Understand the business. Connect the work.

I start with the business outcome: what should improve for customers, teams, and the company? Revenue, cost to serve, risk, and the ability to pursue new opportunities help give the work a purpose.

Then I follow what actually happens. Customer conversations, Voice of the Customer insights, stakeholder discovery, and process observation reveal the handoffs, exceptions, and workarounds that a formal diagram can miss. I want to understand whose information is trusted, which decisions stall, and where work disappears into an inbox.

I bring the people involved together to frame the problem and explore a better way forward. At the whiteboard, we connect customer needs with processes, responsibilities, information, and platform capabilities. A solution has to work across teams as well as within them.

The design becomes a practical sequence of decisions and delivery. Clear ownership, visible progress, and information people can rely on help move work through the organization. Measures should tell us whether the business outcome is improving.

Adoption belongs in that plan from the beginning. Leaders need to understand and support the change; teams need useful tools, training, and a way to give feedback. What happens in everyday use tells us where the design needs to improve.