Project Background
Meta's Ads Manager operations team is under pressure from SMB advertisers who are reporting delayed campaign performance data and inconsistent billing reconciliation in Ads Manager. At the same time, leadership wants to launch a new internal automation workflow in Meta's Business Support tooling to reduce manual case handling by 30% before the next quarterly business review.
You are the Operations Manager leading a 12-person cross-functional team: 5 operations specialists, 3 engineers, 1 data analyst, 1 product manager, 1 QA lead, and 1 vendor manager. You have 10 weeks to improve current operational performance while still delivering the automation launch. The project matters because reporting reliability is affecting advertiser trust and support volume, while the automation initiative is part of a longer-term efficiency strategy.
Key Stakeholders
The Director of Business Operations wants immediate reduction in advertiser escalations this quarter. The Product Manager for Ads Manager wants to avoid delaying the automation roadmap. Engineering wants to limit scope to protect platform stability. The Vendor Operations lead wants clearer workflows before shifting work away from manual support.
Constraints
- Budget: $180,000 remaining this half
- Timeline: 10 weeks to show measurable impact
- Team capacity: no new headcount; engineering can dedicate only 1.5 FTE for the first 4 weeks
- Dependencies: automation requires integration with 2 internal Meta systems and legal review for updated support macros
- Current baseline: 14% of advertiser support cases tied to reporting confusion; average case resolution time is 38 hours
Complications
- A senior engineer supporting the automation workflow is also assigned to a high-priority Instagram incident rotation for the next 3 weeks.
- Sales leadership is pushing for an immediate advertiser-facing commitment on reporting improvements before root causes are fully validated.
- Early analysis suggests 40% of support volume may be solved with process fixes rather than product changes.
Your Task
- Build a 10-week execution plan balancing short-term operational fixes with the longer-term automation launch.
- Define what you would ship now versus defer, and explain the trade-offs.
- Identify stakeholder alignment steps and escalation points.
- Propose success metrics for both near-term business relief and long-term operational efficiency.
- Outline the top risks, mitigation plans, and launch readiness criteria.
