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

Most organizations focus on optimizing their internal processes, creating silos and misalignments that hinder their ability to deliver value effectively. This inside-out perspective may feel like the best way to run a business, but it misses the most critical perspective: that of the customer. Whether it’s Product, Tech, Operations, or even Marketing, failing to align around the value being delivered creates inefficiencies, complexity, and frustration.

This talk introduces User Needs Mapping as a practical approach to shift organizational thinking to outside-in. By focusing on user needs—external and internal—it enables every part of the organization to align around the value being delivered. From revealing misalignments to breaking dependencies and fostering purposeful collaboration, User Needs Mapping provides immediate insights into creating focus, ownership, and autonomy for teams.

Through actionable examples and real-world stories, this session will show you how to uncover what truly matters for your users and align your entire organization to deliver value more effectively.

Transcript

1. From Inside-Out to Outside-In: Aligning teams around what matters Re:connect Conference 2025 4th July 2025 Rich Allen Curator of userneedsmapping.com 1
2. Are our teams truly organised to deliver what matters most… …value to our customers! 2
3. …inspired by… Inside Out (1 & 2) 3
4. 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”
5. Team Topologies 5 Organizing business and technology teams for fast flow Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais IT Revolution Press, 2019 teamtopologies.com/book
6. Why Team Topologies? 6
7. Aligned to a flow of work from (usually) a segment of the business domain Four Fundamental Topologies 7 Helps stream-aligned teams overcome obstacles. Also detects missing capabilities Used where significant mathematics / calculation / technical expertise is needed A grouping of other team types that provide a compelling internal product to accelerate delivery by Stream-aligned teams Supported by
8. 3 Interaction Modes 8 One team helps and mentors another team Working together for a defined period of time to discover new things (APIs, practices, technologies, etc.) One team provides and one team consumes something “as a Service”
9. The Solution: Shifting to Outside-In Thinking A Real World Example Key Takeaways The Problem: Inside-Out Thinking 9
10. 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 10
11. The Problem: Inside-Out Thinking 11
12. Organizations Are Like Riley’s Mind 12
13. Joy (CEO) Wants everything to be positive - ignoring risks 13
14. Fear (Legal) Blocks new ideas due to potential risk. 14
15. Anger (IT/Ops) Gets frustrated with unrealistic demands. 15
16. Disgust (Marketing) Focused on brand perception, not actual user experience. 16
17. Sadness (Customer Support/HR) Sees the real problems but gets ignored. 17
18. Which Emotion Dominates Your Org? Joy Fear Anger Disgust Sadness 18 Is each department optimizing for it’s own success?
19. 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 19 💥
20. A move to San Francisco triggers a change… 20
21. …this causes Riley’s Personality Islands to start to collapse… 21 …and the core emotions don’t know what to do…
22. When the World Changes, Silos Break Down 22 Inside-Out Thinking Outside-In Thinking vs Optimized for: Running video stores Selling phones How people wanted to watch movies How people wanted to experience technology
23. focus on … …thinking Inside-Out, fall behind. Shift to… …thinking Outside-In, thrive! 23 Organizations that…
24. Learning from Inside-Out… …moving to Outside-In Stop asking: “How do we make current teams more efficient?” Start asking: “What do our users actually need?” 24
25. The Solution: Shifting from Inside-Out to Outside-In Thinking (with User Needs Mapping) 25
26. 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 26
27. Step 4: Map capabilities 27
28. Add a value chain axis. Start with one user need, identify the capabilities used to meet that need Step 4: Map capabilities 28
29. 29 Step 4: Map capabilities
30. …continue adding more capabilities, connecting common dependencies… Step 4: Map capabilities 30
31. 31 Step 4: Map capabilities
32. …keep adding capabilities until your map starts to resemble your current “Big Ball of Mud”… Step 4: Map capabilities 32
33. 33 Step 4: Map capabilities
34. …overlay existing teams and tech systems to provide insights about current cognitive load and context switching… Step 5: Analyze dependencies 34 Joy Sadness Anger Fear Disgust
35. 35 Step 5: Analyze Dependencies Joy Sadness Anger Fear Disgust
36. …rearrange the capabilities to identify potential independent clusters or groupings… Step 5: Analyze dependencies 36
37. 37 Step 5: Analyze Dependencies
38. …identify potential candidate team boundaries by overlaying Team Topologies team types… Step 6: Overlay Team Types 38
39. 39 Step 6: Overlay team types
40. …simplify clusters of capabilities to simplify the User Needs Map to enable a broader system view… Step 7: Iterate and scale 40
41. 41 Step 7: Iterate and scale
42. …expand capabilities where it adds value to do so… Step 7: Iterate and scale 42
43. 43 Step 7: Iterate and scale
44. A Real World Example 44
45. Typical org chart with functional silos “How can we scale, innovate and adapt effectively with motivated happy people?” Erica Engelen Rich Allen 45
46. 3 Day on-site workshop + 3 month deep dive workshops User Needs Map Current and Future State Team Interaction Modelling Independent Service Heuristics 46
47. Sample User Need Maps 47
48. 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 48
49. 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! 49
50. Riley (13) Self- Expression / fitting in Belonging, admiration, shared passions Anticipation, comparison, reputation Self- Protection, social signalling Emotional fatigue, disengagement New User Needs 50
51. Riley (13) New Emotions 51
52. Goofball Hockey Family Friendship Honesty The Personality Islands… 52
53. Goofball Hockey Family Friendship Honesty …begin to crumble! 53
54. Add the new user needs to the map… Step 7: Iterate and scale 54
55. Step 7: Iterate and scale 55
56. Add the new capabilities, emotions and Islands of Personality - the new Big Ball of Mud Step 7: Iterate and scale 56
57. Step 7: Iterate and scale 57
58. “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 58
59. Step 7: Iterate and scale 59
60. Real-world 2…AI ALERT!! How does your organization adapt to change? 60
61. Key Takeaways 61
62. Do what Simon says… “This is really positive…thinking about the users, their needs and chain of components is a transformational change for many… …give it some love.” - Simon Wardley 62
63. focus on … …thinking Inside-Out, fall behind. Shift to… …thinking Outside-In, thrive! 63 Organizations that…
64. ❌ Stop asking: “How do we make current teams more efficient?” ☑Start asking: “What do our users actually need?” 64
65. ❌ Stop thinking Inside-Out, ☑ Start thinking Outside-In! 65
66. What is one change you can make tomorrow to align your teams more closely with user needs? 66
67. 67 New book coming soon… A hands-on practitioners guide to applying user needs mapping in context.
68. Thank you! Let’s connect… Exclusive prize draw: 1 x FREE 3-hour Understand Current Landscape User Needs Mapping Session with Rich Allen + 5 free copies of my book to give away * Warning: Entry for the prize draw will close at 4pm on 4th July 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: richallen.info userneedsmapping.com 68