parties. This is not mandatory, but if you do, this is the naming format to use.
All new AP creators need to publish a blogin post that summarises the outcomes and learnings of their AP. This should be done either:
When you've concluded the AP and learnt something.
3 months after the AP started.
Before you start a 3rd AP - see constraints .
The purpose of the blogin is to aid accountability and transparency – and most importantly, to share any learning along the way.
The Advice Process template includes sections for results and learnings. We recommend filling these in first, then linking from the blogin post to the original AP document. The blogin post then just needs to summarise the relevant AP sections.
The post should reference the AP title, id and link. It then should summarise the AP’s:
What and why
Results
Learnings and any next steps
If the AP outcome was to proceed with the decision, then it’s important the Results section summarises:
Actual vs estimated cost.
Actual outcomes in relation to success metrics.
This internal blogin post provides an example of what to cover.
These are the required processes for a standard AP:
Fill in the AP template
Post it in the #ap-decisions Slack channel (this may be after the decision is made)
Update progress, material change or closure of the AP in the template.
Publish the blogin updating everyone on the results and learnings .
