gh-lyndonkl-claude/skills/alignment-values-north-star/resources/methodology.md

Alignment Framework Methodology for Scaling Organizations

Alignment Framework Workflow

Copy this checklist and track your progress:

Alignment Framework Progress:
- [ ] Step 1: Audit current state and identify gaps
- [ ] Step 2: Refine values through stakeholder discovery
- [ ] Step 3: Build multi-team alignment framework
- [ ] Step 4: Create decision frameworks for autonomy
- [ ] Step 5: Rollout and reinforce across organization

Step 1: Audit current state and identify gaps

Document stated vs actual values, interview stakeholders, and analyze past decisions to identify values drift. See Refining Existing Values for audit techniques.

Step 2: Refine values through stakeholder discovery

Evolve or replace values based on discovery findings, using stakeholder input to ensure relevance. See Refinement Process for evolution patterns and rollout strategies.

Step 3: Build multi-team alignment framework

Create layered alignment across company, function, and team levels to prevent silos. See Multi-Team Alignment Frameworks for nested framework structures.

Step 4: Create decision frameworks for autonomy

Build decision tenets and authority matrices to enable aligned autonomy. See Building Decision Frameworks for Autonomy for tenet patterns and RACI matrices.

Step 5: Rollout and reinforce across organization

Execute phased rollout with leadership alignment, cascading communication, and ongoing reinforcement. See Rollout Strategy for Refined Values and Case Study: Company-Wide Values Refresh for implementation examples.

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Refining Existing Values

Why Refine?

Common triggers:

• Values are vague ("be excellent") - no operational guidance
• Values conflict with reality (say "innovation" but punish failures)
• New priorities emerged (e.g., shift from growth to profitability)
• Multiple acquisitions brought different cultures
• Team doesn't reference values in decisions (not useful)

Audit Current State

Step 1: Document existing values

• What are stated values? (website, onboarding docs, walls)
• What are actual values? (observed in decisions, promotions, conflicts)
• Gap analysis: Where do stated and actual diverge?

Step 2: Interview stakeholders

Questions to ask:

• "What do we truly value here? (not what we say we value)"
• "Tell me about a tough decision - what guided it?"
• "What behaviors get rewarded? Punished?"
• "When have our values helped you? Hindered you?"
• "What values are missing that we need?"

Step 3: Analyze decisions

Review past 6-12 months:

• Hiring/firing decisions - what values were applied?
• Product prioritization - what drove choices?
• Resource allocation - what got funded/cut?
• Conflict resolution - how were tradeoffs made?

Look for patterns revealing true values.

Refinement Process

Option A: Evolve existing values

Keep core values but make them clearer:

Before: "Customer obsession" After: "Customer obsession: We prioritize long-term customer success over short-term metrics. When in doubt, we ask 'what would create lasting value for customers?' and optimize for that, even if it delays revenue."

Add:

• Specific definition
• Why it matters
• Decision examples
• Anti-patterns

Option B: Retire and replace

When existing values don't serve:

1. Acknowledge what's changing and why
2. Thank the old values for their service
3. Introduce new values with context
4. Show connection (evolution, not rejection)

Example:

• Old: "Move fast and break things" (startup phase)
• New: "Move deliberately with customer trust" (scale phase)
• Context: "We used to optimize for speed because we needed product-market fit. Now we optimize for reliability because customers depend on us."

Rollout Strategy for Refined Values

Phase 1: Leadership alignment (Week 1-2)

• All leaders can articulate values in their own words
• Leadership team models values in visible decisions
• Leaders prepared to answer "why change?" and "what's different?"

Phase 2: Cascading communication (Week 3-4)

• All-hands presentation (context, new values, Q&A)
• Team-level workshops (apply to team decisions)
• 1:1s address individual concerns

Phase 3: Integration (Month 2-3)

• Update hiring rubrics
• Update performance review criteria
• Reference in decision memos
• Celebrate examples of values in action

Phase 4: Reinforcement (Ongoing)

• Monthly: Leaders share values-driven decisions
• Quarterly: Audit if values are being used
• Annually: Refresh based on feedback

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Multi-Team Alignment Frameworks

Challenge: Silos & Conflicting Priorities

As organizations scale:

• Teams optimize for local goals
• Priorities conflict (eng wants stability, product wants speed)
• Decisions require escalation (autonomy breaks down)
• Values interpreted differently across teams

Layered Alignment Framework

Layer 1: Company-Wide North Star & Values

Company level (50+ people, multiple teams):

• North Star: Aspirational direction for whole company
• Values: 3-5 company-wide principles
• Decision Tenets: Company-level tradeoff guidance

Example:

Company North Star: "Empower every team to ship confidently"

Company Values:
1. Customer trust over growth metrics
2. Clarity over consensus
3. Leverage through platforms

Company Decision Tenets:
- When product and platform conflict, platforms enable more product value long-term
- When speed and reliability conflict, we choose reliability for critical paths

Layer 2: Function-Level Values & Tenets

Engineering, Product, Design, Sales functions each add:

• Function-specific interpretation of company values
• Function decision tenets (within company constraints)
• Function behaviors

Example (Engineering):

Engineering North Star: "Enable product velocity through reliable platforms"

Engineering Values (extending company):
1. Customer trust → "We treat production as sacred"
2. Clarity → "We write decisions down before coding"
3. Leverage → "We build platforms, not point solutions"

Engineering Decision Tenets:
- When feature velocity and platform health conflict, platform health wins
- When local optimization and system optimization conflict, system wins
- When urgency and testing conflict, we ship with tests (move test left)

Layer 3: Team-Level Rituals & Practices

Individual teams implement values through rituals:

• How we run standups
• How we make architectural decisions
• How we handle incidents
• How we onboard new members

Example (Platform Team):

Rituals embodying "Platform enables product velocity":
- Weekly: Office hours for product teams (30 min slots)
- Monthly: Platform roadmap review with product input
- Quarterly: Platform usability study with product engineers

Alignment Check: Nested Frameworks

Test if layers are aligned:

Company Value	Function Interpretation	Team Practice
Customer trust	Engineering: Production is sacred	Platform: 99.9% SLA, postmortems within 24hr
Clarity	Engineering: Write before coding	Platform: RFC required for API changes
Leverage	Engineering: Platforms not point solutions	Platform: Reusable libraries, not feature forks

If a team practice doesn't connect to function value → doesn't connect to company value → misaligned.

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Building Decision Frameworks for Autonomy

Problem: Alignment vs Autonomy Tension

• Too much alignment → slow, needs approval for everything
• Too much autonomy → teams diverge, duplicate work, conflict

Goal: Aligned autonomy - teams make fast local decisions within clear constraints.

Decision Tenet Pattern

Format:

When {situation with tradeoff}, we choose {option A} over {option B} because {rationale}.

Characteristics of good tenets:

• Specific (not "be excellent")
• Tradeoff-oriented (acknowledges what we're NOT optimizing)
• Contextual (explains why this choice for us)
• Actionable (guides concrete decisions)

Example Tenets:

Engineering:

When latency and throughput conflict, we optimize for latency (p95 < 100ms)
because our users are professionals in workflows where milliseconds matter.

Product:

When power-user features and beginner simplicity conflict, we choose beginner simplicity
because growing the user base is our current strategic priority (2024 goal: 10x users).

Sales:

When deal size and customer fit conflict, we choose customer fit
because high-churn enterprise customers damage our brand and reference-ability.

Decision Authority Matrix (RACI + Values)

Map which decisions require escalation vs can be made locally:

Decision Type	Team Authority	Escalation Trigger	Values Applied
API design for team features	Team decides	If cross-team impact	Platform leverage
Production incident response	On-call decides	If customer data risk	Customer trust
Prioritization within quarter	PM decides	If OKR conflict	Quarterly focus
Hiring bar	Team + function	Never lower bar	Excellence standard

Escalation triggers (when to involve leadership):

• Cross-team conflict on priorities
• Values conflict (two values in tension)
• Precedent-setting decision (will affect future teams)
• High-stakes outcome (>$X, >Y customer impact)

Operationalizing Tenets in Decisions

Step 1: Frame decision with tenets

Bad decision memo:

We should build feature X.

Good decision memo:

Decision: Build feature X

Relevant tenets:
- "When power-users and beginners conflict, choose beginners" → Feature X is beginner-focused ✓
- "When latency and features conflict, choose latency" → Feature X adds 20ms latency ✗
- "Platform leverage over point solutions" → Feature X is platform component ✓

Recommendation: Build feature X BUT optimize latency first (refactor API)
Estimate: +2 weeks for latency optimization, worth it per tenets

Step 2: Audit tenet usage

Quarterly review:

• How many decisions referenced tenets?
• Which tenets are most/least used?
• Where did tenets conflict? (may need refinement)
• Where did teams escalate unnecessarily? (need clearer tenet)

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Common Scaling Challenges

Challenge 1: Values Drift (Stated ≠ Actual)

Symptoms:

• Leaders say "we value X" but reward Y
• Values posters on walls, but no one references them
• Cynicism about values ("just marketing")

Diagnosis:

• Review promotions: Who gets promoted? What values did they embody?
• Review tough decisions: Which values were actually applied?
• Interview employees: "Do you use our values? When? How?"

Fix:

1. Acknowledge drift ("Our stated values haven't matched our actions")
2. Choose: Either change stated values to match reality OR change behavior to match values
3. Leader modeling: Leaders publicly use values in decisions
4. Consequences: Promotions/rewards explicitly tied to values

Example:

Stated: "We value work-life balance"
Reality: Promotions go to those who work weekends

Fix Option A (change stated): "We value high output and intense commitment"
Fix Option B (change reality): "Promotions now require sustainable pace, not just output"

Challenge 2: Values Conflict (Internal Tensions)

Symptoms:

• Teams cite different values for same decision
• Paralysis (can't decide because values conflict)
• Escalation overload (everything needs leadership tiebreak)

Diagnosis:

• Map values pairwise: When do Value A and Value B conflict?
• Identify repeated conflict scenarios
• Ask: Is this values conflict or unclear priority?

Fix: Priority tenets

When values conflict, state priority:

"Speed" and "Quality" both matter, but:
- For customer-facing features: Quality > Speed (customer trust)
- For internal tools: Speed > Perfection (iterate fast)
- For platform APIs: Quality > Speed (leverage means hard to change)

Challenge 3: Multi-Team Misalignment

Symptoms:

• Teams build conflicting solutions
• Escalation required for every cross-team decision
• "Not my priority" culture

Diagnosis:

• Map team goals: Do team OKRs align?
• Check incentives: What does each team get rewarded for?
• Review cross-team projects: How often do they succeed?

Fix: Nested alignment framework (see above)

Plus:

• Cross-team rituals: Monthly

syncs on interdependencies

• Shared metrics: At least one metric in common across teams
• Rotation: Engineers rotate across team boundaries

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Case Study: Company-Wide Values Refresh

Context

Company: SaaS product, 150 employees, 8 engineering teams Trigger: Rapid growth (30 → 150 people in 18 months), old startup values not working Old values: "Move fast", "Customer obsessed", "Scrappy" Problem: "Move fast" causing production incidents; "Scrappy" justifying technical debt that slows product

Process

Month 1: Discovery

• Interviewed 40 employees (all levels, all functions)
• Reviewed 20 major decisions (what values were actually applied?)
• Surveyed all employees: "What do we truly value? What should we value?"

Key findings:

• "Move fast" interpreted as "ship without testing" (not intended)
• "Customer obsessed" unclear (speed to market vs quality vs support?)
• "Scrappy" became excuse for poor tooling
• Missing value: Reliability/trust (now serving enterprise customers)

Month 2: Leadership Workshop

• All directors + exec team (2-day offsite)
• Reviewed discovery findings
• Drafted new values + tenets
• Pressure-tested against real decisions

New values (refined):

1. Customer trust over growth metrics

   • Tenet: "When feature velocity and reliability conflict, reliability wins for core workflows"
   • Evolution of "customer obsessed" (clarified: long-term trust, not short-term features)

2. Leverage through platforms

   • Tenet: "When team autonomy and platform standards conflict, we choose standards for leverage"
   • Evolution of "scrappy" (still efficient, but via platforms not point solutions)

3. Clarity over consensus

   • Tenet: "When speed and buy-in conflict, we choose fast decision with clear rationale over slow consensus"
   • New value (addresses decision paralysis)

Month 3: Rollout

• All-hands (CEO presented, Q&A, examples of how values applied to recent decisions)
• Team workshops (each team applied to their context)
• Updated hiring rubric (added values-based questions)
• Updated performance review (added values section)

Month 4-6: Reinforcement

• Weekly exec team review: "What values-driven decisions did we make?"
• Monthly all-hands: Celebrate values in action (shoutouts)
• Quarterly survey: "Are we living our values?"

Results (6 months later)

Wins:

• Production incidents dropped 60% ("Customer trust" being applied)
• Engineering happiness up 25% (better tooling via "leverage through platforms")
• Decision velocity up (no more endless debates, "clarity over consensus")
• Values referenced in 80% of decision memos (actual usage)

Challenges:

• Some engineers missed "move fast" culture (clarified: fast decisions, deliberate execution)
• Sales initially confused ("customer trust" seemed to slow deals - clarified: long-term trust creates more deals)

Evolution (12 months):

• Added 4th value: "Default to transparency" (based on feedback)
• Refined "leverage" tenet (too restrictive, added exceptions for experiments)

Lessons Learned

1. Co-create with leadership: Top-down values fail, need buy-in from leaders who'll model them
2. Show the evolution: Don't reject old values, show how they evolved (honors the past)
3. Operationalize fast: Values are useless without tenets + integration into decisions
4. Celebrate examples: Abstract values need concrete stories of values in action
5. Iterate: Values are living, not static - update based on feedback

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Quality Checklist for Scaling Organizations

Before finalizing alignment framework refresh, check:

Discovery:

• Interviewed stakeholders across levels/functions
• Reviewed actual decisions (not just stated values)
• Identified gap between stated and actual values
• Understood why current values aren't working

Refinement:

• New values address root causes (not symptoms)
• Values evolved from old (honored the past)
• Values are specific and actionable (not vague platitudes)
• Tenets operationalize values (guide concrete decisions)
• Conflicts between values explicitly resolved (priority tenets)

Multi-Team Alignment:

• Company-wide values clear
• Function-level interpretations add specificity
• Team practices connect to function/company values
• Decision authority matrix defined (what escalates vs local)
• Cross-team conflicts have resolution process

Rollout:

• Leadership aligned and can model values
• Communication plan (all-hands, team workshops, 1:1s)
• Integration into systems (hiring, perf review, decision memos)
• Examples prepared (values in action stories)
• Feedback loops established (quarterly check-ins)

Reinforcement:

• Regular rituals (monthly values spotlights)
• Values referenced in decisions (not just posters)
• Consequences tied to values (promotions, rewards)
• Audit usage quarterly (are values being applied?)
• Iterate based on feedback (values evolve)

Minimum standard for scaling orgs: All checklist items completed before rollout