The context
- Online training scale-up
- 150 staff with plans to double in size; healthy revenues; great product
- Brand new CEO, recent Chief Commercial Officer; no real Technology leadership; HR and Finance folks used to not being included in strategy discussions
- Tech-led start-up, still finding their way in terms of commercial and marketing strategy and product management
The impact
- Produced OKR-based strategy covering product development, improvements to Finance and HR processes, improvements to Sales and Marketing operations, and the beginnings of a robust recruitment strategy for the year
- Leaders from across the organization were working together for the first time
- Laid the groundwork for ongoing cross-department collaboration and increased trust and understanding
The approach
We ‘made all the work visible’ by asking the exec team to write down everything they wanted to achieve this year, however trivial or inward-looking; not just products and features for the market.
We mapped out the technology estate, in terms of products, services and processes, using Wardley Mapping to show dependencies and to identify which applications were in-house or vendor products.
We mapped out the current planned work using a Purpose Alignment Model to identify the extent to which work was differentiating and/or business critical, enabling us to defer or de-prioritize a lot of the anticipated demand, which was neither.
We looked at underlying causes of demand; rather than ‘produce this report’ or ‘automate this process’, we took time to understand why it was there in the first place and who the stakeholders were.
We facilitated discussions to prioritize demand across departments, and to identify and address tensions between different groups.
We created a draft plan covering the next few quarters, to continue working on later.
We taught the exec team how to use these tools, so they were equipped to go back to their own teams and continue the analysis and planning at the next level down.