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Designing organisations from the outside-in

Most organisations don’t lack talent or intent. They struggle because their structures and team interactions evolved from the inside out — shaped by history and local optimisation rather than the flow of value they’re trying to enable.

I work with leaders to see their organisation as a system, from the outside in, so they can make clearer decisions about team boundaries, platforms, and interactions that genuinely improve flow. This is a guided sense-making process that turns lived experience into shared clarity, and clarity into deliberate change.

I don’t offer pre-packaged solutions. We start by understanding your context and, where helpful, begin with a focused piece of work before deciding what deeper support might look like. To give a sense of how that works in practice, here are some common examples.

Advisory and thinking partnership

For leaders who need space to think clearly about structure, flow, and change; a lightweight, ongoing relationship where I act as an outside-in thinking partner.

We might use regular conversations to:

  • Make sense of what’s really happening across teams

  • Surface hidden constraints and trade-offs

  • Reframe problems from “delivery issues” to system design questions

  • Decide what’s safe to act on now — and what to leave alone

This is not therapy or executive coaching. It’s about better decisions, made with more visibility.

How it usually works

  • Weekly or bi-weekly 60-minute sessions

  • Asynchronous support in between when useful

  • 1:1 or small leadership groups

Typical investment £4k per month

Focused consulting and discovery

For teams at an inflection point who want clarity before committing to change, this is short-term consulting designed to answer a specific question, for example:

  • What is our current structure making hard?

  • Why does planning keep exposing the same dependencies?

  • Where is flow breaking down — and why?

Rather than producing a grand plan, the goal is to:

  • Observe how work actually flows

  • Make team interactions and coordination friction visible

  • Build an evidence-based business case for improving the flow of value

This work often sits alongside key moments such as PI Planning, mergers, or major shifts in strategy.

How it usually works

  • 2–8 weeks, depending on scope

  • Combination of observation, interviews, and working sessions

  • Time for reflection and consolidation at the end

Typical investment £15k–£30k depending on depth and duration

Facilitated workshops and on-site sessions

For groups who want to explore a problem together, I design and facilitate workshops that use your own context to build shared understanding. We’re not “teaching frameworks” — we’re using them to uncover insights.

These sessions are often used to:

  • Align around user needs and value

  • Explore team boundaries and interactions

  • Identify small, safe-to-try structural shifts

Workshops are most effective once there’s already curiosity and appetite to engage.

Typical investment from £20k per engagement

Availability and fit

I keep a deliberately small number of active engagements so I can stay present and responsive. If timing matters, it’s worth getting in touch early — even if you’re not sure what the next step is yet.