Having earned the trust of the executives as someone who shared their urgency and high standard for output, I used that trust as leverage to pick my battles and shield the team from the less productive start-up turbulence. Early on, this meant implementing simple, lightweight improvements like using week-long sprints, creating documentation, and improving how the design and engineering teams interfaced. A vital part of being successful in building processes like these was knowing when to let the processes be circumvented, but using that privilege judiciously.