The pattern we see over and over

An organization hires consultants. They run workshops. They produce beautiful process maps and detailed documentation. Everyone agrees this is how things should work.

Six months later, nothing has changed. The documentation lives in a shared drive nobody opens. People are back to doing things the way they always did.

Why?

The Three Failure Modes

What actually goes wrong

1. They document the ideal, not the real

Most process projects start with how things should work. They never surface how things actually work—including all the workarounds, shortcuts, and heroics that keep the operation running.

Customer Experience Design is different: We trace real work through the system before we design anything. The current state comes first.

2. They ignore leadership behavior

You can design the perfect system, but if leadership continues to bypass it, reward heroics, or send mixed signals—the system dies. People follow what leaders do, not what they say.

Customer Experience Design is different: We explicitly examine leadership behavior as part of the design. If leadership isn't aligned, we surface that—before you waste money on implementation.

3. They treat documentation as the deliverable

A process map is not a system. Documentation doesn't change behavior. What changes behavior is clarity about ownership, explicit definitions of ready and done, and leadership that models the designed system.

Customer Experience Design is different: The deliverable isn't documentation—it's a designed system with named owners, explicit steps, and a 90-day transition plan. The documentation exists to support execution, not replace it.

"Most operating systems fail not because they're poorly designed, but because leadership continues to behave as if the old system still exists."

This is why Customer Experience Design includes explicit leadership alignment as part of the engagement—not as an afterthought, but as a core phase of the work.

What we do differently

Ready to do it differently?

Customer Experience Design is built for organizations that are tired of documentation that never gets used.