What a finding looks like
Two illustrative examples, one area where nothing needs to change and one where a lot does. Each is a short extract: a real report goes much further, with the evidence behind each condition, the gap between how leadership and the teams describe the same system, and the order of change in detail.
Illustrative composites. They are assembled from recurring patterns and do not describe any real organisation.
An area in good health
Five delivery teams, one product, one leadership group.
Patterns detectedNone
- Decision authorityHigh
- Priority integrityHigh
- Outcome visibilityModerate
- Constraint transparencyHigh
- Behaviour under pressureHigh
- Structural loadModerate
The finding
The area is structurally sound. Decisions are made where the information is, priorities hold when pressure rises, and constraints reach people who can remove them. Load is high but managed: work is finished before new work starts. If delivery problems are reported here, they are more likely to come from skills or the market than from structure.
Direction
No structural intervention recommended. Protect what works: the current decision boundaries and the habit of stopping work before starting new work are what keep this area healthy, and they are the first things to erode in a reorganisation. Run the diagnostic again after any major change to confirm they hold.
An area under heavy strain
Seven delivery teams, a shared platform, two layers of management.
Patterns detectedCaptured DeliveryThe Overload Spiral
- Decision authorityCritical
- Priority integrityLow
- Outcome visibilityModerate
- Constraint transparencyCritical
- Behaviour under pressureLow
- Structural loadCritical
The finding
Decisions that belong to the teams are made two levels above them, and the teams carry far more work than they can finish. Each makes the other worse: every escalation adds waiting, waiting adds work in progress, and leadership answers slow delivery with more checkpoints, which pulls still more decisions upward. Constraints the teams raise are logged, carried from cycle to cycle, and rarely resolved. The teams are not the problem. The structure they work in is.
Direction, in order
- Cap work in progress: agree what stops before anything new starts.
- Return decision rights to the teams in one clearly bounded domain, with the boundary written down.
- Give every recurring constraint a named owner above the teams, and a date.
Not recommended until steps 1 and 2 hold: more reporting, a new framework, or more training.
This is where designing the change itself, the Structural Delivery Blueprint, comes in.
Curious what yours would say?
The first conversation is free: about 45 minutes, online or in Bucharest, in English or Romanian.
[email protected]Need something narrower than a diagnostic or a programme, such as a workshop, a review of how a team is set up, or a second opinion before a reorganisation? Tell me. I'll scope it and give you a fixed price.
No proposal before the problem is understood.