Commandos, Infantry, and Police

There are three types of people: commandos, infantry, and police.

Commandos go first in a new market and do lots of fast, impactful, and sometimes guerilla warfare to set up a beachhead before the enemy realizes. They work hard, fast, and cheap, though often with a low level of professionalism, which is okay because professionalism is expensive.

Grouping offshore as the commandos do their work is the second wave of soldiers, the infantry. Infantry comes in next in large numbers and needs systems and processes to coordinate across the larger team in that market. Commandos often don’t like the rules and all the administrative systems need to build the next phase of organization/campaign in that market.

Once the systems are in place, the police come in to maintain the status quo, and commandos and infantry are on their way to the next market. Police want to fuel growth not by planning more invasions and landing on more beaches but by adding people and building economies and empires of scale.

You really need all three groups through the lifecycle of a project.

Having the wrong group (commandos) at the wrong time (maintenance) can hurt you a lot more than it helps.