The document outlines strategies for overcoming project stagnation in consultancy and agency settings, emphasizing the importance of Agile and Lean methodologies to improve collaboration and eliminate wasteful practices. It suggests techniques like establishing clear goals, validating assumptions, fostering a constructive feedback culture, and using iterative learning to address challenges. Additionally, it highlights the value of mentoring and team alignment to achieve project objectives efficiently.

1. Lean Service Clinic
Unstick my project

2. Andreas Conradi
andreas.conradi@red-badger.com
@andreasconradi
#serviceclinic
Hi there!

3. Show hands
if you work for
a Consultancy
or Agency

4. Show hands
if you work
embedded with
a client

5. Show hands
if you work
Client side

6. Show hands
if you work
freelance.

7. Show hands
if you study.

10. Firsts

11. What difference
does it make?

12. Stuck

13. Messes are made
out of information
and people.
Abby Covert

14. Unstick trigger, Agile
Agile is intended to maximise value creation by
de-emphasizing up front specification and process
in favour of front loading value.
Agile is no longer just about technology.
It is about new models of organisation.

15. Unstick trigger, Lean
Lean manufacturing and lean startup
— aim to eliminate wasteful practices

16. Unstick trigger, Coaching
A coach supports a learner or client in achieving a
specific personal or professional goal.

17. Think big
Act small
Fail fast
Learn rapidly

18. Goals and KPI
changing

19. Setting goals
Inspired by Smart Goals Trigger Questions

20. Brief addressing
the wrong
things. Clients
solutionizing.

21. Challenging Assumptions
Inspired by our Cognitive Biases

22. Teams work in
silos and not
collaborating

23. Align & Motivate Cross-Functional Teams
Inspired by the Agile Frames & Rituals

24. Analysis Paralysis in team.
No buy-in to research from
client.
Unvalidated assumptions
taken as truth.

25. Learning
Inspired by Lean/JTBD

26. Ideas don’t flow,
Resistance to
share early ideas

27. Forming Ideas
Inspired by Design Thinking and Lean

28. What is
your biggest
challenge?

29. Stuck Story Card
Looking back at a time you felt stuck on a project,
what were you trying to achieve?
What stopped you?
Who was involved?
Why do you think this happened?

30. 3min

31. Share your
stuck stories

32. Sticky voting

33. Find the unstick
trigger that
works for you.

34. How did it go?
Who found a problem worth solving?
Who found a great remedy?
How did you approach it?

35. Find a mentor
Be a mentor

36. Andreas Conradi
andreas.conradi@red-badger.com
@andreasconradi
#serviceclinic
Bye

37. www.red-badger.com

38. Playcards

39. Setting goals
Inspired by Smart Goals Trigger Questions
01
What specifically do you
want?
02
How will you know
when you’ve achieved
this?
03
What will this outcome
get for you or allow you
to do?
04
Where, When, How, and
with whom do you want
to achieve this?
Help your client to state the goal in
positive form. ‘Towards to‘ not ‘away
from’. Clarify scope and scale.
Be specific as possible, make it clear
and testable.
Discover the true motivations,
wishes or dreams that underlay
the job.
Establish context and boundaries
[business, tech, … ]
05
Where are you now in
relation to the outcome?
06
Who has done it before,
or has a similar
challenge?
07
Anchor goals in a way
that makes them easy
to communicate and
remember.
Identify the distance between the
current state and desired state. Use
this insight to manage expectations
and break the project into managable
chunks.
Identify sources of information,
potential allies and support network
inside and outside of the organisation.
The vision will guide and align the
team. Make sure it’s visibly placed and
fully [really fully] understood and
remembered by all on the team.

40. Challenging Assumptions
Inspired by our Cognitive Biases
01
Anchoring on
first assumptions
02
Clinging to hard
gained insights
03
Resisting outside
forces
04
Situational
influence
Think back when you started with the
problem at hand – what were your
assumptions about the matter back
then? Might these assumptions reign
your view on the topic, despite having
accumulated more insight?
Look at the effort you had collecting
information on the topic. Are you
holding on to a view, just because you
went great lengths to gain the insight
that led to it?
Think about outside expectations or
the people you need to report to. Are
you resisting to go a certain direction
just because it is enforced by your
surroundings?
Think of the matter at hand not in
isolation. Are you focussing too much
on solving the problem itself,
overlooking that the solution might be
in changing the situation or
circumstances that brought it about?
05
Personal
view
06
Violating
existing beliefs
Think about your attitude towards
possible solutions. Are you favoring
solutions that bring about values that
you personally desire, but that don’t
apply to all of the people affected by
the solution?
Looking at consequences of decisions
– are you limiting yourself by being
hesitant to violate existing beliefs or
old rules of the existing system?

41. Learning
Inspired by Lean/JTBD
01
Validate assumptions as
early as possible
02
Iterative approach to
learning
03
Situational influence
04
Desired Outcomes/
Undesired Outcomes
Test, learn, iterate as early as possible.
If you are not a bit embarrassed to
show your first sketch/prototype you
probabely waited too long. Choose
what evidence you need to either
prove or disprove your hypothesis.
Take an iterative learning approach.
Create a Research Backlog. Share
insights frequently with your team and
adjust your research focus based on
the outcomes.
Understand how customer needs and
expectations change in different
situations and what implications this
has for your solution.
Understand and map outcomes the
customer tries to achieve. Understand
and map outcomes the customer tries
to avoid. Consider functional,
emotional, social jobs.
05
Forces promoting/
blocking change
06
Be intentional with
language— and listen
for intend
07
Use data, Listen to
aggregators of insights
08
Is this the right problem
to solve?
Understand and map factors that push
a customer away from an existing
solution and which pull towards a new.
Understand and map anxieties,
allegiances, barriers/constraints.
Which situations function as trigger?
The words we choose matter.
Language choices reveal the mental
model on which we operate. The
mental model forms our reality. Be
intentional with language and listen for
the intend. [Cause/Effect,
Associated/Dissociated,
Visual/Auditory/Kinestetic]
Learn how existing services are used.
Who has day-to-day contact with
customers? Built actionable analytics
into anything you build.
Identify the root cause of the problem,
make sure it's not just a symptom of
something bigger — ask ‘why’ and
‘what if…’ use the learning to reframe
the problem definition.

42. Align & Motivate Cross-Functional Teams
Inspired by the Agile Frames & Rituals
01
Create a Safe Space
for your team
02
Daily standup with
entire team
03
Demo frequently to
Stakeholders—be open
and honest
04
Ask for honest feedback
in Team Retros
Do warmups, check-in/check-out and
inspire people to play as one team.
Everyone should be confortable to
share early/unpolished ideas and
generous enough to build on each
others ideas. Inspire mutual trust in the
team.
Quickly inform everyone of what's
going on across the team in a daily
standup. What did I complete
yesterday? What will I work on today?
Am I blocked by anything?
Celebrate accomplishments,
demonstrate work and get immediate
feedback from project stakeholders in
a weekly or bi-weekly Product Demo.
Help the team understand what
worked well–and what didn't and how
to improve in Team Retrospectives
[mad/sad/glad or start/stop/continue]
Promote an honest and constructive
feedback culture [I like… , I wish...]
05
Make it visual—
Information Radiator
06
Make it easy for
others to help
07
Bigger chunks into
smaller tasks
08
Definition of
“Done”
Big visible charts, task board on a
physical wall to align the team and
communicate progress and
impediments. Make blocker visible and
quantify the damage of not acting in
time/money.
Share stuck moments and make it
easy for others [team, customers,
partners] to help solve your challenge.
Smaller tasks make it easier to start.
Break bigger chunks into managable
parts. Each thing you want to do goes
on a card, and each card goes into the
backlog. Motivate the team with small
chunks of working product in short
time-boxes.
Clearly define where to stop [for now]

43. Forming Ideas
Inspired by Design Thinking and Lean
01
How might you make it
super easy? Do less
02
Shitty first draft
03
Smallest possible
experiment
04
Map the mess &
play with structure
How might we solve this in the most
basic way? When will less do the job?
How would you do it without tech?
How might we remove the problem
altogether?
Only develop it to the point so you can
get a reaction from people and
capture the learning. Increase fidelity
gradually, think: Cupcake, Birthday
Cake, Wedding Cake
What improvement can you quickly
prototype, test and iterate? What is the
smallest possible experiment to learn?
Don’t build more than necessary to
test your ideas. Don’t even go into
Sprint 1 if you can test your idea in a
sketch or prototype.
Visualise the essentail factors that
touch your service. Map player and the
value they might exchange, tech &
delivery structures. Choose a structure
that is flexible and supports
experimentation. [Bubble diagrams,
Sticky notes, ...]
05
Design for flexibility
06
Make it
tangible/personal
07
Simulate your system
with people
08
Test with fake doors
Choose tools that support
collaboration and frequent change.
Things will change.
Roleplay the service, act out the
communication with interface or
service staff to get an immediate feel
for the solution.
Start with a fully manual service. It
should consist of exactly the same
steps people would go through with
your product. This brings you close to
the customer and makes learning fast.
Create an advertising, landing,
kickstarter, facebook or meetup page.