What is a growth team?
A growth team, i.e. a growth group, is a multidisciplinary group of different competences and professional knowledge. As a rule, this group of employees is composed of different disciplines, which, in addition to this, still have their usual roles in the enterprise. The group can be described as small, versatile, computer drive and proactive. The team is composed of individuals who constantly challenge the implementation of new growth strategies, tactics and techniques. It's about a change in team structure, methodology and processes. The aim is to bring out the best from different backgrounds. The team members cooperate to ensure growth and to meet long-term objectives of the activities. This is something that everyone should learn from.
Growth teams are a smart solution when it is difficult to bring all employees on board. The Group ensures that the necessary departments are involved, both in planning and progressing with tasks such as growth and scaling. Growth teams make life easier for all departments and build down the silos that often occur in enterprisesSo let's say that this is the same thing as that. This is a prerequisite for further growth.
Many Success Stories
You could say that the growth teams saw the light of day first in Facebook. The focus on growth has contributed to a great deal of their growth. Today, growth teams are used by many major players to achieve strong growth. Among those who have success using growth, for example Google, Instagram, AirBnb, Linkedin, Twitter and Slack. That the world's largest companies swear to growth teams, makes it interesting to look at the phenomenon.
In practical terms, a methodological approach is provided to understanding what users want. Examples of features that result from Facebook's growth team are “Safety Check” and “GoFundMe”. The first is the function that lets people mark themselves as safe in crisis-bound areas, while the second is the tool that lets people keep personal collections for charities. These tools probably had not been developed independently of Facebook's growth team. The Growth team also participated in the process of splitting Messenger from Facebook and over into a separate app. All the successful projects for Facebook have one thing in common. Your success is based on a combination of data and an empathetic understanding of what people actually want by Facebook. This is an approach a growth team should work for.
In other words, a growth team constantly identifies new potential experiments that can be tested out. Another good example of such an experiment is when Uber changed the “share” button in the app to name “free rides”. Rather, the “free rides” button communicated a value to existing customers in recruiting new users. Growth team experiments are usually made up of A/B testing, where you change concrete things, like the button to Uber. You're going to check if the change is better than the original. This should always be done towards a precise objective.
Good objectives increase the effectiveness of the implementation
A key prerequisite for success with growth teams is to work for concrete goals. Setting good goals makes sure everyone moves together, in the same direction.
It's important to focus on what you can actually do something about. When you find key numbers to focus on, you set the dimensions for them and figure out how you are oriented towards the goal. It's about mapping the variables that you can influence. When you do this, you can experience success coming by itself. Having small, multidisciplinary teams focusing on overall goals is a success factor.
Data-driven and analytical focus
With growth teams, you get a more data-driven approach to growthSo let's say that this is the same thing as that. The team solves problems that allow stronger growth through a process of experimentation and analysisSo let's say that this is the same thing as that. Growth is therefore an analytical way of working. Through the structured experiments, the growth team contributes to the work being more performance oriented, proactive and structured. This, in turn, should lead to the observation of desired behaviour and action in the target population.
A difference between pure marketing and growth teams is that the growth team focuses on the whole of the fin. Marketing focuses on what you call aquisition, i.e. how to acquire customers through different channels. The aim of the market is to increase, inter alia, the proportion of leads, records and downloads. The Growth team on the other hand will focus solely on growth. The group is largely customer-centred and is trying to capture the value the business delivers to the customers. It focuses, among other things, on how customers find the business, whether they have a good first impression, whether they come back and, if necessary, tell you about you to others and how the business actually earns money. Consequently, Growth teams also have more influence on changing products offered by the company, because many different competences and responsibilities are integrated into a group.
What value do the growth teams have?
The purpose of growth teams is to increase the frequency of customers, ensure that customers return and increase revenues. This is done by optimising products and finding or creating new marketing channels.
Without a growth team, you get easily in situations where you spend a long time in implementing ideas, because different departments depend on each other without working together well enough. Growth teams allow bridges to be built internally within the organisation. This will increase the efficiency of implementation and will be encouraged by faster and stronger growth. Since the group is composed of different competences and professional knowledge, they must have the ability to understand reasons within a short time and consequently reduce their negative effects.
Success cannot be attributed to growth teams alone, but having this in place early will probably help accelerate growth. Yet you should not develop growth teams at all costs! If you focus on rapid growth too early, the probability of failure increases.
“Growth teams expand the value of, and custom base for a product that is already working through rapid, data-informed experimentation.“ – Josh Schwarzapel, Co-founder & CEO in Indie Money.
This definition of growth teams is quite important. It is pointless to establish growth teams before you have what you call product/market fit. This means that you are in a good market, with a product that can actually satisfy that market. You're developing growth teams to create further growth.
In addition, it is important to note that even growth teams cannot spell. One depends on what you are doing actually having a significant value for the market.
“No growth team in the world can grow something that has no value“ Javier Olivia, VP of Growth, Facebook.
Growth teams systematize growth
Growth is about systematizing growth. Commonly for large actors that achieve stable growth rapidly is that they systematize the processes around growth. This facilitates the incorporation of testing and malfunctioning into the organisation. When testing and error has a central place in methodology, you will be able to capture much more attractive growth channels sooner than you would otherwise.
Systematizing error removes much of the fear associated with it. This opens up again to approach its potential, and capitalize on the competitors does not dare to test. It's about drying out testing out something that you don't know works yet. One example of this is chatbots. Those who test this out now will be far ahead of those sitting on the fence and waiting for reports on how chatbots can be an attractive channel.
(Slackbot is the result of a growth team working strategically towards a growth area, and tested and failed in the course of the journey)
You need to find the growth area of your business
Growth is about finding its area to grow on. So you can make sure you focus on the things that actually matter most to the organization. You can get to a lot without really much effort. As long as you find the right things to focus on, growth is not really very complicated.
A good example of this is Tinder. For apps, it is usually downloads that are the most important variable for growth. And on the other hand, it's not necessarily this way. Tinder found that downloads were a poor growth variable for them, compared to that users should actually be able to find a partner. They thus performed a user testing, where they found a large group of women and a large group of men, where these downloaded and started using the app simultaneously. So they made sure that those who used the app would find potential matches right away.
OMA model + groups = growth teams
How can you succeed with growth if you do not have enough internal resources to do this? In many start-up establishments, it is felt that almost everyone is being responsible for growth. This can easily be less productive if it is not systematized. A very important factor is to ensure that the experimental framework and culture of growth are established early in the business. We do not know any Norwegian companies that are obviously investing in developing growth teams.
The OMA model
INEVO has implemented and tested the growth concept of multiple customers through: The OMA modelSo let's say that this is the same thing as that. The OMA is a “operational market assistant” and is an advisor and an operational resource with physical presence in businesses. At the same time, the person has his base in INEVO. In this way, the business is given an internal operator. This is intended to create closeness to and thereby deepen the insight into the business, which consequently contributes to the strengthening of growth.
Groups contribute to growth
Through its membership of INEVO, the OMA is supported by the professional environment of employees. When developing a growth team, you should gather those people who can quickly come up with ideas, implement them and evaluate them. In addition, all this shall be done at a high rate.
The Growth Team is therefore a multidisciplinary group of experts supporting the OMA. In addition, it is important that these have the right motivation to be part of the team. According to Yahoo, the main features of growth team members are that they are open-minded, have the ability to think independently and the ability to learn new things quickly. Therefore, INEVO ensures that it has the resources that are needed to represent its employees.
The Growth Team is designed with the right composition to meet the needs of the OMA and the company as best as possible. The Growth Team, or the Task Force, supports and strengthens the work of the OMA. It's just the multidisciplinary element that gives the professionals their strength. OMA and a professional group develop objectives in cooperation with the activities. Then enough time is dedicated to effectively conduct good project management and to ensure that everyone is focused on doing the right things. This will be a cooperation that will once again strengthen the digital needs of the company.
Analytical strength
It's important to focus on measurements. What can be measured can be easily handled. This is a better approach to growth than trying to implement absolutely everything you want. What inputs affect output, and to what extent? When you can quantify this, it's easier to figure out how factors affect multiple stages of your business.
Data are more available than before, and the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data is easier and faster. Increased input collection should lead to faster output. Good processes are required to quickly convert data to activities that are being carried out and evaluated. The ability to analyse and find patterns should be considered and therefore data should be converted into activities. The OMA and the Task Force are coming in and are providing more frequent implementation, where knowledge is also being continued internally in the business at a rapid pace.
The OMA model gives insight, and insight gives results
A central insight is to understand how to do a better job. OMA and the team work to improve the work of the OMA. You create a mutual relationship where the team follows up and helps OMA to ensure progress. At the same time, OMA works to carry out its activities at operational level and to provide sufficient information to the team. This is a good way to make decisions.
Internal influence is critical
In order to succeed, it is necessary that OMA and family enter the business. There must be room to take ownership of the work. Such a growth team should become a natural centre of the organisation, the same applies in this model. This is how you can learn about the challenges facing all departments and scale solutions to a new level.
It is prejudiced that leaders and other employees understand that a growth team may change their actions. Therefore, it is important that the OMA, with advice from the fagroup, allows for experiments and changes. This may be easier to achieve if there is an agreement that changes will only last if they deliver better results. If you don't go back to the way it was originally. The main thing is to report to a central person with internal influence and executive power.