De-risking a $3 M Seed

Client:  Sophia, CEO at a VC-backed software startup

Goal:  Prepare the startup led by a Forbes “30 under 30” award winning CEO from technical, commercialization, and team dynamics perspectives for rapid scaling of their new flagship software application. 

Process:  Over a series of five 2-hour workshops within a 2-week sprint, Dr. Colin facilitated a technical ecosystem assessment, roadmap discovery, technical & process discovery and tactical sprint planning activities with Sophia and her C-Suite leadership team.

Result:  The gap analysis immediately saved $200,000 in direct engineering costs, along with significantly de-risking their $3 M Seed investment by identifying and finding solutions to critical, previously unknown engineering risks.

Saving Teams, Saving Jobs

Client:  Judy, Design executive at a tech innovation organization

Goal:  Navigate major budget shortfall discussions with Judy's C-suite; keep all of her staff employed through any future reduction-in-force actions while maintaining working rapport with her executive peers. 

Process:  Over a series of 1:1 sessions, Dr. Colin asked guided questions for Judy to deeply assess the realities of the budget shortfall, as well as performance similarities & differences between Judy's team and other teams. We then had sessions before and after a critical resourcing meeting between Judy and the organization's C-Suite.

Result:  Judy successfully championed and implemented an action plan where all of her direct reports were able to keep their jobs through the organization wide budget reductions.

Aligning Teams, Optimizing Outcomes

Client:  Gary, Executive Vice President of Product at a tech multinational

Goal:  Resolve conflicting roles and  responsibilities between Cathy and Jack, two  junior VPs reporting to Gary who were each responsible for two the organization's most important product lines.

Process:  Dr. Colin facilitated 1:1 sessions individually with Cathy and Jack, building up a mapping of constraints (people and technical) that were impacting Cathy and Jack's ability to perform effectively -- severely impacting the entire organization. Next, Dr. Colin facilitated group sessions with Gary, Cathy, and Jack to assess the current constraints and map potential ways forward.

Result:  Gary successfully championed his organization's C-Suite to re-organize the global Product, Marketing, and Engineering teams to have clear roles and responsibilities -- without any duplications or holes. The new organization structure decreased Product and Engineering costs while increasing Sales. Revenue then increased for all product lines within the 1000 person division.

Navigating a Personal Crisis

Client:  Julia, Engineering leader at a Series A funded tech startup

Goal:  Undergo major surgical treatment without negatively impacting C-suite, investor, or team confidence in the company meeting Series B growth targets.

Process:  Over a series of 1:1 sessions, we assessed the perceived and actual information needs of all relevant stakeholders, including the C-suite, investors, and engineering team. We then assessed risk scenarios of various surgical outcomes and their potential impacts on Julia's ability to meet engineering needs.

Result:  Julia estimated a 95+% likelihood that she would recover from surgery to only need a 3-week full-time leave. This time was framed as an extended personal leave -- a less-is-more approach that suggested a sabbatical or vacation in the eyes of all stakeholders. Julia successfully asked her boss for a personal leave, recovered from surgery, and returned to work in 2.5 weeks. No significant disruptions to engineering occurred and the tech startup's path to Series B funding was successfully de-risked.

Turning Threats into Opportunities

Client:  Sunil, Research leader at a Series B funded tech company

Goal:  Resolve threats to a $50 M investment by a competing company's patents that could prevent ability to sell any future product. 

Process:  As a sensitive issue for Sunil, 1:1 sessions were held discretely without involvement of any colleagues (only Sunil was initially aware of the competing company's patents). Dr. Colin leveraged his experience in tech innovation, including intellectual property and business development, to ask deep, probing coaching questions about the people and technologies involved in the competitor's patents and the intellectual property of Sunil's team. 

Result:  Sunil worked with his team to build a parallel patent portfolio over the next 2 years that had significant overlapping and differentiating patent claims to the competitor. This successfully enabled Sunil's company a license to operate and sell their product, thereby saving the $50 M investment.