Operations Manager Checklist

Open Culture

• Can the person use a wiki to document materials?
• Does the person's position on patenting GVCS designs?
• Does the person publish early and often?

Motivation

• Why are you interested in applying?
• Have you done any community service and humanitarian service?
• How far are you in terms of hacker culture?

Company Culture

• Does the person believe in post-scarcity?
• Does the person believe in working openly?
• Tell me your thoughts on: Responsibility - Working Openly - Transparency - Honor - Diligence - Focus - Drive and Ambition - Abundance - Lifelong learning - Performance Development.
• Can you be a team player? Can you lead? How do you tell the difference between occasions for following versus leading?

Fabrication/Design/Technical

• Have you written Scopes of Work? Show an example.
• Have you written or developed Product Specifications? Show an example.
• What experience do you have in Physical Production, ie, non-office, non-management role? The trades, agriculture, woodworking, fabrication, crafts?
• What experience does the person have in product design?

Operations

• Have you ever organized a special event?

Org Structure

• What do you think of our Org Chart? Is reporting and responsibility clear from the chart?
• If other executive team members report to you and you report to me, what are some things to keep in mind for communication to be effective?
• How would you go about building an effective process for team communication?

Web

• What do you think of our web presence?

Startups

• Have you started your own enterprise?
• Have you partnered with someone to start an enterprise?

Project Management

• Have you been trained in Operations Management?
• Have you managed an organization? How long? What size of organization? What issues did you run into?
• Does the person have an MBA?
• What project management software do you use?
• Did you ever manage an office?
• What would you ideally outsource for our organization in terms of various necessary operations/financial/legal compliance/other duties, and which would you keep in house?
• What is the limit of the number of tasks that you can manage effectively? How many different ongoing tasks have you managed personally?
• How do you know when you are reaching your limit of the number of tasks you can track/manage effectively?

Finances - Corporations - Organizations - Request for Proposals

• Comfort in negotiating legal and financial structuring of organizations?
• Did you ever publish a request for bids? How do you see this applying in this work?
• Did you ever publish a job announcement? Where did you publish?
• What is your experience with budgeting?
• Describe the process by which you examine monthly budgets. What do you look for?
• How would you go about setting up a for-profit branch on top of a nonprofit organization?
• Describe to me how you would report the monthly budget to me so that I could understand whether there are any errors/omissions/performance losses/

Protocols

• Show an example of enterprise protocols, operations handbooks that you have written.
• Can you send me a link to an operations templates that we can use?
• Can you write an operations handbook to the level of detail that if you disappear, another operations manager could take off where you left off without any training?

Recruiting

• Talent search and contracting talent will be an ongoing issues. How would you go about a search for technical talent?
• What is the first thing you look for in a new hire?

Engineering experience is a plus Willingness use Linux computer platform for OSE-related work

Contracts - Negotiation - Bids

• Did you negotiate contracts? Do you have a template that you typically work from?
• Have you negotiated sensitive situations? What was your approach?
• How would you know whether a contract is executable and measurable if you do not have technical competence on the task being described?
• How can you tell whether a scope of work is not too small or not too large for a person that you have no track record with?

Learning and Creativity

• Demonstrate how you can learn new skills?
• Show the best example of your problem-solving ability

Fundraising

• What is the largest amount of money that you fundraised?

Documentation

• Have you produced process/company documentation? Can you provide a sample?

Facility Management

• Have you managed a campus or facility of any sort?
• Is so, how did you execute on the necessary tasks?
• How would you know if additional infrastructure or improvements are necessary for our facility?

Construction

• Have you managed any construction projects? What challenges did you face and how did you solve them? What issues were you not able to solve?
• Have you been involved hands-on in construction?
• How did you deal with delays and cost overruns?

Production Management

• Have you managed production runs? Of what? Describe your experience?
• Have you managed supply chains? What was your greatest challenge?

PR

• Have you managed the publicity for any campaign? How did you do it and what were your results?
• Have you designed flyers or posters?
• Have you written speech or video scripts?

Communication Skills

• Have you interviewed people for jobs or positions? Can I see the questionnaire that you used?
• Illustrate a successful example of how you dealt with a personnel issue.
• Illustrate a not-so-successful example of how you dealt with a personnel issue.

Conflict Resolution Skills

• Do you have formal training in conflict resolution?
• What techniques do you use in conflict resolution?
• Show an example of a successful and not-so-successful conflict resolution session that you guided.

Links

• Interview Questions Template
• Character Brief as basis for Company Description