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Parachute Technology is a California-based managed IT service provider. As one of the few SOC-2, Type 2 certified providers in the U.S., they make it their mission to partner closely with their clients to provide managed IT services that feel in-house. The Parachute team prides itself on being responsive and best-in-class for their clients.
As the team has scaled, they’ve relied on EOS® to provide a framework to streamline and grow their operations. While they started out using Ninety.io as their EOS® platform, they made the switch to Strety this year, and have been able to deepen their organization’s engagement with EOS®.
We spoke to Mark Lukehart, Parachute’s COO, about his team’s journey with EOS® and Strety, and why a business operating system is a crucial part of how they run their business.
How long has your team been running your business on EOS®?
We've been using EOS® since about 2020. We had a facilitator, and up until this year, we've been using it mainly at the executive level. Within the past year, we’ve pushed it down to the management team and to all the departments.
Why did your executive team decide to implement EOS®?
What we like about EOS® is that it’s basically organized common sense. To run a business, you need to have a goal, you need to make milestones — have rocks, essentially, to meet the goal. Issues come up on the way toward your goals, and you need to solve the issues.
It's been very valuable in how we organize and prioritize our company's initiatives. Since starting with EOS®, we've gotten much better at saying no. I think the key thing has been helping us stay organized and keeping priorities in line.
What makes EOS® such a valuable business operating system for your team?
Especially for the small businesses where things are happening quickly, EOS® really helps you on a quarterly basis to be nimble. You have annual goals as well, that will be more high level, but you can pivot relatively quickly and keep the whole team moving. I think it's especially common in small businesses that people wear multiple hats. When you’re multitasking so much, sometimes you can look up two quarters later and realize, “Oh, crap, I really haven't done anything to improve the company. I'm kind of just doing tasks all day long. I haven't really done anything to move the needle to make the company better.”
For us, that's what Traction does: it forces you to sit down once a quarter and come up with a handful of rocks that are actually going to move this company forward. And let's prioritize those. Let's designate them as rocks, and let's try to get them done this quarter. So then you look back at the prior year and you say, “Oh, hey, we actually had a pretty impressive year. We did a lot at the executive level.” And all of these teams had rocks, and they've been making progress too.
“If you're not organized, not thoughtful, not strategic, and you don't have good priority setting, you’re going to run into problems. You're probably going to be doing a little bit of everything, so nothing really gets done. And you might not even get much of anything tangible done, because you're just doing the day to day tasks of the business and not really working on the business.”
The whole process of the EOS®, is very thoughtful, including the people and performance management aspects. It’s so helpful to adopt the mindset of getting the right person in the right seat. We adopted the clean slate mentality — focusing first on how the organization should be optimally structured and how accountability should flow. Along with the scorecards, it all comes together to essentially give you a roadmap of how to best run a business.
How did you organize your EOS implementation?
When we first started with EOS®, we were using a combination of spreadsheets and tickets, which was pretty clunky. Pretty early on, we started with Ninety.io. Then this year, we started with Strety.
What made you decide to check out Strety as a Ninety.io alternative?
I’ve known of Brian Dosal (Strety’s co-founder and CEO) from BrightGauge and MSP conferences over the years. I’d been really impressed with what he and the team did with BrightGauge, and I knew that whatever tool he was going to be developing would be top notch. We got in on some of the early demos and it’s just amazing how much the platform has improved over the past six months.
“One of the biggest things about Strety for us is the Microsoft Teams integration, since we are a Microsoft shop. We do use the web app a lot as well, but it’s just nice that it’s in Teams. The interface is also really nice. It’s just cleaner and easier to use in meetings.”
How was your switch to Strety?
The onboarding team did a great job transferring our data from Ninety.io to Strety. Overall, it was a pretty seamless process. We got all of our data over and with minimal hiccups.
How has your team adjusted to using Strety versus Ninety.io?
It was easy because Strety is totally intuitive. Brian even came to one of our all-hands meetings and gave a quick demo for everyone before we went live. Even new employees pick it up right away. You really don’t need much training.
Has anything changed about your EOS® implementation with Strety as your tool?
When we were in Ninety.io, we were just using EOS® at the executive level. Now in Strety, we have pushed it out across the organization. The ease of use of Strety has allowed us to push it across not only the executive level, but also into the department and individual levels. So we have now taken our EOS® implementation from a team of six executives to an organization of over seventy people.
Are you using any of the features outside of running EOS® in Strety?
We are using the 1:1 meetings tool across the organization. Prior to this, we’d been using our HR system, Paylocity, for one on ones. The transition from Paylocity to Strety for one on ones has been seamless so far.
What else have you noticed in running EOS® since you switched from Ninety.io to Strety?
It seems that the little things are a lot easier, whether it’s running a meeting or cascading issues into other teams. It’s also just more fun — the GIF at the end of the meeting, and the voting and interaction during the meeting. Overall, it’s a nice, clean interface and a more enjoyable way to incorporate EOS® into our organization.
Any advice for other business owners and operators interested in running EOS® or another business operating system?
I think you’ve got to use a business operating system, and you can’t just use Excel spreadsheets.
“You’ve got to use a platform for your business operating system, and I think Strety is a best-in-class platform to be using. After trying a couple of them, I believe Strety is hands-down the best one.”
And we’ve been really impressed with the leadership team at Strety. It’s a quickly evolving tool, and a great way for our business to run EOS®.
Thanks, Mark! To learn more about Parachute and their award-winning managed IT services, visit the Parachute Technology website. If you’re interested in test-driving Strety for your business operating system, start a free trial here. To learn more directly from the Strety team, book time here.
