Product development cut from eighteen months to six

Where it started

The engagement began as a rebranding project after a run of acquisitions. Within the first few sessions a different problem surfaced, and it was the one actually limiting the business.

With multiple CEOs from acquired companies now sitting on one executive team, there was no shared way of thinking, working, or making decisions. Each leader brought their own processes and priorities. That fragmentation at the top produced conflicting go-to-market strategies, resources pointed in different directions, and execution that stalled and restarted.

A new brand was not going to fix any of that. So we changed what the engagement was about.

What we did together

Rather than work on alignment in the abstract, we worked on the actual decisions in front of the team. That meant building structure into how priorities got set and how work moved between stages.

Once the exec team was operating the same way, the method extended down to the next level of leadership, so consistency held across departments rather than stopping at the top.

What changed

Product development went from eighteen months to six. A two-thirds reduction, achieved by removing ambiguity between stages rather than adding people.

Marketing execution went from three to four weeks down to three days.

Executive meetings got shorter and more decisive, and board communication improved because the leadership team could describe what was happening in one voice.

Acquisitions multiply capability and complexity at the same time. The complexity usually shows up first, as a leadership team that agrees on strategy and executes four different ways.