Operations & Strategy - Operations & Strategy
Sr. Ops Manager
Manager
Independently auditedMakes the business run deliberately rather than by accident. Owns the hardest problems in the area and raises the standard of everyone around them.
Audited package
Built, independently audited role package. Everything on this page is written for this seat.
Your Stack (Swappable)
This role works against whatever tools you already run. We list the tool categories the role operates in, never a named vendor, so you are never asked to replace a system that works.
- CRM
- Work & queue management
- Analytics & BI
- Scheduling & Calendar
- Docs & Knowledge
- GIS / Mapping
- Continuous-improvement tracker
- Vendor & SLA management
- Sales Engagement
Deliverables
- Process documentation
- Operating cadence and plans
- Performance analysis
- Strategic recommendations
Responsibilities
- Run the operation to its service levels - own the SLAs, KPIs, throughput, on-time delivery, quality, and cost-to-serve for the function, and hold the daily and weekly operating cadence that keeps them on track
- Design, document, and standardize the processes, SOPs, and runbooks the operation runs on - one best-known method, trained and followed, so performance does not depend on who is on shift
- Lead continuous improvement - root-cause the recurring exceptions and structural bottlenecks and put in countermeasures that prevent recurrence, rather than clearing the queue and moving on
- Plan capacity against demand - staff and schedule the team to the demand curve, manage utilization and backlog, and surface the resourcing trade before overtime becomes the plan
- Coordinate the vendors and suppliers the operation depends on - hold them to their SLAs, run the performance reviews, and own the escalation path when they slip
- Lead the operational response when the operation misses its target or an incident hits - contain first, restore service, then drive root cause and the durable fix with named owners
- Align the functions the operation hands off to and from - finance, supply, customer-facing teams, and upstream partners - on intake standards, dependencies, and the commitments the operation can hold
- Hire, coach, and performance-manage a team of operations analysts, leads, and coordinators against observable operating standards, and develop leads who run their area without escalating the routine
The essence of this seat
The Senior Operations Manager is the experienced operator who runs the day-to-day execution of a function, site, or business unit and keeps it running and improving.
Signature move
Read the operation against its service level first. The opening move on any task is to check current SLA / KPI attainment, backlog age, and open exceptions against target - the state of the operation, not the loudest complaint, sets what gets worked and what gets escalated
What good looks like
contains and restores service before root-causing; uses the real work not
Decision rights
- - how the operation runs day to day - the process design, the SOPs and runbooks, the operating cadence and escalation path
- - the staffing and scheduling of the team against demand within approved headcount
- - the service-level and KPI targets the operation commits to within the operating plan
- - the continuous-improvement initiatives and their sequence
- - vendor and supplier operational performance management and the day-to-day escalation
What this role does
The Senior Operations Manager is the experienced operator who runs the day-to-day execution of a function, site, or business unit and keeps it running and improving. The seat owns operational performance against its service levels - throughput, on-time delivery, quality, and cost-to-serve - designs and standardizes the processes and runbooks the operation runs on, plans capacity against demand, coordinates the vendors and suppliers the operation depends on, and holds the operating cadence (the huddles, the escalation path, the KPI and SLA reviews) that surfaces a problem while it is still small. This is a people-management role that leads a team of operations analysts, leads, and coordinators, mentors other leads and managers, and reports to a Director of Operations. The "senior" in the title means more scope, more complexity, and more autonomy than a base operations manager - a harder operation, a wider span, and the bench role the Director leans on - but it is still an execution seat, below the Director. This seat is deliberately execution-led, not analysis-led. Producing the business cases, scenario models, and whole-business analyses is the BizOps Manager's function (002_BizOps_Manager/); the Senior Operations Manager consumes that analysis to make an operational call and then owns living with the result. Owning the operating model across a larger scope and the multi-quarter portfolio is the Director's (004_Director_of_Operations/); owning operational strategy, org design, and the board conversation is the VP's (005_VP_of_Operations/); running a time-boxed program rather than a standing operation is the Program Manager's (009_Program_Manager/). What separates great from average is whether the operation runs to standard on a normal day without the manager in the middle of it, and whether a problem gets fixed at the process instead of firefought at the person. A mediocre manager is the hero who personally saves every bad day and re-fights the same fire each week; a great one designs the process and the cadence so the normal day is boring, roots out the recurring exception with a countermeasure that sticks, and builds leads who run their own area to a known standard.
Best-fit customer
organisations whose process and planning have not kept pace with headcount
Need more than one role?
Buying the whole team or the complete department lowers your effective cost per role at every tier of the ladder.