Which comes first—process or roles? It’s the chicken-and-egg question every growing company faces, and most get it wrong.

In this episode of Ops or Die, hosts Maria Pienaar and Katie Whitcraft of ScaleSpark sit down with Belle Walker, founder of Belleview Consulting, to challenge the framing entirely. Belle brings a mechanical systems engineering background to operations strategy, and she argues that the real answer isn’t “one before the other”—it’s an iterative loop where both must evolve together.

The conversation digs into real-world case studies: a nursing staffing company that spent weeks trying to document an onboarding process before realizing nobody actually owned it, and a mobile carrier whose bloated 10-screen signup flow was redesigned to three screens—driving a 30% increase in signups overnight.

Along the way, the trio tackles red flags that signal broken ops thinking (like defaulting to what’s “easy” instead of what’s impactful), the dangerous gap between titles and actual roles, and why the word “just” should set off alarm bells in any operations conversation.

Whether you’re a founder building your first ops function or a seasoned COO navigating rapid growth, this episode gives you a practical lens for diagnosing whether your friction is a role problem, a process problem, or—most likely—both.

Key Takeaways:

– Process and roles are iterative, not sequential—start where you get the most leverage

– Use the STOP framework (Stop, Think, Organize, Plan) before jumping into operational changes

– Titles don’t define roles—unclear ownership is one of the fastest paths to dysfunction

– Involve stakeholders early; the people living in the process see problems leadership can’t

– Revisit your ops structure every 6–12 months as you scale

Guest: Belle Walker, Belleview Consulting – belleviewconsulting.com

Hosts: Maria Pienaar & Katie Whitcraft

Theme music by Min Tran | Editing by Troubleshoot Productions

Learn more at scalespark.ai