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From Inside-Out to Outside-In: Aligning teams a...

Avatar for Richard Allen Richard Allen
July 07, 2025
4

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.

Avatar for Richard Allen

Richard Allen

July 07, 2025
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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. 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”
  3. Team Topologies 5 Organizing business and technology teams for fast

    flow Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais IT Revolution Press, 2019 teamtopologies.com/book
  4. 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
  5. 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”
  6. The Solution: Shifting to Outside-In Thinking A Real World Example

    Key Takeaways The Problem: Inside-Out Thinking 9
  7. 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
  8. Which Emotion Dominates Your Org? Joy Fear Anger Disgust Sadness

    18 Is each department optimizing for it’s own success?
  9. 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 💥
  10. …this causes Riley’s Personality Islands to start to collapse… 21

    …and the core emotions don’t know what to do…
  11. 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
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. Add a value chain axis. Start with one user need,

    identify the capabilities used to meet that need Step 4: Map capabilities 28
  15. …keep adding capabilities until your map starts to resemble your

    current “Big Ball of Mud”… Step 4: Map capabilities 32
  16. …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
  17. …simplify clusters of capabilities to simplify the User Needs Map

    to enable a broader system view… Step 7: Iterate and scale 40
  18. Typical org chart with functional silos “How can we scale,

    innovate and adapt effectively with motivated happy people?” Erica Engelen Rich Allen 45
  19. 3 Day on-site workshop + 3 month deep dive workshops

    User Needs Map Current and Future State Team Interaction Modelling Independent Service Heuristics 46
  20. 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
  21. 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
  22. Riley (13) Self- Expression / fitting in Belonging, admiration, shared

    passions Anticipation, comparison, reputation Self- Protection, social signalling Emotional fatigue, disengagement New User Needs 50
  23. Add the new capabilities, emotions and Islands of Personality -

    the new Big Ball of Mud Step 7: Iterate and scale 56
  24. “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
  25. 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
  26. ❌ Stop asking: “How do we make current teams more

    efficient?” ☑Start asking: “What do our users actually need?” 64
  27. What is one change you can make tomorrow to align

    your teams more closely with user needs? 66
  28. 67 New book coming soon… A hands-on practitioners guide to

    applying user needs mapping in context.
  29. 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