From Inside-Out to Outside-In: Aligning teams around what matters

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From Inside-Out to Outside-In: Aligning teams around what matters Fast Flow Conf NL 27th March 2025 Rich Allen Curator of userneedsmapping.com 1

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Are our teams truly structured to deliver what matters most… …value to our customers! 2

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…inspired by… Inside Out (1 & 2) 3

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4 Who am I? Rich Allen Founder at Conjurer - conjurersolutions.co.uk Team Topologies Valued Practitioner Creator/Curator of “User Needs Mapping” userneedsmapping.com LinkedIn: richardallen Bluesky: @richallen.info Web: https://richallen.info Personal mission: “Bring more joy into people’s lives at work and help teams be more effective”

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The Solution: Shifting to Outside-In Thinking A Real World Example Key Takeaways The Problem: Inside-Out Thinking 5

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Riley (11) …is controlled by her core emotions… Goofball Hockey Family Friendship …these influence and shape her “Islands of Personality”… …organizations are structured around key aspects of their identity 6

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The Problem: Inside-Out Thinking 7

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Organizations Are Like Riley’s Mind 8

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Joy (CEO) Wants everything to be positive - ignoring risks 9

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Fear (Legal) Blocks new ideas due to potential risk. 10

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Anger (IT/Ops) Gets frustrated with unrealistic demands. 11

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Disgust (Marketing) Focused on brand perception, not actual user experience. 12

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Sadness (Customer Support/HR) Sees the real problems but gets ignored. 13

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Which Emotion Dominates Your Org? Joy Fear Anger Disgust Sadness 14 Is each department optimizing for it’s own success?

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Consequences of Inside-Out Thinking Results: Slow delivery, misalignment, lack of real user focus! IT fights with marketing Leadership pushes for unrealistic goals Legal blocks innovation Support/HR get ignored 15

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A move to San Francisco triggers a change… 16

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…this causes Riley’s Personality Islands to start to collapse… 17 …and the core emotions don’t know what to do…

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When the World Changes, Silos Break Down 18 Inside-Out Thinking Outside-In Thinking vs Blockbuster Nokia Netflix Apple Optimized for: Running video stores Selling phones Optimized for: How people wanted to watch movies How people wanted to experience technology

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focus on Inside-Out, fall behind. shift to Outside-In, thrive! 19 Organizations that…

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Learning from Inside-Out… …moving to Outside-In Stop asking: “How do we optimize our teams?” Start asking: “What do our users actually need?” 20

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The Solution: Shifting from Inside-Out to Outside-In Thinking (with User Needs Mapping) 21

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Step 1: Define the purpose: “Understand our current landscape” Riley (11) Social Belonging Personal Growth & Achievement Emotional Resilience Trust & Integrity Joy & Playfulness Security & Support Step 2: Identify the users: Step 3: Define the user needs: “Riley” User Needs Mapping Steps 22

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Step 4: Map capabilities 23

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Add a value chain axis. Start with one user need, identify the capabilities used to meet that need Step 4: Map capabilities 24

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…continue adding more capabilities, connecting common dependencies… Step 4: Map capabilities 25

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…keep adding capabilities until your map starts to resemble your current “Big Ball of Mud”… Step 4: Map capabilities 26

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…overlay existing teams and tech systems to provide insights about current cognitive load and context switching… Step 5: Analyze dependencies 27

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…rearrange the capabilities to identify potential clusters… Step 5: Analyze dependencies 28

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…identify potential candidate team boundaries by overlaying Team Topologies team types… Step 6: Overlay Team Types 29

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…simplify clusters of capabilities to simplify the User Needs Map to enable a broader system view… Step 7: Iterate and scale 30

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…expand capabilities where it adds value to do so… Step 7: Iterate and scale 31

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A Real World Example 32

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Typical org chart with functional silos “How can we scale, innovate and adapt effectively with motivated happy people?” Erica Engelen Rich Allen 33

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3 Day on-site workshop + 3 month deep dive workshops User Needs Map Current and Future State Team Interaction Modelling Independent Service Heuristics 34

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Sample User Need Maps 35

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Organizing for faster flow “User Needs Mapping helped teams see where they are adding value which gives a new spark to team members to participate in a dialogue” Ingibjörg Rafnar Pétursdóttir, Director, Blue Lagoon, Iceland 36

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Continuous Evolution: Lessons from Inside Out 2 The Evolution of the Islands in Inside Out 2 Inside-Out 2…PUBERTY ALERT!! WARNING! Change is inevitable! 37

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Riley (13) Self- Expression / ﬁtting in Belonging, admiration, shared passions Anticipation, comparison, reputation Self- Protection, social signalling Emotional fatigue, disengagement New User Needs 38

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Riley (13) New Emotions 39

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Goofball Hockey Family Friendship Honesty The Personality Islands… 40

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Goofball Hockey Family Friendship Honesty …begin to crumble! 41

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Add the new user needs to the map… Step 7: Iterate and scale 42

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Add the new capabilities, emotions and Islands of Personality - the new Big Ball of Mud Step 7: Iterate and scale 43

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“Complex emotions” form the foundation of of new behaviours “Personal growth” evolves to “Identity and Performance” “Friendship” expands to include “Fitting in” “Creativity & Fun” includes “Sarcasm” “Emotional Integrity” handles disengagement and boredom Step 7: Iterate and scale 44

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Real-world 2…AI ALERT!! How does your organization adapt to change? 45

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Key Takeaways 46

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Do what Simon says… “This is really positive. I know it's not the full map but even thinking about the users, their needs and chain of components is a transformational change for many… …give it some love.” - Simon Wardley 47

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Me (X): “Thank you. I’m sorry it’s not really a map but I still called it mapping.. “ Simon: “It doesn't matter whether it's a map or not, the question is always whether it is useful” I’m sorry Simon… Simon: “Love User Needs Mapping, good job!” 48 Me (X): “‘User Needs Graphing’ didn’t quite sound right.” Me (X): “If you squint the team boundaries could be countries?”

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focus on Inside-Out, fall behind. shift to Outside-In, thrive! 49 Organizations that…

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❌ Stop asking: “How do we optimize our teams?” ☑Start asking: “What do our users actually need?” 50

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❌ Stop thinking Inside-Out, ☑ Start thinking Outside-In! 51

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What is one change you can make tomorrow to align your teams more closely with user needs? 52

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Thank you! Let’s Connect… Exclusive FREE prize draw: 1 x 3-hour Understand Current Landscape User Needs Mapping Session with Rich Allen * Warning: Entry for the prize draw will close at 4pm on 27th March 2025. On-demand viewers may still enter but you may still be charged (not really) and there will be no prize 😉 LinkedIn: richardallen Bluesky: @richallen.info Web: https://richaallen.info https://userneedsmapping.com 53