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Senpai artifact 01Diagnostic

What is your company systems index?

A company is the part of the work that keeps happening when the people who normally do it are not there. This measures how much of yours does.

41 capabilities across eight domains, and one question against each of them:does it run without you. Not whether it exists. Not whether you understand it. Whether somebody else could use it today without asking you how.

About six minutes. Senpai scores 31, and how we got to that number is written up in Field note 03, Building a company operating system.

Your index0/100
0 of 41 answered
NothingIt does not exist in any form.
Written downSpecified with the reasoning attached. Someone could build it from the document.
BuiltIt exists and it works. Nobody uses it regularly yet.
RunningIn regular use, producing output, without you. Could someone else use it today without asking you how?

ADirection and identity

Decides what the company is for, what it will not do, and where it is going, so people can act without asking.

Fails when Every judgement call routes back to the founder, because quality is their taste and taste cannot be delegated.

Ethos and valuesHold a line when holding it costs money
Positioning and voiceSay what the company is the same way every time
Canonical historyOne account of where this came from that everyone can point at
Goals and planningWhat we are trying to hit this year, and by when
Decision recordWhat was decided, why, and what would reverse it

BDemand and growth

Makes work arrive on purpose instead of by luck, from people you have not met yet.

Fails when The pipeline goes quiet, and by the time it is obvious you are negotiating from weakness.

Marketing and contentMake a stranger understand what you do and why it matters
Business development and partnershipsReach people through organisations that already have their trust
Sales process and pipelineTurn an interested person into a signature, the same way each time
Grants, tenders and proposalsBid for money that arrives as a programme instead of a client
Nurture and follow-upStay useful to someone who is not ready yet

CDelivery and client service

Turns a signed thing into a delivered thing, at a standard, repeatably, and keeps it working afterwards.

Fails when The first project goes fine because the founder did it, the third slips, and nobody can say why.

Intake and qualificationDecide fast whether to take the job at all
Scoping, pricing and proposalsTurn a problem into a price without improvising
Delivery methodHow a team builds the thing, the same way twice
Quality and reviewA named person checks the work before it leaves
Handover and post-delivery supportWhat happens in month four

DPeople and talent

Finds people, grows them, decides who is good at what, and pays them, without that judgement living in one memory.

Fails when A good person leaves and a capability leaves with them.

Recruiting and vettingFind people and decide on evidence who gets in
Onboarding and inductionTurn an accepted person into one who knows how things work here
Roles and responsibilitiesWho may do what, enforced by the system
Performance and reviewReviewed work producing a score attached to a person
ProgressionA visible path from claimed skill to proven one, earned not granted
Compensation and offboardingHow people get paid or own a piece, and how they leave

EMoney and finance

Knows what you charge, what you are owed, what you have, and how long it lasts.

Fails when You run out, or you never knew you were going to, because nothing was counting.

Pricing and rate cardDecide what you charge once, not per conversation
Invoicing and collectionsGet the money you are owed, on time
Bookkeeping and accountsKeep a record of what came in and what went out
Payments to peoplePay contractors properly, with tax deducted and remitted
Capital and runwayKnow how long you last

FEvidence and knowledge

Makes what you did checkable by a stranger, and keeps what you learned where the next person can find it.

Fails when Years of real results you cannot prove, so every new conversation starts from zero.

Documentation practiceEvery job leaves behind the artifact showing the thinking
Case studies and publishingTurn finished work into something a stranger can check
Impact and outcome trackingSet targets in advance, including the point you call it a failure
Analytics and measurementKnow what people actually do on your own surfaces
Knowledge bankA library people can learn from without asking the founder

GGovernance and risk

Keeps the company legal, insurable, and able to survive a dispute or a bad month.

Fails when One unreviewed contract or unconfirmed obligation, and a company with no buffer stops existing.

Legal entityA registered company that can sign, hold, and be held to account
Published policiesRules people agree to, recorded, not assumed
Contracts and templatesPaper that survives a dispute
Compliance, tax and insuranceThe obligations that end you quietly if ignored
Risk and continuityBackups, a tested restore, and a register of what you own

HInfrastructure and technology

The systems everything else runs on, and the ability to get them back.

Fails when It stops working and nobody can restart it, or it comes back without the data.

Core systemsThe software the business actually runs on
Deployment and releaseShip a change without ceremony or downtime
Identity and accessProve who someone is, on every request
Hosting and environmentsServers that stay up and cost what you expect
Backup, recovery and asset registerGet everything back after the worst day

→Your breakdown

The score is yours either way, and it is on screen already. Which of the eight domains is holding you back, and what to do about it, is what the email is for.

We keep the email and we do not sell it. If you pick the last option nobody will follow up about buying anything.

↓How this was built

This is the first artifact Senpai has published, and it was built in the open. Each note below was written while the work was happening, not afterwards.

  1. Field note 02The company systems indexA company is the part of the work that keeps happening without you. To find out whether we have one, I listed the machinery: 41 capabilities across eight domains, and what each one has to do. Senpai scores 29 out of 100.
  2. Field note 03Building a company operating systemLast note I scored us at 29 and said Demand was the constraint. So I built the demand system. Here is what I looked at first, the documents it came from, the order it got built in, and what it actually does. It is live, the score moved to 31, and you can log into it.