Nobody has run this yet
Outcome Observability is a designed mechanism with no deployment behind it. I am looking for one organisation willing to be the first, and to let the result be published whichever way it goes.
Three things, in this order
1. Is this for you?
Seven yes-or-no questions, two minutes. Most first attempts fail here, and it is better to find out now. Take the test →
2. The Lighthouse Playbook
Twelve steps from decision to day ninety: who does what, what gets written, how long it takes, what done looks like. Free, eleven pages. Download the playbook (PDF) →
3. Thirty minutes with me
Before your Zero Ceremony. Bring the owner's name and the outcome sentence; I will tell you honestly whether I think it will light. Ask for the slot →
The playbook gets a first deployment started and observed. It will not carry you through the first hard decision; that is the book, and the playbook says on each page where. Playbook © El Mehdi Kadaoui: share it whole, with attribution; no commercial use or derivative works without permission. Templates remain CC BY 4.0.
What a first deployment is
One outcome, ninety days, one named stewardship pair and one custodian. The discipline runs as specified, and alongside it an independent record is kept of when each divergence became knowable through ordinary channels. At the end, the two records are compared. The question is not whether people liked it. The question is whether the discipline saw anything earlier than the organisation would have seen it anyway, and whether that detection turned into a decision.
The evaluation is designed so that it can fail. If the discipline did not see it first, or saw it no earlier than the ordinary channels, the central claim is falsified for that setting, and that result gets published too.
What has to be true before starting
A named business owner
One executive with P&L accountability and process authority, who will co-write the signals and whose name goes in the record. Not a function, not a committee.
An outcome that already matters
A transformation live or about to go live, where somebody senior would be embarrassed if the value did not appear.
A custodian with time
One person from the business, close to the work, near full-time for the first sixty to ninety days, with a backfill or workload agreement in writing. "They will fit it in" is not an arrangement.
Capacity to correct
A critical friction point can be fixed within two sprints. Without this you are observing a crash you cannot prevent.
Permission to look
Observation is at population level, never individual. Where a works council or DPO must be consulted, that happens before anything is observed.
What each side gets
You get the design of the instrumentation, coaching for the custodian, the review structure, the evaluation protocol, and the findings written up for your board, at no cost.
I get access to the record, and permission to publish the findings in anonymised form, including the parts that do not flatter the discipline.
When not to do this
- The transformation is already in crisis. This is an instrument, not a rescue.
- No individual can be named as owner, or the owner cannot fund a correction.
- Unwelcome information is career-limiting in your organisation. The discipline surfaces exactly that, and it will be smothered.
- You want a dashboard for a steering committee. That is a different request, and there are vendors for it.
Start a conversation
Tell me about the outcome, who would own it, and roughly when it goes live. One paragraph is enough.
I am based in Brussels. Most of this works remotely, but I will come to you for the framing session and for the first review.
If it is not a fit I will say so quickly, and why.