Internal tools for small teams

It comes up on almost every project, usually later than it should. Most advice about internal tools assumes a team that does not exist at your size. Here is the version that does not.

Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

What to keep

The spreadsheet everyone fears is a specification. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.

What to drop

Process that exists to coordinate ten people is overhead when there are two of you. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly.

Where to start

Time saved compounds every single week. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

The short version

Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. Three things worth confirming about internal tools before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Time saved compounds every single week — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you are not sure where your systems currently stand on this, it takes us about an hour to find out.