What is happening when your whole team agrees on what's broken, but at the end of the day, nothing changes?

In this episode I sit down with Emma Marks and Audrey Damman to talk about what they learned rolling out a new work management system to their team. We get into some of their findings about how just because everyone agrees that something is a problem, it doesn't mean that solving that problem is a priority for everyone. Agreement is definitely not commitment!

This is part one of a two part conversation about designing internal change projects- the kind where you're trying to shift how your team works, not just deliver a product to external stakeholders. Emma and Audrey walk us through their design process, what they wish they'd done differently, and why leading with vision matters more than listing pain points.

If you've ever wondered why your well-designed project lost momentum, or why stakeholder buy-in seemed solid until it wasn't, you might find some tid bits in this conversation.

My Favorite Quotes of the Episode:

"...you don't want to over-index for your point of view because your pain point isn't necessarily everyone's pain point." - Emma Marks

"We might reach consensus and be all on the same page about what the problem is, but how meaningful that problem is to people varied. People didn't see it as needing the same level of intervention or the same level of time investment." - Audrey Damman

Episode Breakdown

00:00 - 07:00 - Introductions and setting up the project

07:00 - 14:00 - What project design means for internal change projects

14:00 - 20:00 - The theory of change rollout that inspired this work 20:00 - 29:00 - How they facilitated problem definition without over-indexing

29:00 - 34:00 - The gap between consensus and commitment

34:00 - End - Why vision matters and preview of Part 2