Building the capability

The point is that you stop needing us.

Not every engagement has to end that way. You can have the Adoption Value Trace run on a single product and stop there — that is a complete piece of work, and plenty of organisations only ever want that. But if adoption is going to be something you operate rather than something you commission, the capability has to reside within your organisation.

So there are two ways in. They are not a ladder, and neither is a condition for the other.

Two ways in

One product, or the capability across several.

One product · days to months

The Adoption Value Trace, run on one product

Three versions of the same trace — Sprint, Standard and Deep — separated by how far along the trace the work goes and how much actual evidence stands behind the answer when it stops. We run it; your team is in the room.

See what the three cover

Two or three products · nine to twelve months

Building the capability

Two or three of your products each go through a full Deep Adoption Value Trace, run in sequence with our part getting smaller each time — and the ownership, organising and governance built alongside them, so the discipline stays when we leave.

See how the capability is built

A trace on one product commits you to nothing further. And building the capability does not begin with a course — it begins on a real product of yours.

The backbone

One trace, three depths.

The Adoption Value Trace runs from the business direction you are trying to deliver on to the evidence that shows whether you are. The five steps, the FARO model behind them and the rhythm the evidence feeds are set out on Approach. This page is about what each version covers, and what it leaves you with.

Read the Adoption Value Trace on Approach

Typically four to seven days

Adoption Value Trace Sprint

What you are left with: A shared, holistic version 1.0 of how the product is expected to create value for users and for the organisation, the behaviour that value depends on, how success should be judged across all three FARO dimensions — and where your evidence gaps actually are.
Main outputs: A prioritised Adoption Value Trace you can keep working in

An extended value proposition for user and organisation

An Adoption Metric Trail carrying two or three prioritised value and benefits metrics

Prioritised Heartbeat metrics, and the Employee Experience metrics that matter here

A FARO measurement specification, version 1.0, and the data gaps written down rather than assumed away
Where it stops: Before a new round of measurement, and before any pivot-or-persevere decision. The Sprint does not necessarily start new data collection, and it does not document what adoption actually is today. Where you already hold usable, comparable data, current values, the distance to target and any trends can be brought in — but that depends on your data, and is not something we promise as standard.
What it assumes: That you already hold much of the direction and value work — a defined challenge, a winning aspiration, prioritised business benefits, a known user profile, an existing value map, and access to the data you do have. Where the essentials are missing, this is the wrong shape and we will say so.

Typically five to eight weeks

Adoption Value Trace Standard

What you are left with: More certainty that the product is aimed at the right challenge, and an evidence-based picture of the value it creates — with the barriers to the behaviour named rather than guessed at. It includes one full Employee Experience Survey — 360° PULS and the experience baseline that establishes.
Main outputs: A prioritised Adoption Value Trace

A value map tested against actual evidence

A FARO baseline and measurement specification

Prioritised recommendations, with three or four leading outcome metrics identified

You also receive the full 360° PULS report and the data behind it.
Where it stops: Before the first overall pivot-or-persevere decision. Standard does not necessarily complete a first full reading in all three FARO dimensions — current values in the other dimensions come in where usable, comparable data already exists.
What it assumes: A product in service with a real user group we can reach, a sponsor or business benefit owner who can prioritise, access to respondents, responsible handling of the survey and its data, and the appetite to act on what comes back. The direction work itself can be incomplete — Standard develops it, and is allowed to challenge the problem you started from.

Typically two to three months as a direct entry

Deep Adoption Value Trace

What you are left with: The first evidence-based read on your product’s Actual Fit — across all three FARO dimensions and three prioritised user profiles — and the first pivot-or-persevere decision taken on it, with reasons you can put in front of someone.
Main outputs: An Adoption Strategy for this product

Three user profiles, each with the value it needs and where that value breaks down — read from evidence rather than assumed

One coherent set of metrics across all three FARO dimensions — shared ones and profile-specific ones. We specify and quality-assure them; your technical team implements them in the systems you choose

The first reading across all three dimensions, including how good the data is and what it still cannot tell you

A prioritised backlog of improvements and interventions, each item traceable to the evidence that justified it

The Fit Gap Playbook is what turns the reading into that backlog.
Where it stops: At the decision and the backlog. We specify and quality-assure the metrics; your technical team implements them in your own systems. New data platforms, larger integrations and doing what the backlog asks for are not part of it. And a first reading is a first reading — not a stable trend, and not proof of cause.
What it assumes: Everything Standard assumes, plus the technical capacity to implement the specified metrics and a sponsor prepared to act on the decision once it has been made.

Progressive, not a staircase. You can enter at any of the three. A product that starts at Sprint can continue to Standard, or Standard to Deep, without repeating work that is still current and still good enough. What you buy then is the difference, plus whatever genuinely needs revalidating — the direct-entry durations above do not simply apply again.

All three run on a product you already have. They are built for value you are trying to capture from software that is already in service. A product still being explored is a different problem, and we evaluate that separately before taking it on.

Understanding what creates value builds on the Value Proposition Canvas from Osterwalder, Pigneur, Bernarda and Smith. We extend it: where use is mandatory the user does not choose, and the organisation that needs the outcome is a different party. One value map has to serve both.

The longer engagement

Two or three products, and the organisation around them.

Building the capability answers a harder question than any single product does: how do we know whether our digital products are delivering the business benefits they were intended to deliver — especially when usage is mandatory — and what should we do about the gaps?

Typically nine to twelve months. Two or three of your products in service each go through a full Deep Adoption Value Trace, run in sequence with controlled overlap — and you lead most of the last one.

What moves across is the whole trace — the strategy work, the measurement design, the reading of the evidence and the decision that follows it. Not just running the survey.

The three stages together are the Adoption Capability Roadmap.

STAGE ONE

Become knowledgeable

A shared professional foundation, and your own point of view about it rather than ours. Two teaching days are the recommended way in and are part of the offer — built on design thinking, and we say so — but where the knowledge is already there we leave them out and say why. They can also be booked on their own. Most of the learning happens inside the anchor product’s trace. A capability owner and a Centre of Excellence, version 1.0 — CoE v1.0 — are in place by the end of this stage.

STAGE TWO

Get organised

Ownership, mandate and decision rights. Each product gets its own Adoption Strategy as part of its trace, and each product team a Team Operating Model. An Adoption Operating Conditions assessment and action workshop is run once, at the level that makes sense, and used across all of it. Who runs what, how often it runs, and who decides when the evidence says something uncomfortable.

STAGE THREE

Become enterprise-savvy

You lead most of the last trace. Learning and artefacts carry across the products — compared, not treated as identical — and your CoE v1.0 uses and quality-assures the discipline itself. Together we read where the capability stands against the ambition you set, and plan the next product. This is capability beginning to hold across products; it is not a finished enterprise function.

How the work moves across

Our part gets smaller on purpose.

The anchor product

We lead. Your team is in every session — taking part, not observing.

The second product

We lead it together. You take more of the work each step, and we are alongside for whatever is still new.

The third product

You lead. We coach and quality-assure, and we are in the room for the parts that are still hard.

With two products the progression is compressed, not removed. Demonstrated ownership is the point, not the number of products.

What you are left with

Five things, and they are yours.

Capability roadmap: An Adoption Capability Roadmap: the ambition, the stages, the product sequence and how the work moves across to you.
Completed traces: Two or three completed Deep Adoption Value Trace engagements — each with its own Adoption Strategy, evidence, reading, decision and backlog.
Governance and operating model: Roles, decision forums, cadence, a Team Operating Model per participating product team, and prioritised improvements to your adoption operating conditions.
Centre of Excellence, version 1.0: A capability owner, a core group with a mandate, shared working standards and quality criteria — owned by you.
Readiness, and the next product: A shared read on where the capability stands against your own ambition, and a plan for the next product: what you have demonstrated, what is still missing, and where the limits of self-sufficiency are. A joint development assessment, not a certification.

Where it stops

The delivery boundary above applies to each product’s trace: your technical team implements the specified metrics, and doing what the backlogs ask for is your work.
What you end with is a capability that holds across two or three products, with a CoE v1.0. It is not a fully mature enterprise-wide function, and it is not a guarantee of particular business benefits.
More than three products, products still being explored, and running the discipline for you after handover are separate conversations.

What it asks of you

This only works if it is partly yours from the start.

Before we start: One executive sponsor with a mandate across the products. Two or three suitable products in service, with their teams and business benefit owners. Access to users, data, systems and existing material. The technical capacity to implement the specified metrics. A first capability core group. And people you can genuinely free up across nine to twelve months.
Who takes part: The sponsor, the capability owner and the core group. A product owner or manager and a business benefit owner for each product, with their teams. Data, analytics and technical roles. Design, user research or employee experience skills. HR, change or data protection where they are needed. And users, as respondents or in validation. Not everyone is in everything, and we do not publish a fixed number of participants.
What you do: Lead an increasing share of the work. Implement the specified metrics. Support the surveys and handle their data responsibly. Make the product and organisational decisions the evidence calls for. Establish and run CoE v1.0, carry through the agreed governance changes, and take over the standards and artefacts.
How it runs: Physical workshops, online work and coaching in between. Kick-off, strategy, prioritisation and handover are best done in one room; the rest works online, and surveys are digital. We do the analysis and preparation between sessions. We do not publish a fixed number of workshops, because it follows your products rather than a curriculum.
What is scoped with you: Two products or three. The sequence and the overlap. How far you want the capability to go. How closely we work on each product. How much of your existing material can be reused. And who takes part in what.
Price: There is no standard price on this page. Two products and three are different engagements, and so are a team that has done this before and one that has not. We scope it with you and put a number on it before anything begins.

The model, the trace and the rhythm behind all of this

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