Operations & Business Systems
I build the reporting, workflows, and systems teams run on, then test them, write down how they run, and get people actually using them.
Illustrative dashboard. Figures reflect real results.
[ 01 ] What I do
I sit between the people asking the questions and the systems that hold the answers, and I make the handoff clean.
Reports and dashboards built around the questions leaders actually ask. The hard part is the question. The tool is where you answer it.
The tools underneath the work. I design them, get them built, test them, and write down how they run.
Getting people onto a new system and keeping them there. I test it before release, train the people who have to use it, write what they work from, then measure where it is not landing.
[ 02 ] Selected work
Most operations work sits behind a login, so you have to take a candidate's word for it. These you can try yourself.
Operations tool · Self-directed build
I asked a former colleague what problem was worth solving, and built the answer. Plumb carries improvement work from intake through resolution. Sites enter their numbers, goals get tracked against targets, and metrics that fall off track get paired with recommended actions from a playbook. I specified the features and the access model, and proved the approach with a small working version first. Then I directed the AI-assisted build one layer at a time, testing each layer myself before adding the next, and wrote the documentation that goes with it.
The demo runs on invented data inside your browser and touches nothing real. Use the bar at the top to switch between Administrator, Regional staff, and Site staff, and watch what each one is allowed to see.
Performance framework · Rebuilt as a demo
The 6-tier improvement scale I built for a national nonprofit with 30+ sites. One annual target becomes a monthly pace a site can act on, and wherever a site lands it gets written guidance instead of a color code. This page rebuilds the framework so it can be looked at.
Invented organization, invented sites, invented numbers. Nothing from the original data appears here. Change the month or the year-to-date total and watch a site move between tiers.
[ 03 ] About
My work sits between operations, reporting, and implementation. I turn what a team needs into reporting they trust, workflows that fit how they already work, and documentation people follow.
I spent a decade at a national workforce-development nonprofit and rose through 6 roles there, the last 6 years running its reporting and business systems for program, regional, and executive teams across 30+ sites. That taught me how to get consistency across a spread-out organization without losing sight of the people doing the work. I also ran the vendor review that moved employment verification to a new provider and cut a five-figure monthly cost to a few hundred dollars.
The part I keep coming back to is the rollout. A new tool only counts once people are actually using it, and getting there is training, and documentation people follow, and measurement honest enough to show where it is not landing. That is the work whether the tool is a CRM or an AI assistant. Lately that tool is AI. Plumb is how I learned it, by building something real in it.
Today I work on contract for a small business, doing the same things: reporting, workflow design, systems, and implementation support.
[ 04 ] Toolkit
What I do
Where I have done it
The work does not change much when the tool does. I have built reporting in Salesforce, in Google Sheets, and in Excel, and automations in Apps Script, Zapier, Make, and n8n. When something new comes up, I learn it by building something real in it.
[ 05 ] Where this matters most
The best version of this job is when the reporting gets easier and more of the week goes back to whatever the organization actually exists to do. I learned that in workforce development, where every hour spent wrestling a spreadsheet was an hour not spent with a participant. It holds anywhere the mission is the point.
[ 06 ] How I work
Sit with the people asking. Find the real question under the request.
Match it to the data, the access model, and what the system can report on.
Set it up and check it against the requirements before anyone sees it.
Run UAT with the people who will use it. Log and fix what comes up.
Write it down so the next person, including future me, is not guessing.
[ 07 ] Contact
Helping teams adopt new tools, or building the reporting and workflows underneath them. Remote, hybrid, or New York City. I have spent most of my career in mission-driven work and that is still where I do my best work.
rodney@rodneyjohn.com