From Inside-Out to Outside-In: Aligning teams around what matters

Most organizations focus on optimizing their internal processes, creating silos and misalignments that hinder their ability to deliver value effectively. This inside-out perspective may feel like the best way to run a business, but it misses the most critical perspective: that of the customer. Whether it’s Product, Tech, Operations, or even Marketing, failing to align around the value being delivered creates inefficiencies, complexity, and frustration.

This talk introduces User Needs Mapping as a practical approach to shift organizational thinking to outside-in. By focusing on user needs—external and internal—it enables every part of the organization to align around the value being delivered. From revealing misalignments to breaking dependencies and fostering purposeful collaboration, User Needs Mapping provides immediate insights into creating focus, ownership, and autonomy for teams.

Through actionable examples and real-world stories, this session will show you how to uncover what truly matters for your users and align your entire organization to deliver value more effectively.

Transcript

1. From Inside-Out to Outside-In: Aligning teams around what matters Fast Flow Conf NL 27th March 2025 Rich Allen Curator of userneedsmapping.com 1
2. Are our teams truly structured to deliver what matters most… …value to our customers! 2
3. …inspired by… Inside Out (1 & 2) 3
4. 4 Who am I? Rich Allen Founder at Conjurer - conjurersolutions.co.uk Team Topologies Valued Practitioner Creator/Curator of “User Needs Mapping” userneedsmapping.com LinkedIn: richardallen Bluesky: @richallen.info Web: https://richallen.info Personal mission: “Bring more joy into people’s lives at work and help teams be more effective”
5. The Solution: Shifting to Outside-In Thinking A Real World Example Key Takeaways The Problem: Inside-Out Thinking 5
6. Riley (11) …is controlled by her core emotions… Goofball Hockey Family Friendship …these influence and shape her “Islands of Personality”… …organizations are structured around key aspects of their identity 6
7. The Problem: Inside-Out Thinking 7
8. Organizations Are Like Riley’s Mind 8
9. Joy (CEO) Wants everything to be positive - ignoring risks 9
10. Fear (Legal) Blocks new ideas due to potential risk. 10
11. Anger (IT/Ops) Gets frustrated with unrealistic demands. 11
12. Disgust (Marketing) Focused on brand perception, not actual user experience. 12
13. Sadness (Customer Support/HR) Sees the real problems but gets ignored. 13
14. Which Emotion Dominates Your Org? Joy Fear Anger Disgust Sadness 14 Is each department optimizing for it’s own success?
15. Consequences of Inside-Out Thinking Results: Slow delivery, misalignment, lack of real user focus! IT fights with marketing Leadership pushes for unrealistic goals Legal blocks innovation Support/HR get ignored 15
16. A move to San Francisco triggers a change… 16
17. …this causes Riley’s Personality Islands to start to collapse… 17 …and the core emotions don’t know what to do…
18. When the World Changes, Silos Break Down 18 Inside-Out Thinking Outside-In Thinking vs Blockbuster Nokia Netflix Apple Optimized for: Running video stores Selling phones Optimized for: How people wanted to watch movies How people wanted to experience technology
19. focus on Inside-Out, fall behind. shift to Outside-In, thrive! 19 Organizations that…
20. Learning from Inside-Out… …moving to Outside-In Stop asking: “How do we optimize our teams?” Start asking: “What do our users actually need?” 20
21. The Solution: Shifting from Inside-Out to Outside-In Thinking (with User Needs Mapping) 21
22. Step 1: Define the purpose: “Understand our current landscape” Riley (11) Social Belonging Personal Growth & Achievement Emotional Resilience Trust & Integrity Joy & Playfulness Security & Support Step 2: Identify the users: Step 3: Define the user needs: “Riley” User Needs Mapping Steps 22
23. Step 4: Map capabilities 23
24. Add a value chain axis. Start with one user need, identify the capabilities used to meet that need Step 4: Map capabilities 24
25. …continue adding more capabilities, connecting common dependencies… Step 4: Map capabilities 25
26. …keep adding capabilities until your map starts to resemble your current “Big Ball of Mud”… Step 4: Map capabilities 26
27. …overlay existing teams and tech systems to provide insights about current cognitive load and context switching… Step 5: Analyze dependencies 27
28. …rearrange the capabilities to identify potential clusters… Step 5: Analyze dependencies 28
29. …identify potential candidate team boundaries by overlaying Team Topologies team types… Step 6: Overlay Team Types 29
30. …simplify clusters of capabilities to simplify the User Needs Map to enable a broader system view… Step 7: Iterate and scale 30
31. …expand capabilities where it adds value to do so… Step 7: Iterate and scale 31
32. A Real World Example 32
33. Typical org chart with functional silos “How can we scale, innovate and adapt effectively with motivated happy people?” Erica Engelen Rich Allen 33
34. 3 Day on-site workshop + 3 month deep dive workshops User Needs Map Current and Future State Team Interaction Modelling Independent Service Heuristics 34
35. Sample User Need Maps 35
36. Organizing for faster flow “User Needs Mapping helped teams see where they are adding value which gives a new spark to team members to participate in a dialogue” Ingibjörg Rafnar Pétursdóttir, Director, Blue Lagoon, Iceland 36
37. Continuous Evolution: Lessons from Inside Out 2 The Evolution of the Islands in Inside Out 2 Inside-Out 2…PUBERTY ALERT!! WARNING! Change is inevitable! 37
38. Riley (13) Self- Expression / fitting in Belonging, admiration, shared passions Anticipation, comparison, reputation Self- Protection, social signalling Emotional fatigue, disengagement New User Needs 38
39. Riley (13) New Emotions 39
40. Goofball Hockey Family Friendship Honesty The Personality Islands… 40
41. Goofball Hockey Family Friendship Honesty …begin to crumble! 41
42. Add the new user needs to the map… Step 7: Iterate and scale 42
43. Add the new capabilities, emotions and Islands of Personality - the new Big Ball of Mud Step 7: Iterate and scale 43
44. “Complex emotions” form the foundation of of new behaviours “Personal growth” evolves to “Identity and Performance” “Friendship” expands to include “Fitting in” “Creativity & Fun” includes “Sarcasm” “Emotional Integrity” handles disengagement and boredom Step 7: Iterate and scale 44
45. Real-world 2…AI ALERT!! How does your organization adapt to change? 45
46. Key Takeaways 46
47. Do what Simon says… “This is really positive. I know it's not the full map but even thinking about the users, their needs and chain of components is a transformational change for many… …give it some love.” - Simon Wardley 47
48. Me (X): “Thank you. I’m sorry it’s not really a map but I still called it mapping.. “ Simon: “It doesn't matter whether it's a map or not, the question is always whether it is useful” I’m sorry Simon… Simon: “Love User Needs Mapping, good job!” 48 Me (X): “‘User Needs Graphing’ didn’t quite sound right.” Me (X): “If you squint the team boundaries could be countries?”
49. focus on Inside-Out, fall behind. shift to Outside-In, thrive! 49 Organizations that…
50. ❌ Stop asking: “How do we optimize our teams?” ☑Start asking: “What do our users actually need?” 50
51. ❌ Stop thinking Inside-Out, ☑ Start thinking Outside-In! 51
52. What is one change you can make tomorrow to align your teams more closely with user needs? 52
53. Thank you! Let’s Connect… Exclusive FREE prize draw: 1 x 3-hour Understand Current Landscape User Needs Mapping Session with Rich Allen * Warning: Entry for the prize draw will close at 4pm on 27th March 2025. On-demand viewers may still enter but you may still be charged (not really) and there will be no prize 😉 LinkedIn: richardallen Bluesky: @richallen.info Web: https://richaallen.info https://userneedsmapping.com 53