A one-page procedure
Written the way your team talks, not the way software talks.
Operations design for teams growing faster than their systems.
Your team’s busywork, rebuilt so it runs itself.
For companies of 20 to 200 people with one operations problem they've been meaning to fix.
I take the work your team does by hand inside a growing business and rebuild it so your team runs it with AI and the tools you already pay for. Four weeks to the first thing that holds. It ships when your team has run it without me.
A San Diego studio went from a 42-tab spreadsheet to asking one question and getting the answer, in four weeks. They signed for three more months.
01
You know the workflow.
Someone on your team spends most of their week copying the same information between five systems. Vendor calls that never get written down. The weekly emails, texts and pushes that one marketer builds by hand for three cities. Onboarding that happens in someone's inbox. You've tried AI tools, or you're about to. Nobody's had the time to make them do this.
02
Start where it hurts. Keep going until it holds.
I listen to everyone who touches the work, write down how it happens today, and rebuild it around an AI assistant your team will actually use (I work in Claude, and in whatever you already have): Google Workspace, Slack, your email platform, your spreadsheets. A person on your team still approves everything that leaves. Sensitive material never goes in. The assistant answers from your documents or says it doesn't know.
Everything I build ships with four things
An assistant your team can ask
It answers from your documents and cites them, or it says it doesn't know.
A named owner on your team
Someone who keeps it alive after I leave.
One number
Read before and after, so we both know whether it worked.
03
What it looks like when it's done.
Three screens from a vendor workflow I built for a creative studio. Names and projects are invented; the layout and the behavior are real.
The Roster
Roster · 512 of 512 · 3 approved this month
Mara Okonkwo
Designer
Approved“Book looks right, strong type.” · CD
Teo Lindqvist
Motion
Would work again“Fast, took notes without being asked.” · Producer
Priya Raman
Copywriter
Call held“Great on B2B, lighter on brand.” · CD
Jonah Reyes
Illustrator
Not a fit“Beautiful work, wrong register for this client.” · CD
Hana Sato
Art Director
Available now“Two campaigns with us, both on time.” · Producer
Felix Baumann
Developer
Contacted“Portfolio only, no call yet.” · Producer
What runs on its own
# vendor-ops · private
Ask it anything it has a document for
did we ever talk to Jonah Reyes, and what did we decide?
C
Yes. Jonah Reyes, illustrator. Contacted in March by Maya for the Harbor pitch; call held March 12. Verdict: not a fit, by the creative director: "beautiful work, wrong register for this client." Could fit other work: yes, editorial.
Source: Vendor Directory · Vendors row 214
what did we pay him?
C
That lives in the producers' contracts sheet by design. Ask a producer.
Current work
The studio contacted about a hundred vendors a month and approved one in five. Nobody wrote down why. Their vendor history lived in a 42-tab spreadsheet, an abandoned CRM and two people's inboxes. Four weeks later, the whole studio can ask the assistant "did we ever talk to this person, and what did we decide," and get the answer with the reason. Reminders and closure steps run on their own in Slack. The studio signed on for three more months at week four.
One marketer builds every email, text and push notification for three cities by hand. The sprint on the table: she types "Tuesday, volleyball," the week's messages draft themselves in her voice, and she approves before anything sends. The goal is four or five cities per marketer instead of three, without the next hire.
04
Four weeks, then month to month.
Foundation Sprint
Four weeks · $8,500, fixedWeek one I listen and audit. Week two we agree on the design and the data boundaries. Weeks three and four we build it and your team runs it for real. Friday of week four we decide together whether it held. If it didn't, we stop there.
Fixed price. If it doesn't hold by Friday of week four, we stop and you keep what was built.
Build Retainer
Month to month · $6,000/monthThe next thing on the list each month, plus keeping what's live alive. Cancel with two weeks' notice.
05
Questions I get on the first call.
- What does the AI see?
- Only what we agree it sees, in writing, in week one. HR, passwords, contracts and finance stay out. Each client's material stays in its own project. I show you the exact settings before anything is connected.
- Do we need to buy new tools?
- No. An AI assistant plus what you already pay for. I work in Claude; if a workflow truly needs a new platform, that is a conversation we have on purpose, not a default.
- How much of our time does it take?
- Two to four hours a week from the people who do the work, and one decision-maker who answers Slack.
- What does it cost?
- The sprint is $8,500, fixed, for four weeks. The retainer is $6,000 a month after that, month to month. No hourly billing, no surprise invoices.
06
Who I am.
I'm Elizabeth Field DiGiovanni. I spent fifteen years building the systems that help large organizations learn and operate, most recently leading learning and operations readiness for WhatsApp's operations teams at Meta, and before that running knowledge management for Trust & Safety at TikTok across twenty-plus markets. I have built this inside companies of seventy thousand people. I now build it for companies of thirty, which is more fun and moves faster. I also coach a small number of people through job searches and career changes, drawing on years on the hiring side. I live in Los Angeles with my husband and two small children and I write about ambition and motherhood at from the desk of efd on Substack.
Fifteen years building learning and knowledge systems at Meta, TikTok and WhatsApp
Los Angeles · Also: Parcel Air, The Selection Bureau
I write about ambition, motherhood and building things at from the desk of efd on Substack.
Tell me about the workflow.
Thirty minutes. Bring the one thing your team does by hand that you wish it didn't. If I can't help, I'll say so on the call.
Book a call