We didn't know the competitor launched that.
Outside information doesn't get in
The workflow mostly runs on information already inside the organization. Customer complaints, competitor moves, and market changes arrive late or not at all because nobody is explicitly responsible for bringing them in.
- Decisions get made with no mention of what's happening outside.
- Customer feedback reaches the team weeks after the front line heard it.
- Competitive news arrives by accident.
Who: someone who talks to customers every week. Ask: "What have customers told you in the last month that the people building this don't know?" Look at: the inputs to the last major decision in this workflow. Count: how many came from outside the company. You're probably looking at this pattern if the front line knew something important that the decision never used. Probably not if outside information arrived but was set aside. If not, compare it with Warning signs get filed as normal.
What the front line sees arrives late, softened, or not at all. That pattern is about a warning that exists inside the company and doesn't travel up. This pattern is about information from outside that never comes in.
Have one person step out and describe how the work lands from a user's perspective.
Write two things before you build. The announcement, and the questions people would ask.
Studies of companies caught out by change found that successful firms build buffers that shield them from outside signals. IBM, for example, largely ignored the early growth of minicomputers (Starbuck and Milliken, 1988). Our reasoning, supported by case studies.