{ "name": "Probecrafter", "tagline": "A library of questions for programme conversations about alignment, working rhythms and value.", "lastUpdated": "2025-02-18", "personas": [ { "name": "Executive Sponsor", "mission": "Keep political capital high while the programme navigates budget and priority shifts.", "frictions": [ "Hard to tell if teams are shielding problems.", "Struggles to translate delivery telemetry into choices for the board.", "Needs confidence that external partners are aligned on value and pace." ], "whatTheyNotice": [ "Signals that reveal silent trade-offs against the strategic narrative.", "Proof that the transformation office is sequencing dependencies realistically.", "Opportunities to re-shape governance rituals without losing grip." ] }, { "name": "Programme Director", "mission": "Hold together delivery squads, vendors, and policy streams under shifting scope.", "frictions": [ "Competing backlog priorities that erode shared cadence.", "Low confidence data around non-functional risk and readiness gates.", "Exhausted teams defaulting to shallow progress updates." ], "whatTheyNotice": [ "Signals that surface cumulative debt before it bites.", "Places where teams are quietly renegotiating commitments.", "Choke points in decision latency between senior stakeholders." ] }, { "name": "Value Realisation Lead", "mission": "Evidence that the transformation is unlocking measurable benefits, not just shipping artefacts.", "frictions": [ "Benefit owners report late and inconsistently.", "Baseline data is shaky, making attribution fragile.", "Economic narrative drifts away from the investment case." ], "whatTheyNotice": [ "Signals that link tactical delivery choices with value erosion or uplift.", "Opportunities to recalibrate measurement cadences.", "Language that reveals dissonance between business units." ] } ], "probePacks": [ { "id": "alignment-field-scan", "title": "Alignment Field Scan", "intent": "Alignment", "phase": "Discovery", "personaTags": [ "Executive Sponsor", "Programme Director" ], "summary": "Check whether core leaders share the same picture of purpose, pace, and sequencing.", "signals": [ "Different parts of the system using incompatible time horizons.", "Narratives that subtly rewrite benefits to fit current progress.", "Leaders outsourcing uncomfortable trade-offs to governance forums." ], "questions": [ { "prompt": "When you describe the programme to someone new, which milestones do you emphasise first?", "angle": "Surface the mental model that anchors leadership attention.", "whatToListenFor": [ "Milestones chosen for political optics rather than value progression.", "Missing articulation of interdependencies or capability drops.", "Language that signals avoidance of known pain points." ], "followUps": [ "Which of those milestones feels the least stable right now?", "Who would disagree with that sequence and why?" ], "notes": "Use if updates feel overly optimistic or heavily scripted." }, { "prompt": "Where do you feel forced to trade certainty for momentum this quarter?", "angle": "Explore where momentum has been prioritised over certainty, and whether the trade-off is still justified.", "whatToListenFor": [ "Examples of scope being deferred without re-baselining.", "Reliance on future phases to catch unresolved defects.", "Signals of governance fatigue." ], "followUps": [ "How visible is that trade-off to the sponsor board?", "What data would let you reverse that trade-off?" ], "notes": "Pair with a decision-latency heatmap if available." }, { "prompt": "Which governance forum last informed a decision, sequence or resource priority, and what evidence mattered?", "angle": "Test if governance rituals are still fit for purpose.", "whatToListenFor": [ "Forums acting as rubber stamps instead of design studios.", "Late discovery of cross-cutting dependencies.", "Symptoms of governance bypass (side agreements, escalations)." ], "followUps": [ "Who is consistently surprised by those changes?", "If you could scrap one forum, which would it be and why?" ], "notes": "A decision to retain the current plan can be sound. Ask what was considered, rather than treating every unchanged plan as a failure." } ], "artefacts": [ "Leadership intent map", "Benefits narrative trace", "Governance cadence canvas" ] }, { "id": "cadence-health-check", "title": "Cadence Health Check", "intent": "Ways of Working", "phase": "Stabilise", "personaTags": [ "Programme Director" ], "summary": "Reveal where rhythm, rituals, or tooling are no longer absorbing complexity.", "signals": [ "Squads reporting cycle-time but hiding decision queueing.", "Vendors optimising for statement-of-work not system throughput.", "Leaders only experiencing the programme via slideware." ], "questions": [ { "prompt": "Which ceremony feels most performative now?", "angle": "Identify rituals that consume energy without new insight.", "whatToListenFor": [ "Daily stand-ups that simply replay dashboards.", "Steering groups that never change orders despite new information.", "Reviews dominated by status rather than blockers." ], "followUps": [ "What would happen if you paused it for a sprint?", "Which voices are absent from that ceremony?" ], "notes": "Use ahead of cadence resets or tool migrations." }, { "prompt": "Where do decisions regularly stall, and who has to chase them?", "angle": "Expose latency and hidden coordination cost.", "whatToListenFor": [ "Reliance on informal networks to unblock work.", "Senior leaders unaware of queue length.", "Dependency on a single subject-matter expert." ], "followUps": [ "What counter-metric proves the latency improved?", "Which decision could you automate or pre-authorise?" ], "notes": "Pair with a visible blocker board to anchor the story." }, { "prompt": "Whose update never lands because the data is contested?", "angle": "Find metrics that have lost trust.", "whatToListenFor": [ "Multiple sources-of-truth for the same number.", "Benefits tracked off to the side in spreadsheets.", "Teams sanitising data to avoid rework." ], "followUps": [ "Who ultimately arbitrates the number?", "What would it take to rebuild trust in that signal?" ], "notes": "Useful when prepping for value realisation reviews." } ], "artefacts": [ "Decision latency tracker", "Operating rhythm heatmap", "Measurement trust canvas" ] }, { "id": "value-story-audit", "title": "Value Story Audit", "intent": "Value", "phase": "Accelerate", "personaTags": [ "Value Realisation Lead", "Executive Sponsor" ], "summary": "Link delivery effort with benefit trajectories and surface erosion early.", "signals": [ "Benefits leading indicators lag behind spend.", "Operational teams disconnect from the investment thesis.", "Finance and delivery using different value vocabularies." ], "questions": [ { "prompt": "Which benefit do you secretly think will never materialise?", "angle": "Invite candour about weak benefit hypotheses.", "whatToListenFor": [ "Benefit owners relying on historical baselines that no longer apply.", "Benefits contingent on behaviours outside the programme's influence.", "Ask directly about confidence and supporting evidence; do not infer confidence from silence or laughter." ], "followUps": [ "What evidence would convince you otherwise?", "Who else senses the same fragility?" ], "notes": "Ask once rapport is established—expect a pause before the answer." }, { "prompt": "Where do operational KPIs contradict the value dashboard?", "angle": "Surface tension between business-as-usual and transformation metrics.", "whatToListenFor": [ "Business units reporting improvements but benefits dashboard flat.", "Narratives that reframe benefits as compliance wins.", "Reliance on anecdotal evidence because telemetry lags." ], "followUps": [ "Who adjudicates between those KPIs when planning next quarter?", "Which signal would you publish weekly if tools made it easy?" ], "notes": "Pair with a data lineage sketch to anchor the conversation." }, { "prompt": "What would make you comfortable committing to value acceleration targets in public?", "angle": "Test readiness for transparent benefit storytelling.", "whatToListenFor": [ "Dependency on external suppliers for data refreshes.", "Need for new incentives or capability to own outcomes.", "Desire for staged commitments tied to milestone evidence." ], "followUps": [ "Which stakeholder must sign off before you would do that?", "What rehearsal space do you need before the next board?" ], "notes": "Finish the pack with an offer to co-design the rehearsal artefacts." } ], "artefacts": [ "Benefit hypothesis canvas", "Evidence flightpath", "Value operating cadence" ] } ], "sessionTemplates": [ { "name": "90-Minute Delivery Surprise Review", "goal": "Expose where leaders experience surprise so mitigation can be prioritised.", "duration": "90 minutes", "recommendedProbes": [ "alignment-field-scan", "cadence-health-check" ], "steps": [ "Open with heatmap of delivery shocks in last 60 days.", "Run Alignment Field Scan questions with sponsor + director.", "Switch to Cadence Health Check to explore possible causes and the evidence needed to distinguish them.", "Close by assigning probe owners and visible next steps." ], "outputs": [ "A short list of candidate interventions, with assumptions and evidence to check.", "Named accountable owners with next check-in date.", "Artifacts to update (e.g., governance cadence canvas)." ] }, { "name": "Value Narrative Deep-Dive", "goal": "Reconcile delivery telemetry with the promised investment story.", "duration": "2 hours", "recommendedProbes": [ "value-story-audit" ], "steps": [ "Start with the original investment case and latest benefits pack.", "Use Value Story Audit probes with benefit owners and finance.", "Map contested metrics and agree temporary proxy signals.", "Draft an updated value narrative and comms cadence." ], "outputs": [ "Red/amber/green map of benefit health.", "List of telemetry gaps with responsible data teams.", "Draft paragraph for next steering pack." ] } ], "scorecard": { "alignment": { "definition": "Leaders share a coherent, up-to-date picture of value, pace, and dependencies.", "measures": [ "Shared articulation of next material milestone.", "Crisp definition of decision rights and escalation paths.", "Evidence that trade-offs are transparent to the right forums." ] }, "cadence": { "definition": "Rituals absorb complexity without generating theatre.", "measures": [ "Cycle time vs. decision latency trend.", "Examples of rituals retained, redesigned or retired, and the reasons for those choices.", "Level of trust in shared telemetry." ] }, "value": { "definition": "Benefits telemetry influences prioritisation, not just reporting.", "measures": [ "Benefit hypotheses reviewed before each replan.", "Frequency of proactive value interventions.", "Clarity of narrative connecting spend to realised outcomes." ] } }, "coachNotes": [ "Pair each probe pack with a tangible artefact—people open up when they can mark or annotate real data.", "Heatmap the probes you actually used in a session to spot blind spots over time.", "Rotate who leads each probe set so the practice scales beyond the core change team." ] }