FIND with TEAM WAKEMAN
The 14 day operational diagnostic that shows you exactly what’s blocking scale and how to fix it
Find is our proven 262 point diagnostic audit that examines your business across three critical dimensions:
People – how your organisation is designed, how roles are defined and whether your team is set up to operate with autonomously to execute without founder dependency.
Practices – how work actually flows through your business, where decisions get stuck, how processes and knowledge are codified and where friction is really slowing things down.
Technology – how your tools support or sabotage your operations, where data lives, what’s creating unnecessary complexity and using automation and AI where it counts.
Unlike generic business audits that take months and only deliver theory, Find is built for founder-led scale-ups that need operational clarity now – not another 100 slide deck.
We give you super sharp operational clarity: a clear diagnosis of what’s actually holding you back, the root causes behind that and a prioritised roadmap to fix them.
HELPING FOUNDERS
Operational leadership and support for founders
Our 2025 research showed 82% of founder-led businesses never diagnose what is wrong so they end up solving the wrong problems. Our proven diagnostic will give you the answer to the things you actually need to fix to finally grow with predictability.
You’ve got the business this far
but now it feels impossible to run.
We work with founders like you who have pushed hard to get this far. Revenue is going up, your team is growing and it feels like opportunities are everywhere around you.
But behind the scenes, things are hard:
It feels like you’re pulled into every decision, every fire and every problem.
Your team keeps coming to you for answers instead of fixing things.
You’ve hired good people, but the business still doesn’t run without you.
Systems that worked before are breaking now, but there’s no time to sort them out.
Most founders we work with know something needs to change, but they can’t pinpoint exactly what that is and where to start. And hiring more people or buying more tools isn’t the answer, because the problem isn’t what they’re doing. It’s how their businesses operate as systems.
Stop guessing. Start knowing, fast.
Most founders waste months and sometimes even years in trial-and-error mode, implementing frameworks like EOS or Scaling Up that don’t stick, hiring expensive people that don’t solve the real problem or optimising individual business functions while the whole system breaks. But in reality they’re chasing symptoms instead of fixing root causes.
We designed Find to eliminate the guesswork. In just seven days, you’ll get a comprehensive operational diagnostic that assesses your business operating system across three key areas:
People
- Leadership: How decisions get made, founder dependency levels, strategic focus
- Team: Organisational structure, role clarity, management capability, scalability
- Culture: Values definition, cultural embedding, how culture scales with growth
Practices
- Organisational basics: Sync cadence, decision-making, processes, goal-setting
- Go-to-market: Qualification, scoping, pricing, sales-to-delivery handover
- Delivery: Methodology, project planning, quality assurance, risk management
- Client management: Relationship management, portfolio oversight, account growth
- Resource management: Capacity planning, utilisation tracking, allocation processes
- Operations: Time tracking, operational metrics, risk management
- People management: Performance management, development, reward frameworks
Technology
- Technology basics: Strategy, integration, automation, AI readiness, security
- Data: Data architecture, quality, security and automation
- Domain systems: CRM, agency management, production tools, HR systems, reporting
Find considers the importance for each area (“how critical is this for reaching your target scale?”), the current proficiency level (“how mature is your current capability?”) and the urgency to address the gaps that are identified (0-3 months, 3-6 months or 6-12 months).
The Team Wakeman promise
You’ll know exactly what’s broken and how to fix it.
In 14 days, you’ll have complete operational clarity.
We don’t do vague recommendations or generic frameworks. You’ll get:
- Precision diagnosis – we’ll identify the three or four critical constraints actually blocking your growth, not a laundry list of everything that could be better.
- Root cause clarity – we’ll help you understand why these problems exist and why previous attempts to fix them haven’t worked.
- A roadmap you can action – prioritised, sequenced and practical. You’ll know what to do first, what can wait and why.
- Our honest operator perspective – we’ve built and scaled businesses ourselves. We’ll tell you what we’d actually do if this were our business, not what looks good in a consultant’s report.
If we can’t identify the clear and actionable constraints that are genuinely holding you back, we’ll give you a full refund or work with you until you’re clear on how to move forward.
What you’ll receive.
Find gives you everything you need to move from operational chaos to clarity:
Comprehensive diagnostic report
Expert COO 90 minute founder debrief
Team briefing session for buy-in
Founder 30 day follow-up call
Your diagnostic report includes:
- Key themes analysis – the six to eight critical patterns that are really holding your business back, explained in plain language with real implications for your growth highlighted.
- Operational overview dashboard – easy-to-read visual scoring across all 13 operational capabilities showing where you’re strong and where critical gaps exist.
- Our priority recommendations – we highlight the three or four highest-impact changes to make first, supported by clear rationale and expected outcomes when you have implemented them.
- Detailed capability assessment – every operational element is scored for importance and proficiency, with current state observations from our interviews and documentation review, the specific implications if left unaddressed, actionable recommendations with implementation guidance and our suggested timing based on impact and feasibility.
- A 90 day action roadmap – a sequenced implementation plan showing what to tackle first, what can wait and how improvements build on each other.
Real examples of what Find reveals
Leadership & founder dependency
“Leadership is highly centralised with most strategic and many operational decisions needing founder input or approval. While this has served the business well so far, it creates bottlenecks and limits ability to move quickly.“
Implication: Growth constraints – founder-centric decision-making will increasingly constrain growth as the founders cannot be involved in every decision.
Recommendation: Establish operational leadership team with clear role accountabilities and decision rights using DACI framework.
Delivery processes
“Project delivery methodology is informal and varies by project and team. There is no standardised methodology with each project team figuring out their own approach. Project planning is often reactive with detailed planning happening only after projects start.”
Implication: Inconsistent client experience and unpredictable project profitability. Current informal approaches won’t scale.
Recommendation: Define standard delivery methodology with project planning templates, QA checkpoints, and weekly project governance.
Resource management
“Resource allocation is reactive and not clearly owned, happening in response to immediate project needs. There is minimal forward visibility into resource demand and availability based on pipeline and project schedules.”
Implication: Profitability impact – suboptimal resource utilisation directly impacts gross margins. Underutilisation means you’re paying for capacity that isn’t generating revenue.
Recommendation: Implement resource management system with utilisation targets, four week forward forecast and weekly work allocation review with project managers.
Who is Find designed for?
Find is designed specifically for UK-based founders and co-founders of scale-up businesses who:
Are generating £2m-£20m in revenue
Have grown to 20-100+ employees
Feel trapped by operational complexity
Know hiring hasn’t solved the problem
Are sceptical of consultants who haven’t operated businesses
Want objective data on what’s actually broken – not vague advice
Are ready to build a business operating system that removes founder bottlenecks
Need clarity fast – not a three month consulting project
Frequent questions from founders about Find
Yes. At Team Wakeman we’ve refined this diagnostic over dozens of engagements. Fourteen days is enough to assess 270+ elements, conduct 8-12 interviews, review documentation, identify patterns and deliver actionable insights – without dragging out the process unnecessarily or disrupting your operations.
They span 12 operational capabilities across people, practices, and technology:
People: Leadership, team structure, culture
Practices: Organisational basics, GTM, delivery, client management, resource management, operations, people management
Technology: Technology basics, domain-specific systems
Each capability contains multiple elements (for example delivery includes methodology, planning, quality assurance, stakeholder management, reporting). You’ll see the full breakdown with scoring in your report.
Find doesn’t implement a framework – it diagnoses what’s actually broken in your business first.
Most founders jump straight to implementing EOS, Scaling Up or similar systems without understanding their specific constraints. They end up forcing a generic framework onto problems they haven’t properly identified.
Find gives you the operational intelligence to know what needs fixing and why before you commit to any solution. Think of it this way: EOS and Scaling Up are prescriptions. Find is the diagnostic that tells you what you’re actually treating.
After Find, you might implement elements of these frameworks but you’ll do it strategically to solve specific problems you have.
There are three reasons why Find is different:
- We’ve operated businesses, not just advised them. We’ve been the founder trapped in operational chaos, the COO fixing broken systems and on the leadership team trying to scale without structure. We know what works because we’ve built it, not theorised about it.
- Find is rapid diagnosis, not a discovery phase. Consultant reviews are often vague and open-ended. Find assesses 262 specific operational elements across a proven methodology. You get scored and evidenced data not subjective opinions.
- Find delivers in seven days. Many consultant engagements can drag on for months before you get clarity. We’re designed for founders who need to move fast.
There’s no obligation whatsoever.
Find is a standalone diagnostic that gives you a comprehensive report, detailed debriefs, prioritised recommendations and a 90-day roadmap. What you do with it is entirely up to you.
Some clients take the roadmap and implement it themselves with their internal team. Others use it to hire a COO or Head of Operations with a clear brief. Some come back to us for hands-on support through our Improve sprints.
Here’s how clients typically use Find:
- DIY implementation: if you have the capability and capacity internally and just needed clarity on what to fix first
- Hiring brief: You use the diagnostic to write a job spec for a senior operational hire who knows exactly what they’re walking into and what to do first
- Ongoing partnership: You want hands-on support to build the systems and embed the changes (that’s where our Improve sprint comes in)
The 30 day follow-up call is included regardless of which path you choose. The goal of Find is to give you clarity and direction not to lock you into a long consulting engagement.
Founded by experienced COO Simon Wakeman, Team Wakeman builds and runs business operating systems for founders who feel trapped by operational chaos.
Our team includes fractional COOs and specialist consultants with deep expertise in one or more of the capabilities within a business operating system.
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We promise there’s no fluff and no generic advice. Just tactical, systems-first thinking from people who have built and scaled operations, not just read about it.
