Three teams. Four deployment approaches. One very frustrated CEO.

If this scenario sounds familiar, you’re not alone. I encounter this pattern constantly across the software industry—from scrappy startups to established companies that should know better.

The Problem: Operational Chaos is the Norm

Here’s what typically happens: your team is moving fast, shipping features, responding to customer feedback. Everyone’s heads-down building, and operational decisions get made on the fly. Developer A deploys manually because “it’s faster.” Developer B sets up their own CI/CD pipeline. Developer C stores secrets in environment variables while Developer D uses a vault solution.

Before you know it, you have a beautiful product running on a foundation of operational chaos.

The excuses are predictable: “We’re too small for strategy documents,” “We move too fast for documentation,” or my personal favorite, “Strategy is for big corporations.”

Here’s the reality: operational chaos doesn’t care about your company size. It scales with you, and it gets exponentially more expensive to fix later.

Why Simple Operational Strategy Changes Everything

You don’t need a 50-page operational manual. You don’t need enterprise-grade documentation. You need clarity on the basics.

A simple operational strategy serves as your team’s decision-making framework. Instead of every developer inventing their own approach, you have agreed-upon standards. Instead of onboarding new team members taking weeks, they can be productive in days.

Most importantly, it prevents the expensive mistakes that come from inconsistent approaches to critical operations.

The 3-Step Process to Operational Clarity

Step 1: Identify Your Pain Points

Look at where you’re bleeding time and energy. Common culprits include:

• Inconsistent deployment processes
• Manual, error-prone releases
• Developers struggling to set up local environments
• Security incidents from poor secret management
• Monitoring gaps that leave you blind to issues

Step 2: Agree and Document Standards

This is where many teams get stuck because they overthink it. Your documentation can be simple Confluence pages or even shared Google Docs. The key is making decisions and writing them down.

Step 3: Iterate and Improve

Your strategy should be a living document. Start with the basics, implement them, learn what works, and refine. Perfect is the enemy of good here.

A Real Example: Simple Operational Strategy

Here’s what a practical, one-page operational strategy might look like:

## Deployment Strategy
- All production deployments happen through GitHub Actions CI/CD
- Manual deployments only for emergency hotfixes (must be documented in #ops-incidents)
- All applications deployed as Docker containers
- Staging environment mirrors production architecture

## Secret Management
- All secrets stored in AWS Secrets Manager
- No secrets in environment variables or config files
- Secrets rotation every 90 days for external APIs
- Local development uses .env files (never committed)

## Monitoring & Alerting
- All services must expose health check endpoints
- Critical alerts go to #ops-alerts Slack channel
- On-call rotation managed through PagerDuty
- Weekly review of error rates and performance metrics

That’s it. Nothing fancy, but crystal clear.

The Golden Rule: Strategy Defines the Rules

Here’s the principle that makes or breaks operational strategy: what you define in the strategy becomes the rule, everything else is an exception.

If your strategy says all deployments go through CI/CD, then manual deployments should only happen during genuine emergencies. If you allow exceptions to become the norm, your strategy becomes worthless.

This doesn’t mean being rigid—it means being intentional about when and why you deviate from your standards.

Common Pitfalls (And How to Avoid Them)

• The “Set and Forget” Trap Your operational strategy isn’t a one-time exercise. Schedule quarterly reviews to assess what’s working and what needs updating.
• The “No Buy-In” Problem Don’t create strategy in isolation. Involve your team in the decisions. If they don’t respect the strategy, they won’t follow it.
• The “Exception Creep” Issue Monitor your exceptions. If you’re constantly making exceptions for the same rule, the rule might need changing.

Getting Started Today

The best operational strategy is the one you actually implement. Start with your biggest pain point. Document a simple standard. Get team agreement. Begin enforcing it consistently.

You don’t need perfection—you need clarity and consistency.

Your future self (and your future team members) will thank you for taking 30 minutes today to write down how you actually want to operate.

Because here’s the truth: operational chaos might feel like speed, but strategy is what gets you to your destination.

If you are struggling with operational chaos and need help, I help teams build these strategies. Book a call to understand your challenges.