Assessments

Start with Understanding Why

Change is easier when you know where you’re going and why it’s worth it. The problem is that most people start with the what, go to the how, and end with the why.

If we want to change the way we work, the answers lie not in technology or process but in people. If we are to inspire people and foster genuine commitment and enrollment we need to start with the why.

Getting to the why of your improvement initiative is not easy. It requires a level of trust and complete transparency that is beyond many.

Explore Current Context

Agile and Lean have been around for many years and there are many practices that are well understood and can be largely scripted. However, many fail to recognize that product development is complex with an unique personality and even well proven practices can fail if applied without an understanding of context.

We go to the gemba to observe people in their native environment so we can collectively understand the organizational context for the upcoming change.

We capture a realistic snapshot of the product development environment including:

structure, process, people, measures and tooling
impediments to flow
root cause of past failures
bright spots
unique characteristics of your organization

We get early buy-in. It's not that people don't want to change, they just don't want to be changed. People respond very differently to change when they are involved. By including as wide a constituency as possible in our discussions we get people involved from the start in shaping their future.

Techniques Employed

We employ a variety of techniques to gather data and make sense of your organization depending on context:

Empathy interviews
"Jobs to be done"
Retrospectives
Tool data and metrics
Value stream mapping
Capability assessments
Sense-making (narrative-based ethnography)
High-performing Team Behaviors