Walks on West Cliff

A Work in Progress – Building Agility into Hardware Operations

Getting to West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz was not in the cards, so I met Orla Lucey, a former client from August Home (now Fortune Brands Innovations), over a delicious lunch at Cascal in Mountain View. During our lunch, she shared insights on what it really takes to guide high tech hardware companies through the challenges of rapid growth and execution from a VP of Operations perspective.

Insights from Orla:

There’s no one-size-fits-all operations playbook for hardware product realization. Every new company is a unique work in progress, and the best operators know which levers to pull for each customer.

When developing products, Agile frameworks and AI checklists can provide structure, but good judgment is the edge: this means tailoring your plan to the specific product, market, and team in front of you. Hardware products have longer lead times, which creates opportunities. Strong operators use this time to build greater resilience, flexibility, and agility into the process so surprises can be absorbed without derailing schedules.

At the root of it all is communication, and for me, that means being:

🧐 Curious: Every mix of teams, products, and partners is unique. Listening first builds trust and context.
💙 Empathetic: Understand the pressures that founders, employees, and partners face. Distill what the strengths, the gaps, the tradeoffs that matter most.
🦁 Courageous: Ask the hard questions about fit, budgets, and schedules so decisions are honest and executable.

As a senior Operations consultant, I don’t always know the team before I’m asked to add value. Staying curious, empathetic, and courageous is how I help clients move faster with fewer surprises.

👉 Now its your turn: How do you build agility into hardware operations?