Getting started with internal tools
The version of this that works is simpler than the version most people imagine. A short on-ramp to internal tools for teams who have not touched it before.
Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.
What is actually at stake
The spreadsheet everyone fears is a specification. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.
Your first week
- Find out what is already in place
- Internal tools rarely need to be beautiful, but they must be reliable
- Change one thing and measure it
Time saved compounds every single week. The teams that handle this well are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.
In practice
Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. Three things worth confirming about internal tools before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Internal tools rarely need to be beautiful, but they must be reliable — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
If any of that sounds like a description of your current setup, it is fixable.