One of the hardest founder lessons is this: complexity grows faster than team size. If a workflow depends on heroics, the business becomes fragile. My approach is to treat operations as a product with defined states, owners, and response rules.
The first lever is standardization. For each workflow, we maintain one state model, one naming convention, and one place for operating logic. This reduces decision friction and keeps people aligned even when pressure rises.
The second lever is observability. Teams cannot improve what they cannot see. We track error classes, response times, and queue behavior in plain dashboards operators can read. When incidents happen, we document quickly and update the runbook immediately.
The final lever is handover quality. A workflow is complete only when another person can run it confidently without direct support. This is where delivery turns into durable operations. Related experience notes are in the experience journal.