A curated reading list of long-form articles by Ivan Marković, founder of Popcorns. The pieces below cover competency management, role architecture, job descriptions, performance management and recurring management mistakes — the same material that informs how Popcorns designs operating models today.
Long-form articles published on imanage.ch — the consultancy platform Ivan has been writing on for over a decade. These pieces explain the underlying ideas that the Popcorns Operating Model now operationalizes for scale-ups.
The basic misunderstanding of what job descriptions are for and how they should be structured. Sets up why role definition is an operating problem, not an HR formality.
By Ivan Marković · imanage.ch
The practical follow-up: guidelines for structuring job descriptions so they actually drive ownership, accountability and onboarding speed instead of sitting in a folder.
By Ivan Marković · imanage.ch
Competence is the ability to do something successfully and efficiently. The article walks through why competency management matters and how to use it without turning it into a generic framework. Long the most-read piece on imanage.ch.
By Ivan Marković · imanage.ch
An unconventional look at where managers most commonly fail — and how those failures map to weaknesses in the operating model rather than to individual performance.
By Ivan Marković · imanage.ch
How structured employee management systems change what an organization can absorb. Real examples of where the systems unlock capacity and where they only paper over operating model problems.
By Ivan Marković · imanage.ch
A short, direct take on what Human Resources actually is — and what 93% of respondents believe it is instead. Useful framing for leadership teams reconsidering how the people function should sit inside the operating model.
By Ivan Marković · imanage.ch
More recent pieces are published directly on LinkedIn and through external publications. They focus on what changes when growth, investor pressure or digital execution start exposing the limits of the existing operating setup.
A continuously updated stream covering founder dependence, role architecture, scale-up operating models and the introduction of digital roles into existing teams.
Author profile · LinkedIn
Guest pieces written as a contributing expert for Ecommerce Bridge EU, covering how operating model weaknesses show up inside scaling e-commerce businesses — particularly when founder bottlenecks turn an efficient sales engine into a brittle one.
By Ivan Marković · ecommercebridge.com
Direct answers to questions leadership teams typically ask before, during or after operating model work.
Ivan Marković publishes on imanage.ch (long-form articles on competency management, job descriptions, employee management systems and common management mistakes), on LinkedIn (recent thinking on operating model design, founder dependence and scale-up execution), and as a contributing expert on Ecommerce Bridge EU. The Thinking page on popcorns.ch curates the most relevant pieces for operating model work.
Popcorns turns these ideas into a working operating model: workstreams, role architecture, decision rights, performance rhythm and change discipline.