DevelopWell EOY Client Debrief by Akailah Jenkins McIntyre

STW

2024-12-09 16:26:12 UTC

Responsive and holistic - lots of different projects, adapting to their changing needs

STW

2024-12-09 16:26:18 UTC

deep level of engagement allows for substantive work / change that is more difficult to do at a high level

STW

2024-12-09 16:27:01 UTC

so large and so responsive that timeline fidelity has been spotty at best and hours have been up and down (mostly up)

STW

2024-12-09 16:27:01 UTC

working with decision-maker, able to move things up and down more easily due to Claire's status in the company

Scale to Win

akailah1 — 2024-12-09 16:27:17 UTC

Client communication has been largely successful, at least on our end. While the slack channel is a lot and feels like it produces urgency, we are clear and consistent in our communication with them in ways that have helped the engagement be succesful

STW

2024-12-09 16:27:37 UTC

Hours/ scope level actually matches how we work (level of customization)

STW

2024-12-09 16:27:39 UTC

leadership retreat - deep listening to them, their needs, wants, dynamics, challenges, resentments, etc.

STW

2024-12-09 16:27:43 UTC

Strong relationship built with primary contact, that person being a decision maker, making us an ally and asset.

STW

2024-12-09 16:28:05 UTC

balance of planning projects with meeting real time needs

STW

akailah1 — 2024-12-09 16:28:25 UTC

The scope changes so much that it feels hard to see a project through and execute effectively

STW

2024-12-09 16:28:33 UTC

level of engagement hasn't allowed us to serve as a truly neutral party in HR situations

STW

2024-12-09 16:28:40 UTC

As chaotic and evolving as the scope has been, this team has managed to be agile, creative, and responsive to the client's needs; even being willing to shift our internal approach, team, and priority projects.

STW

2024-12-09 16:29:13 UTC

releveling process - capabilities, performance review, job description survey, staff communications all pulled together into a pretty efficient, successful releveling. it wasn't pretty but the outcome was good and could have been a lot riskier/messier had we not adapted our projects to accommodate it

STW

2024-12-09 16:29:20 UTC

Under-scoped initially leading to immediate scope adjustment, subsequent scope changes

STW

2024-12-09 16:29:20 UTC

culture assessment really opened things up and created more intentional reflection from leadership on their role in the company culture

STW

2024-12-09 16:29:42 UTC

Primary contact didn't always have buy in amongst full set of decision makers. Bringing in the rest of the L7s happened months into the work.

STW

akailah1 — 2024-12-09 16:30:03 UTC

Work with L7s overall - from diagnosing their cultural issues tot the retreat, it's felt like we have made significant inroads with them as a group

STW

2024-12-09 16:30:22 UTC

Not sure if this is a pro/ con but dealing with people with 0 expertise in running a business has allowed us to really inset ourselves and demonstrate expertise, but is also such a challenge to both get them to a solid baseline and manage ongoing challenges

STW

2024-12-09 16:30:33 UTC

Leadership retreat was a resounding success. We should replicate this process for others

STW

2024-12-09 16:31:00 UTC

HR investigation, need to have internal person on no matter what. Also, counting on their legal person proved problematic

STW

2024-12-09 16:31:11 UTC

Controversial, but I think the Slack chat with Claire was helpful.

STW

2024-12-09 16:31:34 UTC

Capabilities, not really the highest priority at the time and it likely will need to evolve quite a bit as the company restructures

STW

akailah1 — 2024-12-09 16:31:47 UTC

Handbook - Claire sat on this for so long and it feels like it's reflecting back as our fault that it hasn't happened yet. Same with the partner charter, actually.

STW

2024-12-09 16:32:32 UTC

engagement survey - successful in the end, but the process was designed to be rushed and had delays and challenges because we didn't really assess their readiness to receive the information, and what we heard from their was one of the (if not the) most concerning/difficult. not sure if we were totally prepared or prepared them.

STW

akailah1 — 2024-12-09 16:32:39 UTC

Retreat - when they say that they don't want logisitcs going forward, it feels like we either need to require them to get Jen Carpenter at that point or that we need to also handle logisitcs. Logisitics are so closely tied to full retreat execution that poor logistics end up reflecting back on us

STW

2024-12-09 16:32:44 UTC

Their franticness/ urgency is difficult to manage. imp to keep lots of hours free for managing the priorities that come up ie. last min perf reviews for no good reason

STW

2024-12-09 16:33:16 UTC

Monday board evolution over the early part of scope was extensive and we are in a much better place with Monday client boards now

STW

akailah1 — 2024-12-09 16:33:28 UTC

Sticking to our weekly coordination calls on this has been incredibly helpful

STW

2024-12-09 16:33:29 UTC

more work moving = more time to coordinate it and we didn't initially plan for this as much as we should

STW

2024-12-09 16:33:29 UTC

Overall willingness and desire to change

STW

2024-12-09 16:34:20 UTC

weekly roundups are effective in keeping us on the same page as Claire

STW

2024-12-09 16:34:22 UTC

With everyone getting pulled in at different times, it made it hard to operate from a single baseline. With so much moving and so many involved, slack updates and mentions were not enough to keep all on the same page and minimize confusion

STW

2024-12-09 16:34:47 UTC

As scope changes move from potential to probably to discarded or approved comms between client team and ops could increase + use more clarity

STW

2024-12-09 16:34:56 UTC

how will we coordinate internally if we significantly up our involvement? (don't have to figure out today but we should have a concrete plan in place before we start)

STW

akailah1 — 2024-12-09 16:35:10 UTC

On going fractional - it still feels like something that we aren't fully sure how we are going to live into it and the implications

STW

2024-12-09 16:35:27 UTC

good example of changing roles not having a negative impact on the client

STW

2024-12-09 16:36:02 UTC

Overall capacity pull required for this level of engagement

PSE

2024-12-09 17:21:28 UTC

Not much TBH, I think the structure we put forward would prove helpful but I have no idea if they actually implemented it.

PSE

2024-12-09 17:21:50 UTC

strayed from the scope without explicitly saying it - had a promise for expansion but didn't acknowledge that what we were spending time on was out of scope with the client until the ship had already sailed

PSE

2024-12-09 17:22:09 UTC

stuck between project we wanted to do vs. project we were scoped to do

PSE

2024-12-09 17:22:17 UTC

Moved forward under the impression of a scope expansion, shouldn't have altered work until that actually happened

PSE

2024-12-09 17:22:24 UTC

by the end, very transactional/relationship breakdown

PSE

2024-12-09 17:22:56 UTC

Lots of trust/ relationship issues among the group we were working with without adequate time to address them

PSE

2024-12-09 17:23:18 UTC

projected org charts - actually a fun project to pull together leadership restructuring + staff engagement survey into what things could look like 5-10 years from now

PSE

2024-12-09 17:23:31 UTC

Scope shift to go virtual to save $$ on the LT sessions made those conversations a slog

PSE

2024-12-09 17:23:42 UTC

Decision maker/ Seth didn't fully trust us, got to a penny pinching what can I squeeze out sort of place that was really weird and uncomfortable

PSE

2024-12-09 17:24:05 UTC

introducing a COS was still the right move - they needed someone in that role

PSE

2024-12-09 17:24:45 UTC

lack of buy-in to the work from the decision maker at the end of the day I think is where things fell apart

PSE

2024-12-09 17:24:49 UTC

helping Lee Ann and Jaclyn understand and begin living into their full potential

COS was right move

PSE

2024-12-09 17:25:27 UTC

hot potato role changes on facilitators left those sessions difficult to drive fwd

PSE

2024-12-09 17:25:34 UTC

++ lack of buy in, differing opinions on what they needed/ wanted and no one being clear or directive about what they needed to do

PSE

2024-12-09 17:25:38 UTC

Didn't seem like we were on the same page with them from the start

PSE

2024-12-09 17:26:05 UTC

separating leadership work from engagement survey work meant no one had a full picture of all the work moving and led to working out of scope and way over hours

PSE

2024-12-09 17:26:40 UTC

Role changes and lots happening in coaching led to confusion and lack of clarity on project work

PSE

2024-12-09 17:26:59 UTC

by the end, we were doing work they didn't even want and we didn't have the relationship to successfully pivot - how do we approach that in the future?

PSE

2024-12-09 17:27:03 UTC

Pacing and expectation felt wonky, like plans and decisions were made but in execution none of that seemed applied or to matter

PSE

2024-12-09 17:27:27 UTC

Even when we can see what it is needed, the leadership/ team has to be ready and willing to change. if not the entire thing feels like pushing against the grain

PSE

2024-12-09 17:28:21 UTC

When I did hear about this project, it was all drama. Is that ok?

PL

2024-12-09 18:40:52 UTC

felt like there was a level of trust from the get go, decision-maker present in all convos

PL

2024-12-09 18:40:57 UTC

key points of contact are decision makers who tend to move asynchronously fairly well

PL

2024-12-09 18:41:10 UTC

Deep trust established by referral and team care in fielding client needs and requests

PL

2024-12-09 18:41:11 UTC

very tightly scoped, on very complicated project

PL

2024-12-09 18:41:38 UTC

the org charts sparked necessary conversations (though implementation was sort of untouched)

PL

akailah1 — 2024-12-09 18:41:39 UTC

This isn't totally about project management, but they are lovely humans in general which made working with them on execution particularly enjoyable

PL

2024-12-09 18:41:59 UTC

complicated project, lack of clear vision from leader, and conflict aversion made this feel like a more challenging path fwd

PL

2024-12-09 18:42:07 UTC

comp - I think we've questioned whether this should be an offering bc of our lack of solidified approach

PL

2024-12-09 18:42:29 UTC

implementation - not scoped for and makes for a dissatisfying feeling of now what?

PL

2024-12-09 18:42:52 UTC

clear project plan from the beginning that has been followed very closely

PL

2024-12-09 18:43:18 UTC

not sure how other people are feeling re: roles switching - not sure that everyone is up to speed/fully out?

PL

2024-12-09 18:43:27 UTC

I think we suggested the right level of change for a move from flat to bringing in necessary heirarchy.

PL

2024-12-09 18:43:44 UTC

totally makes sense why they have this, but could be good to talk about when clients want us to use their systems (Nextcloud)

PL

2024-12-09 18:44:24 UTC

The client team shifts were difficult to track from an admin perspective, and communication around that could have been more clear

PL

2024-12-09 18:44:36 UTC

Seems like their expectations around comp process were quite robust, particularly seeking out and utilizing comparable org comp models. This is very timely and wasn't accounted for or clearly named as something outside of scope for the client

PL

akailah1 — 2024-12-09 18:45:12 UTC

The context for this client was really different than most of the clients we work with - even down to them not having teams. It required an approach to the work that felt different than any of the other work we do, and there were implications that I think stretched our ways of thinking/doing that we didn't initially account for

PL

2024-12-09 18:45:14 UTC

"pro bono" process - should define if we want to replicate this - what is the target profit margin? we aim to have values alignment with all our clients, so what determines the clients that we want to offer this kind of arrangement to?

PL

2024-12-09 18:45:38 UTC

Overall seamless transition of work back and forth across multiple A's, constant R made that possible.

PL

2024-12-09 18:46:12 UTC

felt like what they wanted was comp and they backed int the restructure because that was a necessary input - felt then like we put the emphasis on the project they were less interested in/motivated to do

PL

2024-12-09 18:46:28 UTC

Not using our normal systems made this challenging to keep track of the work

PL

akailah1 — 2024-12-09 18:47:03 UTC

It felt like we both did pro bono and tried to keep within hours that were never possible to begin with, which had significant impacts on those working on the project feeling like something was going wrong when really it felt like it was impossible from the beginning

PL

2024-12-09 18:47:27 UTC

Values alignment with the client was named as a prereq from the client, to what end will we provide values aligned service teams in the future and what is the process/ expectation there

PL

2024-12-09 18:48:34 UTC

Lots of internal convo about whose values were aligned and misaligned with the project itself (re: Alana). Is there something we need to do internally to not run into this again

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:41:42 UTC

strong relationships, and they have a real investment in the work

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:42:10 UTC

we shaved hours on coordination, saying we'd meet with them as needed, and the coordination group's roles have shifted, no longer 1 clear decision maker

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:42:16 UTC

overall a steady long term client, they see us as a valuable partner

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:42:18 UTC

Hours landed right where they should be!

SEIA

akailah1 — 2024-12-09 19:42:23 UTC

"Month off" doesn't really work. We still need the time to effectively move the work forward

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:42:38 UTC

PD policy, trainings, etc. is all a line of work I think we've done with them well

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:43:15 UTC

pulse survey (wasn't executed - lapse in project management)

manager cohort - lack of engagement

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:43:17 UTC

Making it "work" for a long term client even though it is out of our current pricing model. how can we retain long term clients while being true to our pricing?

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:43:25 UTC

Scope elongation from Jan-Sept to Jan-Dec was confusing. Perhaps that was related to the "off" month consideration.

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:43:39 UTC

role changes - shifting Rs on our end, shifting roles on their end

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:44:14 UTC

created a norm with them that we'll add/subtract work as we go and don't come back to them on hours/timeline bc they were typically so easy to work with - ended up coming back to cost us

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:44:27 UTC

changed the R at a real cost to the client

SEIA

akailah1 — 2024-12-09 19:44:30 UTC

Highly responsive to in-person training

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:45:01 UTC

talked about them as an "easy" client and it made them get deprioritized in a way that isn't true to how we work

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:45:05 UTC

they're still a great client to work with and a great example of clients who want to dig in with us on strategy and orienting their people work to make a bigger impact (which I personally really enjoy)

SEIA

akailah1 — 2024-12-09 19:45:24 UTC

We got comfortable with them and didn't always adhere to our internal systems/processes because of it

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:45:33 UTC

The sales process with SEIA seems more complex

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:46:30 UTC

I think our work has a real arc to it year over year and we've done a good job of sharing that narrative whenever we're in front of their team/leadership

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:46:49 UTC

Handoff from Lola to AJM seemed successful all things considered

SEIA

2024-12-09 19:47:24 UTC

ran with Lola for a long time outside of our normal systems - need to reset expectations

SEIA

akailah1 — 2024-12-09 19:50:21 UTC

Still confused about how retainer factors in to hours considerations

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:25:32 UTC

elevates the imp of clear scope transition documentation

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:25:51 UTC

$30k carryover was messy, and lack of clarity/limitations around scope allowance in Q4 - permitting major hours overages

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:26:00 UTC

scope was manageable and we did things we already had a lot of background and depth doing (didn't have to create much from scractch)

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:26:30 UTC

A transition was rocky but eventually settled and was able to gain trust of client in short order

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:26:33 UTC

engagement was a product of poor scoping without a clear plan, and low communication until tiffany got on the project resulting in a dissatisfied client and difficult internal client team transitions

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:26:51 UTC

Client relationship was a rollercoaster, but landed so nicely

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:26:59 UTC

Hours focus made it difficult to do the work well

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:27:21 UTC

Original conversation of the 'mgmt training' scope into 'leadership facilitation' did not make sense and felt unclear to all involved, well into the engagement.

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:28:14 UTC

New staff in the R role w/ a new A was a recipe for a lot of the challenges faced

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:28:16 UTC

Demonstrated evidence that when there is an effective

lead who is highly communicative and effective in the work, this client moved from disgruntled to singing our praise in a matter of months. truly seemed unsalvageable in the summer.

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:29:28 UTC

Overall the scope execution was a flop based on what we laid out but we salvaged the relationship and gave them a strong runway for improving their team and culture

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:29:57 UTC

Refreshed the data analysis approach, findings deck, and report to improve clarity and transparency of DW approach

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:30:00 UTC

poor scoping

changes in A/ R roles

not documenting scope changes

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:30:56 UTC

survey deck! the level of depth and integrity is a good model for future surveys

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:32:05 UTC

1st LT session fell flat. Adopted it from Lola's work, but worth discussing how to conduct those intro sessions...people want more than they can really handle

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:34:29 UTC

Became all hands on deck during the transition. That was good. Folks made themselves available to talk and be a resource

Scribe

2024-12-09 20:36:04 UTC

It seemed like we had to make our client mtgs feel more robust than they really were. Raises the question of how to run client projects w/ very discrete scopes (that aren't overly complicated or complex; more black and white)

Scribe

2024-12-09 21:01:41 UTC

There were a lot of data and data viz errors caught in various deliverables. We def need a process for reviewing for errors