ALSO BY JONATHAN COURTNEY

Workshopper Playbook
Meetings
First Edition
 CONTENTS
Introduction...........................................................................................9
Your Seat at the Table........................................................................9
From Execution to Strategy............................................................. 12
My (unexpected) Journey into the World of Strategy...................... 14
From Strategy Sprint to Strategy Signal..........................................17
Why Strategy Signal, Why Now?................................................... 21
Why Listen to Me........................................................................... 23
Why Most Strategies Fail.............................................................. 24
Strategy, Plain and Simple.............................................................. 25
When to Use Strategy Signal.......................................................... 27
How to Navigate The Instructions................................................. 28
Step-by-Step Guide to Strategy Signal:............................................. 32

4
Welcome to Strategy Signal!.............................................................. 33
Reminder: What is Strategy Signal and when should you use it?......... 33
When to Use Strategy Signal.............................................................. 34
Overview of the Workshop................................................................ 34
Key Outputs of Strategy Signal......................................................... 35
Materials Needed................................................................................ 35
Day 1.................................................................................................... 40
Workshop Introduction (30 minutes)............................................... 41
Step 0: Choose a Decider................................................................42
Step 1: Where Are We Going? (40 minutes)....................................43
Step 2: Picking Our North Star (15 minutes)...................................45
Step 3: How Will We Know We’ve Made It? (30 minutes)...............48
Step 5: What Can We Learn from Others? (55 minutes)..................54
Step 6: How Could We Get There? (60 minutes)............................ 58
Day 2.................................................................................................... 64
Recap Day 1 (15 minutes)................................................................. 65
Step 7: Choosing the Best Strategies (45 minutes)...........................66
Step 8: When Will We Make It Happen? (6 minutes)......................70
Step 9: Wrapping It All Up (10 minutes).......................................... 74
Post-Workshop Follow-up.................................................................. 77
Conclusion.......................................................................................... 78
Quick Recap.........................................................................................80
From Order-Taker to Strategic Partner............................................ 81
Proof it Works..................................................................................83
Beyond Strategy Signal: The Path to Mastery.................................85
Future-Proofing Your Career...........................................................86
Want a Shortcut?.............................................................................88
It’s Your Turn................................................................................. 89
Thank You Notes.................................................................................92
References...................................................................................... 95

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INTRODUCTION
YOUR SEAT AT THE TABLE

Three months into redesigning a messaging product for a large European

telecommunications company, I watched my entire project go to shit.
The main sponsor - who I’d never actually met until that moment -
showed up unannounced to a design review. I presented what I thought
were the final prototypes. Beautiful messaging interfaces. Intuitive chat
flows. Everything the brief had asked for.
He looked at the screens for about thirty seconds.
“This isn’t what I expected at all,” he said. “I thought we were buil-
ding something more like an App Store.”
An App Store. Not a messaging app. A fucking App Store.
He then proceeded to show me his main iPhone home screen. “Like
this, where you can see all the apps and tap in and out”.
Oh man.
Three months of work. Dozens of stakeholder meetings. Hundreds
of hours interpreting a blurry brief, trying to piece together coherent re-
quirements from people who all seemed to want different things. And
apparently, we weren’t even building the right category of product.
You know what the worst part was? I wasn’t even shocked.
Just kind of numb.
This was just… normal. Another day, another completely misaligned
project. We spent six more months “fixing” it, pivoting from messaging
to marketplace, until eventually the whole thing just faded away into the
next project.
I was a senior product consultant. I charged premium rates. Companies
hired me specifically for my expertise in product design. But when it came to
the actual strategic decisions - what are we building and why - I wasn’t invited
to those conversations. I got the output of those meetings, never the input.
After years of this pattern repeating with different clients, I was done.

9
Not done with consulting, but done with being the “execution guy.” Done
with building the wrong things really well. Done with being excluded from
the decisions that determined whether my work would succeed or fail.
The irony? I was making good money. Really good money, actually.
And when projects got delayed or needed to pivot - which was basically
always - I made even more. Six-month project turns into twelve months?
Double the invoices. Complete strategic misalignment requiring a total
redesign? Amazing! In theory…
But it was killing me inside.
I’d go home after presenting work that I knew would never see the
light of day. I’d spend weekends crafting perfect prototypes for products
that solved the wrong problems. I was getting paid to be a really expen-
sive pair of hands, not a brain.
The money was nice, but the work was soulless. I wasn’t building anyt-
hing meaningful. I wasn’t solving real problems. I was just... executing stuff.
I remember thinking: Is this it? Is this what the next twenty years will
look like? Getting paid well to be professionally frustrated?
Maybe you know this feeling?
You’re talented. You’re smart. You get hired for your expertise. But
somehow you’re only brought in after all the important decisions have
been made. You’re the “execution person”, not the “strategy person.”
Here’s what I’ve learned after consulting with hundreds of teams:
This isn’t your fault. It’s not even your client’s fault. It’s just how most
companies work.
They don’t have a reliable process for making strategic decisions. So what
happens? A few executives disappear for a “strategy offsite.” Weeks later,
slides appear with seventeen different priorities. Teams scramble to work on
everything at once. Three months in, the strategy changes. The cycle repeats.
I’ve seen this at tiny startups and billion-dollar companies. Smart
people, great intentions, terrible process.

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But here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to be this way.
What if you were in the room when those big decisions were made?
Better yet, what if you were the one running that room?
Picture this: You’re facilitating the very first conversation about a
new project. Before budgets get locked. Before company politics creep
in. Before anyone has time to get attached to bad ideas.

In just one session, you help the team:

• Agree on a single, clear target
• Get genuinely aligned (not just nodding along)
• Surface the real blockers before they derail everything
• Leave with an actual plan, not a vague “we’ll figure it out”
• Everyone walks out energized instead of exhausted. Clear instead of
confused. And they’re already asking when you can run the next one.

That’s what Strategy Signal does. It’s a workshop that turns

messy ambition into crystal-clear direction. Every single time.
This book will show you exactly how to run it.
First, I’ll give you the context you need:why this approach works,
how to position yourself as the person who should be facilitating these
conversations, and what makes Strategy Signal different from every other
planning meeting your clients have suffered through.
Then we’ll dive into the workshop itself. Step by step. Word for word.
Everything you need to facilitate with confidence, even if you’ve never
run a strategic session before.
Finally, I’ll show you how to turn this into a repeatable part of your
work. How to go from implementer to strategic partner. How to get invi-
ted to the conversations that matter.
I made this transition myself. I went from building whatever clients
asked for, to helping them figure out what they should ask for in the first

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place. Our students have done it too - designers, developers, consultants,
product managers - all sitting in very different chairs now.
Ready to claim your seat at the “decision makers” table?
Let’s get started.

FROM EXECUTION TO STRATEGY

Most people start their careers as executors. You’re given tasks and are
expected to implement them with minimal questions. Your value is mea-
sured by how efficiently you turn someone else’s ideas into reality.
I know this journey intimately. When I started AJ&Smart, we were
pure execution. “The client is always right” was the unwritten rule. We’d
nod along to their ideas, but we weren’t confident enough to challenge
them. Our job was to build the thing, not question whether it was the
right thing in the first place.
But here’s the hard truth: unless you’re going to be one of the abso-
lute best in the world at your specific trade, remaining execution-focused
puts a ceiling on your career, your earnings, and your impact.
Why? Because execution is becoming commoditized. AI tools can
generate code, design, and create content faster every day. Online talent
platforms make it easy to find capable executors at any price point. If your
main value is in implementing other people’s ideas, you’re competing in
an increasingly crowded race to the bottom.
Strategy, however, is different. Strategic clarity, knowing what to
work on and why, based on deep contextual insight and the ability to rally
a diverse group, remains extraordinarily valuable, and will likely do so for
a very long time.
Companies will pay a lot for people who can align teams around clear
strategic priorities and help them make confident decisions. That’s the
transition and shift that Strategy Signal makes possible.

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 With a structured process for arriving at strategic alignment, you go
from order-taker to direction-setter. Instead of just receiving the outco-
mes of strategic decisions, you facilitate the conversations that produce
them. You become the person who helps teams cut through the noise and
find clarity, before a single line of code is written.
This shift, from execution to strategy, isn’t just about earning more.
It’s about increasing your leverage. When you facilitate strategic align-
ment upfront, you eliminate countless hours of rework, revisions, and
misdirected effort later. A single well-facilitated strategy session can save
hundreds of hours of wasted execution.
More importantly, you get to take-on a new professional identity.
You’re no longer the designer, developer, marketer, or product manager
who implements ideas, you’re the strategic partner who helps determine
which ideas are worth working on in the first place. This sends a powerful
signal about your value, both to clients and within your company.
How do I know this transition works? Because I’ve experienced it
firsthand in my company, I’ve seen it in my clients’ companies, and I’ve
watched thousands of our students make this shift, too. Designers who
went from working on wireframes every day, to leading boardroom di-
scussions. Product managers who evolved from managing task lists to
becoming strategic advisors. Marketers who shifted from executing cam-
paigns to guiding the entire marketing strategy.
Being able to facilitate workshops, like Strategy Signal, is the way to
make this leap possible. It gives you a structured, repeatable process to
guide strategic conversations confidently, even if you’ve spent your ent-
ire career so far in execution mode.

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MY (UNEXPECTED) JOURNEY INTO THE WORLD OF STRATEGY

Until around 2016 I was running AJ&Smart (the company I started in

2011) as a classic UX and Product Design Agency.
We’d go into client meetings, collect information, disappear for weeks,
and come back with designs. Usually, when we’d return with our designs,
we’d end up disheartened to hear that, in the time we’d been working, the
scope, strategy and priorities had changed, and our work needed to be up-
dated at best, and at worst, started from scratch. The story I told you at the
start of this book was, unfortunately, just one of many like this.
This cycle of revisions was endless and frustrating for everyone. I
started to hate doing client work and toyed with the idea of shutting the
business down and doing something else. My childhood dream of beco-
ming a filmmaker or videogame designer was becoming more and more
appealing every single day…
But, before I fully gave up, I stumbled across Jake Knapp’s book
“Sprint” before a flight to a client meeting. I read it cover-to-cover in one
sitting, and realized what was missing: structure and someone to guide
the team through that structure. The Design Sprint provides a robust,
reliable, tried-and-tested process and structure for starting projects, alig-
ning teams, making decisions, and rapidly testing product ideas.
After binge-reading Sprint, I immediately began facilitating Design
Sprints with my clients, and everything changed. From literally one day
to the next, my relationship with our clients transformed, outcomes were
better than ever before, work was fulfilling, and very soon we were known
as “the Design Sprint agency.”
I won’t bore you with my entire Design Sprint journey (I could lite-
rally talk about the Design Sprint for hours!) as I’ve talked about this a lot
publicly, but what I will say is that we went so all-in on Design Sprints that
Jake Knapp himself (the inventor of the Design Sprint, and NY Times Best

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Selling Author of Sprint) partnered with us. We created the Design Sprint
Masterclass online course together, trained thousands of Facilitators, and
helped companies around the world transform how they worked.
Becoming “the Design Sprint company” changed everything. Not
only were we educating thousands of people on the power of the Design
Sprint through our online program, and travelling the world to host large-
scale training events with Jake Knapp, but we were also getting invited to
facilitate Design Sprints for our dream clients - ranging from the coolest
Silicon Valley startups to household name Fortune 500s.
By this point, we’d successfully moved out of the “execution zone” and
were seen as highly valued partners to our clients, who they’d bring in (at the
very start of a project!!) to help solve their toughest product challenges.
Our business thrived on the Design Sprint for years, and still to this
day it’s one of my all-time favourite workshops. It’s my go-to for so many
of our client projects and it always will be.
But after running hundreds of workshops with our clients, I realized
that, while the Design Sprint is best-in-class for product innovation, idea-
tion, and product challenges, there was a gap (and an opportunity) in my
work with leadership teams.
This gap became obvious in 2018, when I was called in to facilitate
an “alignment” workshop for a medical tech company. Their request felt
both simple and impossible at the same time: “align our leadership team
on a strategy, by next week.” The company had gone through three CEOs
in two years. They were losing market share rapidly and didn’t know why,
and any initiative to try and solve it seemed to go nowhere. This wasn’t a
product problem; it was a strategy problem.
I felt up for the challenge and was confident that my hundreds of hours
of Design Sprint facilitation, plus my recent experience working with high-le-
vel executives at big fancy companies, could make this a total breeze for me.
Oh man I was wrong…

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 Within minutes the whiteboard was drowning in buzzwords, no one
in the room was in agreement, and my Design Sprint had completely de-
railed. I could sense a growing discomfort in the room and their feeling
of “who is this guy and how on earth is he actually going to help us solve our
challenges?” was palpable.
At that point I knew I needed to change my approach. I felt that a
Design Sprint would be important at some point, but that time was not
now. I racked my brain for what I could do next.
Then, thankfully, I remembered something. My team back at the
AJ&Smart office had been tinkering with the idea of building a workshop
around the topic of strategy. Then, I remembered a book I had read a cou-
ple of years earlier, a book that my team were now reading to learn more
about strategy: Richard Rumelt’s Good Strategy/Bad Strategy.
I called a 15 minute break and tried to remember everything I could.
All that I could recall at that moment was “Diagnosis, Guiding Policy,
and Coherent Action” from Good Strategy/Bad Strategy and some fuzzy
recollections of the main elements of the book. That felt like enough for
now. I erased the whiteboards and called them back in:
“Before we talk about solutions,” I said, “let’s agree on what prob-
lem we’re actually solving.”
I did my best to facilitate them through a session that focused on what
was really going on.
What followed was a few days that turned messy honesty into com-
plete clarity. Their expensive digital patient portal, half-built and over
budget, was a symptom, not the problem. The real issue? Their onboar-
ding experience was driving patients to competitors. The data had been
there all along, buried in satisfaction scores and abandonment rates.
By the end of day one, a single north-star metric that everyone was
behind was locked-in: cut patient onboarding from 40 to 15 minutes.
And by the end of the week, everyone left with concrete clarity on

16
what needed to happen next, and who was in-charge of each part of the
plan. Six months later, they hit their target metric.
Walking home after the final day, I realized that while Design Sprints
were perfect for so many of our client projects, strategy specifically requi-
red its own approach. My week of pivoting and “winging it” had luckily
paid off, and led to what we now call the Strategy Sprint.

FROM STRATEGY SPRINT TO STRATEGY SIGNAL

My session with the medical tech company was a big “aha moment”.
If my improvised, chaotic first attempt at a strategy workshop managed to
get good results, what would I have been able to achieve if I’d had a ready-
made, robust strategy workshop ready to go?
For certain it’d have been a more impactful session (and a lot less
stressful!) but would it also allow me to work with more companies on
different types of challenges? Would my clients be able to call on me to
help them solve high-level strategy challenges as well as product-related
challenges?
That exploration led to what we now know today as the AJ&Smart
Strategy Sprint.
Over the next several months, my team and I developed a compre-
hensive three-week strategic process that expanded on what worked in
my improvised, chaotic trial run. We structured it to address the funda-
mental pieces missing in most strategic conversations:

Week 1: Challenge Discovery: Deep exploration of the problem space

through stakeholder interviews, research, and a workshop focused on
purpose alignment.

Week 2: Strategy Workshop: Four interconnected workshops where we

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tackle challenges, design experiments, and map concrete action steps.

Week 3: Executive Summary & Handover: Documentation, alignment,

and creating accountability mechanisms to make sure there’s follow-
through.

My hunch ended up being correct: the Strategy Sprint was a complete

game-changer for AJ&Smart. We ran it with leadership teams at fintech
startups, Fortune 500s, and media companies. Across industries, the re-
sults were consistently powerful. Teams that had been spinning in circles
for months would emerge with clear direction, aligned priorities, and an
actual plan of action, not just a vague slide deck filled with buzzwords.
The Strategy Sprint quickly became one of our core offerings. Clients
were getting real value, and we were actually having fun delivering it. On
top of that, it even further positioned us as true strategic partners rather
than tactical executors, a shift that transformed our business model, our
pricing, and how we felt about our work.
The Strategy Sprint was a huge hit, but we soon hit an unexpected
constraint...
While the Strategy Sprint delivered exceptional results, it required a
big commitment: three weeks of detailed scheduling, stakeholder inter-
views, four separate workshops, and extensive documentation. For many
companies, that level of time investment was very difficult to coordinate.
“We love the concept,” clients would tell us, “but our team can’t
commit to that many sessions. Can we do it in one week instead? Better
yet, one day?”
At first, we resisted. We’d seen how our comprehensive approach
delivered amazing results. But as more potential clients struggled with
the time constraint, we realized we were missing an opportunity.
So we got to work. We analyzed the Strategy Sprint, identifying the

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essential principles that created the most impact. What were the non-ne-
gotiable elements that brought the most clarity? What things really cut
through the noise? What activities transformed vague ideas into concrete
commitments?
Through dozens of iterations and real-world testing, we synthesized
the essence of the Strategy Sprint into a focused, modular two-day work-
shop: Strategy Signal.
Strategy Signal isn’t a watered-down version of the Sprint. It’s a pre-
cision tool designed specifically for the constraints most teams face. It
brings the core strategic alignment benefits in a format that busy teams
can actually commit to. The exercises that make up Strategy Signal are
carefully sequenced to maximize impact in minimal time.
We knew we were onto something when clients who had previously
pushed back at the full Sprint schedule started eagerly blocking off two
days for Strategy Signal. The shorter format made this workshop easily
accessible to teams who couldn’t dedicate weeks to the process.
More importantly, the results spoke for themselves.Teams emerged
from two days of Strategy Signal with many of the same core benefits
they’d get from the multi-week Sprint: clear direction, prioritized initia-
tives, and locked-in commitment.
And on top of all of this, we also found that we could use Strategy Si-
gnal to identify and generate more opportunities to work with our clients.
Strategy Signal gave them clarity on what to focus on, and we could then
continue the collaboration and facilitate other types of sessions, like the
Design Sprint, to help bring these strategies to life.
Strategy Signal is also an amazing starting point for almost any project.
As a Consultant you might be familiar with the situation where you’re tal-
king to a potential client and there are literally a million things that you
could do to help them. Your brain is buzzing with ideas and you’re imagi-
ning all of the opportunities that working with this client could bring. But

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there’s a problem: if in an initial sales or discovery session you list all the
things you could do, and all the ways you can potentially work with them,
you run the risk of overwhelming them or scaring them off.
Strategy Signal is the antidote to this. Rather than giving them a laun-
dry-list of projects and initiatives you could support them with, Strategy
Signal can instead give them an easy to understand “start here”. A simple
and digestible first step that’s easy to agree to, and one that allows all the
next steps to unfold as and when they should.
So, while the Strategy Sprint remains our “gold standard” for compre-
hensive strategic alignment, Strategy Signal has become our secret wea-
pon, the workshop we can deploy virtually anywhere, even in organizations
that typically resist structured processes or that just don’t have the time to
dedicate to a multi-week engagement. It’s targeted and laser-focused on
quickly getting clear direction when teams are stuck or misaligned.
While Strategy Sprint gives you the comprehensive roadmap, Stra-
tegy Signal gives you the essential North Star and immediate next steps.
The Sprint gives you breadth and depth, while Strategy Signal gives you
focus and speed.
Use Strategy Signal when you want a way to get things started, or
when you need fast clarity and alignment from busy teams. Consider the
full Strategy Sprint when you’re tackling more fundamental strategic
questions that need much more exploration and significantly more de-
velopment time.
Both use our core facilitation principles: structure, silent working,
time-boxed exercises, and visualizing concepts and conversations. The
difference is in the scope, timeframe, and level of detail.
And that leads us to where we are today: the workshop this book puts
in your hands. Not because Strategy Signal is easier to deliver (though it
is), but because it’s easier to sell, easier to schedule, easier to start, and
therefore more likely to actually happen, which means more teams get

20
the strategic clarity they desperately need, and more opportunities open
up for you!
Let’s talk about why this matters more now than ever before…

WHY STRATEGY SIGNAL, WHY NOW?

It’s so obvious and cliche to say this, but…things are changing. Faster than
they ever have before. It’s now not an exaggeration to say that what’s a
brand new technological advancement today, could already be out-of-date
by tomorrow. So, you might wonder, “why focus on strategy workshops now?
Why not an AI workshop?”, “and why even learn to facilitate in general?”
The answer is simple: strategy work is evergreen. It doesn’t matter
if your company is working with AI, blockchain, or office supplies: the
fundamentals of good strategy remain the same, and being able to un-
derstand and navigate the nuances of group dynamics and how humans
collaborate will be a required skill for the (at least) foreseeable future.
In fact, the rise of AI and other emerging technologies makes human
alignment more critical than ever. These tools can execute faster than
we’ve ever seen, which has a huge upside of allowing companies to test
and iterate quicker than ever before, but bad strategy at record speed is
just accelerated failure and waste. As of today, it’s still important for the
people working at a company to align on the “what” and the “why”, be-
fore machines help us with the “how”.The tech itself can’t tell you exact-
ly where to go (yet) - it can only get you there faster. ChatGPT won’t
coordinate and rally your team in real-time and cut through politics, bad
moods, and hidden agendas. AI can’t determine what things matter most
to the people actually running the business. No algorithm can get ever-
yone on the same page while actually feeling good about it.
Humans are innately complex as individuals, and that complexity
grows exponentially when you bring a group of humans together, creating

21
a unique dynamic based on who is in the room, what’s going on in that
particular moment, and what they’re working on.
Great Facilitators (whether they’re facilitating Strategy Signal or so-
mething else) are able to navigate these highly nuanced dynamics and orga-
nize the group around a shared goal, and make progress in a way that’s both
effective and enjoyable. While all of these things might indeed be possible
with AI in the future, today these things remain deeply human tasks that
require real-time human qualities and deliberate, structured conversation.
On top of this, while technology will continue to progress faster than
ever before, the “human” side of business changes a lot slower. Teams
still struggle to align. Projects get complex and messy. Competing prio-
rities and agendas cause confusion.These problems existed 50 years ago,
they exist today, and they’ll exist 50 years from now.
That’s why facilitation and workshops like Strategy Signal matter.
They’re not tied to technological advancements. They address the time-
less, core challenge of getting smart humans to agree on what matters and
where to focus.
There’s another big reason we decided to double-down on strategy:
approachability. When you walk into a room and say, “Let’s work on strate-
gy,” people nod. They get it. It feels tangible and relevant and is universally
understood. Everyone agrees it’s important. Everyone feels they should
contribute. Everyone sees the value in getting it right. Unlike more abstract
specialties that separate teams, strategy brings them together.
And not to forget maybe the most important point here: strategy sells,
and it sells well. Companies understand the value of good strategy, and
they’re used to paying for it. I was shocked when I realized what we could
charge for strategy workshops. Companies were willing to pay significant-
ly more for a strategy workshop than they were for almost anything else.
Helping teams get strategy “right” is a huge opportunity for you, and
creates incredible value for those you work with. No matter how fast tech evol-

22
ves, the companies that win are the ones that pick the right targets and focus
their resources in the right places. That’s what Strategy Signal helps teams
do, and that’s why it’s as relevant now as it will be a decade from now.

WHY LISTEN TO ME

I won’t ramble too much on this, but context matters.

Over the last decade, my company AJ&Smart has run thousands of
workshops and training sessions for companies from Google and P&G to
the United Nations, Adidas, Slack, and Lufthansa. We’ve guided ever-
yone from Fortune 500 companies to fast-growing startups through pro-
duct design, innovation, and strategic workshops.
We co-created the official Design Sprint Masterclass with Jake Knapp
(the creator of the Design Sprint), training thousands of Facilita-
tors worldwide in the Design Sprint method. Our education busi-
ness, Facilitator.com, has trained tens of thousands of people in
workshopping and facilitation - with many of our “Workshopper
Master” graduates now charging five-figure fees for single sessions.
Our YouTube channel, with nearly 400,000 subscribers, is the lar-
gest facilitation-focused channel in the world, where we’ve shared our
methods and frameworks with millions of viewers globally.
I mention all this not to brag, but to reassure you: everything in this
book has been battle-tested where reputations, careers, and sometimes
entire companies were on the line. It’s stripped of “fluff” because fluff
doesn’t work in real-life scenarios where the stakes are high.
Speaking of things that don’t survive contact with reality, let’s look at
why most strategies fail before they even make it out the meeting room…

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WHY MOST STRATEGIES FAIL

Unfortunately, strategy is wildly misunderstood and most companies get

it totally wrong. I’ve personally witnessed this even in my own company
before I fully understood how to “do strategy”, and after a quick search, I
learned how bad the problem really is:
• 90% of organizations fail to execute their strategies successfully
(Kaplan & Norton, The Balanced Scorecard)
• Only 9% of people say that change initiatives succeeded in their
company (Harvard Business Review Analytic Services)
• Only 2% of leaders are confident that they will achieve 80-100% of
their strategic objectives (Bridges Business Consulting)
• 85% of leadership teams spend less than one hour per month di-
scussing strategy (Bridges Business Consulting)

And why does this happen? Here are the most common strategy mistakes
I’ve personally seen:

The wrong diagnosis: Everyone solves a different problem because no

one knows the real one.
I once watched a retail brand spend six months and millions of dollars
on a mobile app redesign, only to discover their actual problem was store
inventory management. The app looked beautiful but sales kept drop-
ping. A classic case of expensive solutions to the wrong problem.

Too trend-driven: KPIs that are copy-pasted from the latest business
trend.
A fintech client once proudly announced they were “all-in on voice
interfaces” because their CEO heard that a competitor was doing it. No
strategic deep-dive, customer research, no technical assessment, just a

24
case of FOMO. Six months later, they abandoned the project after zero
user adoption.

Everything is a priority (...so nothing is a priority): Where twenty

initiatives sharing the budget and resources of three.
This is everywhere: the team lacks the clarity to say no to anything,
so everything gets approved and nothing gets resourced properly. The
result? Lots of half-finished projects and drained teams trying to make
everything happen at once.

Strategy Signal takes all of these potentially de-railing risks into conside-
ration, and works towards public, concrete commitment. No vague goals,
no abstraction, no hiding behind fancy words. You don’t leave the room
until you’ve named the real problem, chosen a game-plan, and commit-
ted specific resources to specific actions.
But what exactly do we mean by “strategy”? Let’s pin that down next.

STRATEGY, PLAIN AND SIMPLE

Vince Law (HackerNoon) nails it in a nutshell: “Strategy is a high-level

plan for achieving a complex goal under uncertainty.”
Take away the big-picture idea and all of the uncertainty and you’ve
got a to-do list. Lose the practicalities and to-dos and you’re left with a
vague “vibe”. Real strategy lives in a bit of a “messy middle” between
these things.
But let’s look at what this actually means, because “strategy” is one
of the most misused and misunderstood words in business.
Strategy isn’t your mission statement. It’s not your values. It’s not a
list of things you hope will happen. Strategy is about making hard choices,
deciding not just what you’ll do, but what you won’t do.

25
 Good strategy starts with looking at where you are today. It focuses
on the challenge you’re actually facing, not the one you wish you were
facing. It recognizes constraints: time, money, people, market conditions,
and works within them rather than pretending they don’t exist.
Then, it’s about finding what it is that gives you an advantage. This isn’t
about being different for the sake of being different. It’s about finding the one
thing that, if you do it well, makes everything else easier or unnecessary.
Finally, good strategy leads to clear next steps. All your initiatives,
investments, and decisions should reinforce the same thing. When every
choice you make is aligned with a clear and universally understood goal,
that’s when strategy becomes powerful.
Take “expand to Asia”, for example. Nice ambition, but meaningless
as a strategy. Which parts of Asia? Expand what: product line, marketing,
manufacturing? By when? With what resources?
A solid strategy sounds more like: “Launch a Tokyo pilot by Q4 of
this year, to hit $1m ARR in 12 months, focusing only on our analytics
platform and developing partnerships with local ecommerce businesses.”
This sounds a lot more like a good strategy. We’ve acknowledged the
challenge (entering a new market with limited resources). We’ve chosen
a specific approach (pilot in one city, one product, through partnerships).
And we’ve identified a clear goal (hit $1m ARR in 12 months). Every sub-
sequent decision, which features to build, which team members to hire,
which events to attend, can be evaluated against this direction.
It’s the same ambition, but now the next steps and actions are a lot
clearer. When someone suggests adding a second product line to the
launch, you can point to the strategy and say no. When the marketing
team wants to target multiple countries, you have a clear reason to push
back. Strategy isn’t just about what you’ll do, it’s about giving you per-
mission to say no to everything else.
This clarity is exactly what most teams are missing. They have goals

26
without strategy, or strategy without clear action steps. They know where
they want to go but have no clear way to get there.

WHEN TO USE STRATEGY SIGNAL

Broadly speaking, Strategy Signal is useful in most situations where a big

decision needs to be made, projects need to be started, when teams and
companies get stuck but they’re not exactly sure why, when initiatives
keep failing or missing the mark, or when there’s a general lack of clarity
about what should be done.
Sometimes it’s painfully obvious that a (new) strategy needs to be
defined, but here’s a “vibe check” if you’re not sure:

Deploy Strategy Signal when at least one of these red flags appear:
• Lots of back-and-forth communication with an undertone of con-
fusion and frustration (especially if there are continual requests for
“alignment”)
• A strategy deck longer than 15 slides, with verbs like empower or lever-
age throughout but literally nothing tangible to grasp onto.
• 3+ initiatives fighting for the same resource pool.
• A change in leadership in the past 90 days.
• The team’s energy is at an all-time low, despite apparent progress.
• The sentiment (either explicitly or implicitly) in most interactions is
that “nothing is working”.

There’s also an opportunistic, more proactive approach to leveraging Stra-

tegy Signal, one that’s less focused on playing on defense and solving acute
problems, and more about using Strategy Signal as an opportunity-generator.
I touched on this earlier, but Strategy Signal is an amazing sales tool
for Consultants, an incredible starter workshop, and a handy tool for ope-

27
ning up a runway of projects to work on.

Here are some ways to leverage Strategy Signal to generate opportunities:

• You’re talking to a potential client and you’re struggling to get them
to agree to working with you: Strategy Signal is often an easier “yes”
than long, drawn-out projects that are harder to grasp.
• When there’s lots you could do with a client, but you don’t want to
overwhelm them: Strategy Signal is an incredible “gateway” work-
shop that can unlock bigger engagements, like the Design Sprint.
• When you and/or the client are confused about where to start or what
to even work on: Strategy Signal gives you the clarity you need.

Now that you have a feeling for why Strategy Signal is important and
when to deploy it, it’s now time to dive into the practicalities! This book
is here to guide you every step of the way through making your first Stra-
tegy Sprint experience a success.

HOW TO NAVIGATE THE INSTRUCTIONS

This book is designed to get you excited about and ready for your first Stra-
tegy Signal workshop. My hope is that you use it as a handy reference guide
and companion throughout your first experience facilitating a Strategy Si-
gnal workshop until it becomes second-nature and you no longer need it.

Here’s how I’d recommend you get started:

• Skim the step summaries, get a feel for the flow of the workshop, jot down
notes when questions arise, and flag exercises that seem scary or that you
feel uncertain about.The exercises that make you most uncomfortable
are often the ones that end up being the most impactful. Note them, but
don’t skip them. If a “narrowing things down” step makes you nervous

28
 because your team hates saying no, that’s exactly why you need it.
• Print the exercise steps out. Gather your workshop supplies. Invest
in fresh Sharpies and sticky notes. Prepare the (virtual) space. Being
prepared on the supply-front means you can focus your energy facili-
tating, instead of logistics.
• If you’re new to facilitation, then start small. Practice running just
one of the exercises with a trusted colleague or friend, and ask for
feedback. If you’re feeling confident, offer to run our first full Strate-
gy Signal with a group you feel comfortable with.
• Gather feedback and keep practicing. It’s unlikely that you’ll nail it on
your first attempt, and that’s ok. Ask the team to give you feedback on
how the experience felt for them. What did they like? What was un-
comfortable? What would you personally like to do better next time?
Reflect on this and book your next Strategy Sprint ASAP!
• When you’re confident, you can start using Strategy Signal to get
things started and set the direction, and then workshops like the De-
sign Sprint to dive deeper. Strategy Signal works brilliantly as the front-
end to other workshop formats. Use it to kick things off, then (if it feels
right) offer to follow-up with another workshop or engagement.

Ok, let’s dive into the actual instructions!

29
STEP-BY-STEP
GUIDE TO
STRATEGY
SIGNAL
WELCOME TO STRATEGY SIGNAL!

Strategy Signal is what we use at AJ&Smart, both with our own team
and with clients, to get clear on what matters and build a plan people are
excited to follow - all in just two days!
Whether you’re setting a bold new vision, launching a product, or
just trying to stop a team from spinning in circles... Strategy Signal helps
teams figure out where they’re going and how to get there.
At the heart of it is the idea of a “North Star” - a shared, long-term
goal that gives the team clarity and direction.
Once that’s in place, the rest of the workshop is about figuring out the
smartest way to get there.
Let’s dive in!

REMINDER:
WHAT IS STRATEGY SIGNAL AND WHEN SHOULD YOU USE IT?

Strategy Signal is a two-day workshop that helps a team:

• Set a clear direction
• Define what success looks like
• Choose the big moves needed to get there

It’s made for those messy moments when:

• You know the problem but don’t know the plan
• Everyone’s got opinions (and none of them match)
• You need alignment... yesterday

33
WHEN TO USE STRATEGY SIGNAL

Strategy Signal is useful in lots of situations, like:

• Competing leadership visions
• New CEO or leadership changes
• Mergers (and all the chaos they bring)
• Launching new products or entering new markets
• Building a clear 6–24 month roadmap
• Re-igniting a tired team that’s lost its spark

It helps teams get unstuck by answering questions like:

• What are we actually trying to do?
• Where are we going?
• What does success look and feel like?
• What should we focus on first?
• How do we make this feel exciting and doable?

OVERVIEW OF THE WORKSHOP

Day Exercise Purpose

1 Long-Term Goal Define where the team wants to be in

Setting 2 years, and how to measure it.

Lightning Demos Get inspired by real-world examples

of companies dominating their niche.

Concept Creation Brainstorm simple, powerful strate-

gies (“concepts”) to reach the long-
term goal.

34
Day Exercise Purpose

2 Concept Voting Prioritize the strongest strategies with

group voting and decider picks.

Roadmap Creation Map out the key strategies over a

simple 3–12 month timeline + assign
owners and deadlines.

Wrapping up and Wrap up the work, lock in next steps,

next steps and leave the team feeling clear,
proud, and ready to move forward.

KEY OUTPUTS OF STRATEGY SIGNAL

• A clear long-term goal (+ measurable success metric)

• A set of validated strategies (concepts)
• A simple roadmap showing major initiatives over time
• A strong shared feeling of direction and momentum

MATERIALS NEEDED

• Rectangular sticky notes (for goals and metrics)

• Sharpies (one per participant)
• Red dot stickers
• Green dot stickers
• Big wall/whiteboard space
• Timer or phone
• Tape or blu-tack (optional)

35
Note: If you’re running this remotely, use a digital whiteboard like Miro,
MURAL, or FigJam.

THE BRIEF

In order to show you how to run Strategy Signal as tangibly as possible,

we’ll walk through an example brief using a fictional client.
Meet Origin Roasters - a specialty coffee roastery based in Berlin.
For the past five years, they’ve been roasting high-quality beans for
other brands as a white-label supplier. But now they want to build somet-
hing of their own: a premium, consumer-facing product.
They’ve got the roasting expertise, the sourcing network, and the
passion. But when it comes to strategy? They’re totally lost. They don’t
have an approach. They can’t even agree on how to start.
Here’s what the founder said on our intro call:

“We want to build something that stands out in a saturated market.

We’re aiming to be on shelves next to the other popular brands like
19grams, Five Elephant, etc…, within the next two years.
We know how to roast. We know how to source quality beans.
But we don’t know how to launch a consumer product or what we
should even focus on.
Should we focus on building a brand first or just start selling?
Should we start with retail? Direct-to-Consumer (DTC)? Cafes?
Should we build a community? Partner with influencers?
We have a lot of ideas, but we don’t have a clear direction. We
need a clear strategy, fast. That’s why we’ve brought you in.”

After the call, it was clear that Strategy Signal was the right fit.
We agreed I’d run a 2-day workshop to help the team get clear on:

36
• Their North Star
• What makes them stand out
• What to focus on first

As we go through this manual, I’ll show you exactly how I’d run the Stra-
tegy Signal workshop with the Origin Roasters team. You’ll see how the
exercises play out using their context, and how each step helps them get
clarity and momentum.
When it’s time for you to run Strategy Signal with your own clients,
just swap in their situation.
The process stays the same.
Alright, let’s jump in.

37
39
DAY 1
 WORKSHOP INTRODUCTION
30 minutes

Begin by setting the context for the workshop:

1. Welcome participants and thank them for their time

2. Outline the workshop objectives and how the outputs will be used
3. Establish ground rules for participation (e.g., no devices, all ideas
welcome, keep discussions focused)
4. Introduce the workshop structure and agenda

41
 STEP 0: CHOOSING A DECIDER
Before you begin, make sure the team has selected a Decider. This is usu-
ally a key stakeholder or team lead.
The Decider will make final calls when needed. Their job isn’t to mi-
cromanage, it’s to unblock the group and keep things moving when con-
sensus isn’t clear.

42
 STEP 1: WHERE ARE WE GOING?
Exercise Name: Long-Term Goal • Duration: 40 minutes

The first step in Strategy Signal is helping the team set a clear long-term goal.
This goal becomes their North Star – something to aim for and mea-
sure success against.
Without it, teams often chase short-term wins without a clear destination.
For this exercise, we’ll be guiding Origin Roasters to imagine themsel-
ves two years in the future. Things have gone extremely well, but what
does that actually look like? What does success look like?
Our job as facilitators is to help the team define that future clearly,
and make it measurable.
Alright, let’s jump in.

MATERIALS

• Rectangular sticky notes (one block per participant, any color)

• Sharpies (one per participant)
• Whiteboard or wall space for sticking notes
• For remote workshops: Create a dedicated “Long-Term Goals”
section in your digital whiteboard.

HOW TO RUN IT

1. Set the challenge (5 minutes)

Say: “Imagine it’s two years from today. Origin Roasters is thriving. What are
you known for? What are you proud of? What numbers or milestones prove it?”

43
2. Explain the task (5 minutes)
Each person writes one clear, ambitious goal per sticky note, starting
with the words “In 2 years…”.

3. Show some examples (5 minutes)

(Stick them visibly on the board and read them out loud.)

4. Silent writing (15 minutes)

Each person writes 1–2 goal ideas on their own sticky notes. Goals
should be specific and ambitious.

FACILITATOR TIPS:

• Encourage specificity - vague goals lead to vague strategies

• If participants struggle, ask probing questions about what success
looks like in their industry

CHECKPOINT

The team has drafted clear, ambitious long-term goals for where they
want to be in two years.

44
 STEP 2: PICKING OUR NORTH STAR
Duration: 15 minutes

Now let’s help Origin Roasters align on one long-term goal to guide the-
rest of the workshop.
We’ll do this in two parts:
1. A Straw Poll Vote to hear everyone’s opinions
2. A Decider Vote to make the final call

MATERIALS

• Green voting dots (one per person)

• Black pen or marker to write initials
• Larger voting dot for Decider (this could be a star sticker or simply a
different colored dot)
• For remote workshops: Use the voting features in your digital white-
board platform.

HOW TO RUN IT

1. Straw Poll (5 minutes)

Say: “You have 5 minutes to review all the long-term goals. Choose the one
you personally believe is the most important and inspiring. Once you’ve made
your choice, write your reasoning on a sticky note, but don’t vote yet.”
• Hand out one green voting dot per person. Ask them to write their
initials on it.
• Set a 5-minute timer for silent review and reflection.
• At the end, everyone places their dot at the same time to avoid influ-

45
 encing each other.

2. Present (5-10 minutes)

Say: “Let’s do a quick round where each of you explains what you voted for
and why. This helps us all hear different perspectives before the final decision.”
• Call on each person one by one.
• Keep it to 1 minute max per person.

3. Decider Vote (5-15 minutes)

Say: “Now the Decider will choose the long-term goal that will guide the
rest of this workshop.”
• Remind the group that the Decider was picked at the start and has the
final say.
• Give the Decider one large dot.
• They can either:
• Pick one clear goal
• Or combine parts of two goals into one (only if it’s simple and
doesn’t need discussion)

This is what it could look like after doing the straw poll (green dots with
initials) and decider vote (green dot with star):

46
CHECKPOINT

The team has aligned on one clear long-term goal.

This becomes the North Star for the rest of the workshop.

47
 STEP 3:
HOW WILL WE KNOW WE’VE MADE IT?
Exercise Name: Success Metrics • Duration: 30 minutes

Now that Origin Roasters has aligned on their long-term goal, we need to
make sure it’s measurable.
We do this by adding “As measured by...” statements for the goal.
This makes sure we’re not setting vague aspirations - we’re making
the goal tangible.

MATERIALS

• Rectangular sticky notes (one block per participant, different color to

the goal)
• Sharpies (one per participant)
• Whiteboard or wall space for sticking notes
• For remote workshops: Create a dedicated “Success Metrics” sec-
tion under the chosen goal.

HOW TO RUN IT

1. Introduce the idea of success metrics (5 minutes)

Say: “It’s not enough to say you want to be successful, we need to define
how we’ll measure that success. You’re now going to write simple ‘As measured
by...’ statements for our chosen goal.”

2. Show some examples (5 minutes)

Write the selected long-term goal on the board (if not already there).

48
Below it, write a few examples to show what great metrics look like:
• Goal: In 2 years, our brand is widely available and seen as a serious
player in the premium coffee space.
→ As measured by: Confirmed listings in 300+ retail stores across at
least 5 countries.
• Goal: In 2 years, we have a passionate customer base that keeps co-
ming back and spreads the word.
→ As measured by: 10,000 active monthly customers tracked
through subscriptions or repeat orders.

Highlight that good metrics are ambitious, specific, and clearly tied to
the goal.

3. Silent writing (10 minutes)

Each participant writes their “As measured by...” statements on sti-
cky notes. One statement per sticky note.

4. Stick and quick read-out (10 minutes)

Participants bring their sticky notes to the wall/board. As they stick
them up, they read each one out loud (no explanations yet).
Cluster similar goals if obvious themes pop up.

49
Facilitator Tip:
If someone’s metric is vague (like “more brand awareness”), gently push
them to be more specific - ask, “What number would prove that’s hap-
pening?”

50
 STEP 4: VOTE AND PRIORITISE
Exercise Name: Pick Success Metrics • Duration: 20 minutes

Now that the team has generated a list of success metrics, it’s time to
narrow them down.

We’ll do this in two quick steps:

1. A Heat Map Vote to highlight team preferences
2. A Decider Vote to make the final selection

Our goal is to help Origin Roasters to select the 2-3 most important me-
trics to track their progress toward their long-term goal.

MATERIALS

• Green voting dots (one per person)

• Pen to write initials
• Large voting dot for Decider
• For remote workshops: Use the voting features in your digital white-
board.

HOW TO RUN IT

1. Heat Map Vote (5 Minutes)

Say: “Each of you will now vote for the 2–3 metrics you think are the stron-
gest indicators of success. These will be our focus going forward.”
• Hand out 3 red voting dots to each participant.
• Ask them to vote silently by placing their dots next to the metrics they

51
 believe best measure the long-term goal.
• They can vote on the same metric more than once, and yes - they can
vote for their own metrics.
• When everyone is done, briefly highlight the most-voted metrics.
You’re not choosing yet, just surfacing the top contenders.

Once the group has finished voting, it should look something like this:

2. Decider Vote (5-15 Minutes)

Say: “Now the Decider will choose the 2–3 metrics that we’ll officially use
to track success going forward.”
• Remind the group that the Decider (chosen at the start of the session)
makes the final call when the group can’t or shouldn’t.
• Give the Decider a different colored dot (or just ask them to clearly
mark their choices).
• The Decider selects the 2–3 metrics they believe best align with the
long-term goal and are practical to track.

52
CHECKPOINT

The team has aligned on 2–3 key metrics to measure success.

These now act as the focus points for tracking progress and making
decisions in the rest of the workshop.
You can show a visual with the chosen goal and metrics to keep the
group focused on their North Star.

53
 STEP 5:
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM OTHERS?

Exercise Name: Lightning Demos • Duration: 55 minutes

Now that Origin Roasters has a clear North Star, it’s time to gather in-
spiration.
We’ll look at how other brands, products, or companies have broken
into their markets and stood out - and use that inspiration to fuel our own
strategy work later.
The purpose of this exercise isn’t to copy others.
It’s about sparking ideas and getting the creative juices flowing.
Lightning Demos is one of our favorite exercises to run at AJ&Smart
and we use it in almost every internal workshop.

MATERIALS NEEDED

• Rectangular sticky notes

• Sharpies (one per participant)
• Whiteboard or wall space titled “Lightning Demos”
• For remote workshops: Create a “Lightning Demos” section in
your digital whiteboard with a template for each example.

HOW TO RUN IT

1. Set the challenge (5 minutes)

Say: “Now we’re going to gather inspiration. Think of inspiring solutions
from other industries. For example, if our goal is ‘In 2 years, our product is wi-

54
dely available and is seen as a serious player in the premium coffee space’, think
about other situations where companies did a great job establishing themselves
in the market quickly - not just in coffee, but anywhere. What big moves or
strategies helped them stand out?”

Explain that each sticky note should follow this format:

• Name: Product, brand, company etc.
• The Big Idea: What they did
• Why it’s interesting: Why it worked or stands out
• Takeaway: What we can learn from this that could apply to our com-
pany

3. Show some examples (5 minutes)

Kick things off with 2-3 strong demos. This helps the team unders-
tand what a good example looks like and sparks inspiration. Don’t over-
explain, just model the format.
Note: I’ve included 5 demos below, just to give you an idea of how dif-
ferent each demo can be. 1 or 2 is enough when facilitating this yourself.

Stick these examples visibly on the wall:

55
Say: “Notes should be short, clear, and easy to explain.”

4. Silent research and writing (25 minutes)

Set a timer. Participants brainstorm or do quick online searches for
1-2 examples.
Each demo goes on a new sticky note.

5. Stick and share (15-20 minutes)

Each participant:
• Reads their demo out loud
• (Optional) Shows a visual to support the demo
• Sticks their demo on the wall
• Each person gets 2 minutes to present

Remind them: “No deep explanation needed here, just the big idea and why

56
it’s interesting.”

6. Optional group discussion (5 minutes)

Facilitate a quick reflection:
• What patterns do we see?
• Are any ideas especially exciting for Origin Roasters?

The goal here is not to decide anything yet, just fill the room with
energy and ideas.

CHECKPOINT

By the end of this step, the team has a wall full of real-world examples
showing how other brands/products/companies created success.
This inspiration will directly feed into the next phase, where we start
creating concepts.

57
 STEP 6: HOW COULD WE GET THERE?
Exercise Name: Concept Creation • Duration: 60 minutes

In this step, we’ll help Origin Roasters turn their thinking into real, actio-
nable strategy concepts.
They’ve got a clear goal and tons of inspiration, now it’s time to ge-
nerate ideas that could actually get them there.
This exercise helps the team write simple, structured ideas that can
later be prioritized and turned into action.
The focus here is on clarity, not perfection. We’re aiming for momentum.

MATERIALS NEEDED

• 3 different colored post-its (for the concepts)

• Sharpies
• Masking tape or blue tac
• Whiteboard or wall space to stick finished templates
• For remote workshops: Create digital Concept Creation Templates
in your digital whiteboard platform.

HOW TO RUN IT

1. Set the scene (5 minutes)

Say: “We’re now going to turn all of our thinking into real, actionable
strategy concepts. Each participant will create at least one concept by filling out
a simple template. Rough ideas are fine, the goal is to get clear, not perfect.”
Explain that the template is meant to be quick and structured.
Each concept should fit on a single page and be easy to understand.

58
2. Explain the Template (5 minutes)
Briefly walk through each part:
• Catchy Title – A memorable name for the concept.
• Hypothesis – A simple statement that explains what you’ll do and
what result you expect. Use this format:“If we [do this], then [this
will happen].”
• 6-Week Action Plan – Imagine a simple action plan. What’s the first
step the team will take? What’s the last thing that happens? Then
fill in one clear action the team will take each week to make that plan
come to life.

Here’s what the concept template looks like:

3. Show an Example (5 minutes)

This example is based on Origin Roasters’ chosen goal:

In 2 years, our product is widely available and seen as a serious player

in the premium coffee space.

59
Go through this example with the team so that they are clear on what they
need to do.
Stick this example somewhere visible or show it on your digital board.

4. Silent Concept Creation (30 minutes)

Set a timer. Each participant fills out at least one Concept Creation Tem-
plate. Encourage them to:
• Keep it short and clear
• Create a second concept if they finish early

5. Stick and cover the concepts

When time’s up:
• Participants stick their templates on the wall (or add to the digital board)
• Ask participants to hide their concepts until we review them again
tomorrow.

60
CHECKPOINT

At the end of Day 1, the team has created a set of clear, structured con-
cepts aimed at achieving the long-term goal.

61
DAY 2
 RECAP DAY 1
15 minutes

Begin by welcoming participants back and briefly recapping:

1. The long-term goal and key metrics selected
2. Highlights from Lightning Demos
3. Overview of concepts created

This refreshes context and re-establishes momentum for the second day.

65
 STEP 7: CHOOSING THE BEST STRATEGIES
Exercise Name: Concept Voting • Duration: 45 minutes

Now that Origin Roasters has created a set of strategy concepts, it’s time
to decide which ones are the most promising.
This exercise uses quick, simple voting rounds to filter ideas without
getting stuck in long discussions.
Each round sharpens the focus: starting broad, then narrowing in.
The goal here isn’t to debate. It’s to quickly spot the ideas with the
most potential to move the team toward their long-term goal.

MATERIALS NEEDED

• Red dot stickers (10 per participant for Heat Map)

• One larger green dot sticker per participant (for Straw Poll)
• Sharpies or pens to write initials on green dots
• Wall space or whiteboard where all concepts are displayed
• Large voting dot for Decider
• For remote workshops: Use voting features in your digital white-
board.

HOW TO RUN IT

1. Set the scene (5 minutes)

Say: “We’re going to quickly narrow down our concepts. The goal here is
not to pick the final solutions just yet. It’s to spot the most interesting, promi-

66
sing ideas that could help us hit our long-term goal.”

Explain that voting will happen in three rounds:

• Heat Map Voting
• Straw Poll
• Decider Vote

Each round helps sharpen the focus a little more.

2. Heat Map Voting (15 minutes)

Hand out red voting dots to each participant. There’s no limit to how many.
Say: “Walk around, read all the concepts. Place your dots on any parts of
any concepts you find interesting, exciting, or worth exploring.”

Facilitator Tips:
• Dots can go anywhere: on the title, the hypothesis, the 6-week action
plan, etc.
• Spread dots across the concepts or pile them onto one.
• The goal is to create a visual heat map of interest.
• Participants can vote on their own concepts too.

Once everyone has voted, it should look something like this:

67
3. Quick Group Readout (5 minutes)
As the facilitator, quickly highlight:
• Which concepts have the most dots
• Where people seem most excited

No deep discussion here. Just light acknowledgment to keep the energy

moving.

4. Straw Poll (15 minutes)

Hand out one large green dot to each participant and a Sharpie to
write initials.
Say: “Now pick the one concept you personally believe in the most. Stick
your green dot next to that concept.”
Each participant gives a quick 60 second explanation:
• “I chose this because…”
• This step surfaces personal conviction and helps the Decider hear
the why behind the votes.

5. Show Example (2 minutes):

Use the “Shelf Magnet Strategy” from Step 5 as an example, and say:
“This one feels super realistic and clearly connects to the goal of getting on
shelves. It’s a smart way to make the brand stand out in stores.”
This is good to give the team an idea of how to talk about their chosen
concept.
Once the team has placed their green voting dot, it should look so-
mething like this:

68
6. Decider Vote (15 minutes)
If a Decider is in the room (team lead, sponsor, etc.), they now make
the final call.
Say: “Based on the team’s input, the Decider will now pick the top 3-4
concepts to move forward into planning.”
Give the Decider a different colored dot (or just ask them to clearly
mark their choices).

Handling Common Challenges:

• For concept defenders: “We’re focused on finding the strongest
starting points, not eliminating ideas permanently.”
• For indecisive groups: “Remember, we can always refine these con-
cepts later, we need starting points now.”

CHECKPOINT

The team now has 3 to 4 clear, chosen concepts that feel exciting, doable,
and aligned with the long-term goal.
These concepts will form the foundation of their roadmap.

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STEP 8: WHEN WILL WE MAKE IT HAPPEN?
Exercise Name: Roadmap Creation • Duration: 60 minutes

Now that Origin Roasters has chosen a set of clear strategies, it’s time to
place them on a simple timeline.
This roadmap gives the team a visual overview of when each idea will
likely start. It helps everyone see the big picture and organize their efforts.
This isn’t about building detailed project plans.
It’s just about giving rough timing to the chosen concepts.

MATERIALS NEEDED

• Whiteboard or wall space for drawing the roadmap

• Sharpies
• Sticky notes for the concepts (use a different color if possible)
• For remote workshops: Create a simple timeline layout in your di-
gital whiteboard.

HOW TO RUN IT

1. Set the scene (5 minutes)

Say: “Now we’re going to organize our concepts over time. Think about
everything we know so far: the goals, the challenges, the opportunities. When
would it make the most sense to start working on each concept?”

Explain:
• No perfect dates needed
• Focus on general phases like Soon, Later, and Much Later

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2. Draw the timeline (5 minutes)
Draw a simple horizontal timeline across the board or wall.

Create loose time buckets:

• Next 3 Months
• Next 6 Months
• 9 to 12 Months
• 12+ Months

Keep it rough and readable. You don’t need month-by-month planning.

Point out that some concepts will cluster early (because they need
fast action) and others will fall later (because they’re bigger or need prep).

3. Place the concepts (30 minutes)

Take the selected strategies one at a time.

Ask the group:

• “When would it make sense to start this initiative?”
• “What needs to happen before this can begin?”
• “How does this relate to our other priorities?”

Stick the concept under the right section on the timeline.

If any concepts are linked (one needs to happen before another), pla-
ce them in rough order. But don’t overcomplicate it.

It should look something like this:

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4. Quick discussion and adjustments (10 minutes)
Step back and review the full roadmap with the team. Ask:
• “Does anything feel out of place?”
• “Is anything missing?”

Tweak placements if needed.

It’s important to keep the pace up here and not to get too bogged
down in open discussions.

5. Assign owners and first check-ins (15 minutes)

Say: “Now let’s make sure each concept has a clear owner and a next step. This
isn’t about assigning every detail, just making sure someone’s taking the lead.”
For each concept on the roadmap:
• Ask: “Who’s the best person to take this forward?”
• Write their name on a sticky note and place it next to the concept.
• Then ask: “When should we check in on this next?”
• Note a rough check-in date on another colored sticky note (e.g. “early
October” or “next quarter”).

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Stick to rough timing—don’t overplan. The goal is accountability and
momentum.

Facilitator Tips:
• One person per concept is enough (they can involve others later).
• If a concept has no clear owner, it might not be worth doing.
• Use this moment to flag capacity or support needs.

6. Decider sign-off (5-15 minutes)

Say: “Now we’re going to do a final check with our Decider to make sure
this roadmap reflects the direction we want to go.”
Explain:
• The Decider reviews the full roadmap.
• They confirm the timing, ownership, and overall alignment.
• They can make final tweaks or raise anything that feels off.

This is the moment where we lock it in. Once signed off, the roadmap
becomes the guide for action.

CHECKPOINT

The Origin Roasters team now has a simple, clear visual roadmap showing
when they plan to start each major strategy, who’s responsible for each
one, and when the next check-in will be.
The Decider has signed off, giving the team alignment, structure, and
forward momentum for everything that comes next.

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 STEP 9: WRAPPING IT ALL UP
Exercise Name: Workshop Closing • Duration: 10 minutes

This final step brings everything together.

It helps the Origin Roasters team leave feeling clear, energized, and
confident about what’s next.
A strong close is just as important as a strong start. It gives the work
meaning and builds momentum into action.

MATERIALS NEEDED

• Final photo or digital snapshot of the roadmap

• Blank sticky notes for quick reflections (optional)

HOW TO RUN IT

1. Recap the journey

Say: “Today, you turned a mess of ideas into a clear direction.You defined
your goal, created bold strategies, and built a plan to make it real. When we
first spoke, things felt stuck. Now you’ve got focus, energy, and a way forward.”
Then briefly highlight:
• The long-term goal and success metric
• The chosen strategies
• The roadmap overview

Keep this part short and celebratory. Remind them how much ground
they’ve covered in such a short space of time.
Show them a template with all the relevant information filled in, like this:

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2. Acknowledge the work
Say: “Strategy work isn’t easy. It takes focus, creativity, and a willingness
to stay open — and you brought all of that the last two days. Thank you for
showing up fully.”
3. Establish follow-up process (10 minutes)
Clarify exactly how the team will maintain momentum:
• When and how workshop outputs will be shared

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• Schedule for regular progress check-ins (recommend 2-week intervals)
• Process for addressing obstacles or making adjustments
• How to communicate progress to stakeholders

4. Optional: Final quick reflection (5 minutes)

If you have time:
• Hand out one sticky note per person
• Ask: “In one sentence, what are you most excited about coming out of the
last two days?”

Participants can share their answers out loud or stick them on the wall.
It’s a simple way to end on a high note.

Facilitator Tips:
• Create a digital “workshop playbook” containing all outputs and next steps
• Schedule the first follow-up session before leaving the workshop
• Designate someone to be the “keeper of the roadmap” who will track
progress

CHECKPOINT

By the end of this step, the Origin Roasters team:

• Has complete clarity on their strategic direction
• Understands the specific next steps each person will take
• Knows how progress will be tracked and communicated
• Feels energized and committed to implementation
• Feels proud of what they built together

That’s what a successful Strategy Signal workshop looks like.

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 POST-WORKSHOP FOLLOW-UP
To ensure workshop outcomes translate into real-world results:

1. Documentation:
Within 48 hours, send all participants:
• Digital copies of all workshop outputs
• The implementation plan with owners and next steps
• Calendar invitations for follow-up sessions

2. First Check-in:
Schedule a 30-minute check-in two weeks after the workshop to:
• Review progress on initial steps
• Address any early obstacles
• Celebrate quick wins

3. Quarterly Reviews:
Establish quarterly reviews to:
• Assess progress against the roadmap
• Update strategies based on new information
• Adjust timing or resources as needed

4. Six-Month Refresh:
Consider a half-day workshop after six months to:
• Review and refine the long-term goal if needed
• Update the roadmap based on learnings
• Identify any new strategic opportunities

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 CONCLUSION
Strategy Signal turns big, messy challenges into clear direction and real
momentum. Over two focused days, the team goes from “Where do we
even start?” to “Here’s the plan - and we’re doing it.”
The real impact shows up after the workshop as teams execute their
roadmaps and start making progress toward their North Star goals.
It’s not about creating a perfect plan, it’s about creating one that
works. One that can adapt, grow, and keep the team moving forward with
clarity and confidence.

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QUICK RECAP
Wooo! You’ve now created a strategy that gives:
• Clarity: One undeniable challenge and a North-Star metric.
• Focus: What to focus on, what not to focus on, and what success looks like.
• Commitment: Owners, dates, and resources locked-in.

Who knew “strategy” could feel so real and tangible!

Facilitating a group to this point is a huge win, and very few people
have the skills and framework to bring this level of clarity.
If decisions get questioned later (and they probably will, that’s nor-
mal), or shiny new ideas pop up, ask: “is this going to help us achieve our
North-Star?”, “has something changed since we all agreed on this?” or
the ultimate diffusing statement: “Great point. Let’s take note of this and
come back to it after we’ve achieved our North-Star”.
Ok, now let’s translate that newfound clarity into serious leverage

FROM ORDER-TAKER TO STRATEGIC PARTNER

Consultants sell either labor or leverage. Labor is hours; leverage is cla-

rity, insight, and structure that multiplies everyone else’s hours.
Being able to facilitate a session like Strategy Signal, almost immediate-
ly moves you into a highly leveraged position, where the value you provide
is way more than the sum of its parts.
You break out of the “paid per hour” trap, and what you can get paid for 2
days work might just be more than what you previously got paid in 2 months.

Here’s an example:

Before: €60/hour doing UX work for a client. Relatively capped income,

executing on tasks, lots of revisions, “always on” mentality is expected,
little strategic involvement.

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After: €14k flat for two-day Strategy Signal + €3k/month advisory. Rela-
tively similar revenue, a lot less hours, a lot more influence.

And how could this play out across a year?

Let’s say you run six Strategy Signal workshops a year at €10k each:
€60k per year for 12 days work - before touching execution work or the
additional opportunities that Strategy Signal could open up for you.
But the impact goes beyond numbers:

Time leverage: Workshops are a sprint, not a marathon. You show up,
deliver massive value in a concentrated burst, then have real recovery time.

Boundaries: When you sell outcomes rather than time, clients respect
your time differently. Vacations can become phone-off events, and there’s
little expectation to be “on” outside of the pre-agreed workshop times.

Location freedom: Workshops can be delivered anywhere - in-person or

remote. Many of our graduates run global practices while living wherever
they want.

What changes isn’t just your pricing - it’s your entire professional identity.
This isn’t theoretical. I’ve personally experienced exactly this in my own
life, and hundreds of our graduates have made this exact transition, too.
So, what would it mean to quadruple your impact while cutting your
work hours? What would be different in your life?
This shift does require a mindset “level-up”, though. Here are some
things I wish I knew earlier in my transition to this “new way” of working:
1. Price decisions, not artifacts or time. Clients aren’t paying for the
documents created or the amount of hours you’re with them - they’re
paying for the clarity these things bring. You need to be able to clearly

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 articulate the value of clarity, and the immense cost of not having it.
2. Guard the process. When clients try to shortcut the framework
(“can’t we just skip to the solutions?”), stay strong and ask them to
“trust the process” (it works, I promise).
3. Call-out the elephant in the room early. Strategy and decision-ma-
king are innately complex and nuanced. Humans are also innocently
complex and nuanced. Tension, frustration, and egos are unavoida-
ble when you bring these two things together, even with the best of
groups. Tactfully address the tension everyone feels but no one men-
tions and watch it dissipate.

When you lead a room through Strategy Signal, you’re bringing the one thing
most teams desperately want and need: clarity. What’s more, is that you’re
bringing this to them via a process and structure that’s actually enjoyable to
be part of. If you ask me, that’s worth multiples of your hourly rate.

PROOF IT WORKS

Theory is great. Results are even better. Let’s take a look at what happens
when people learn and apply facilitation skills and workshop principles
like the ones you’ve learned in this book.
Everyone here saw the huge potential of leveraging facilitation and
workshops (like Strategy Signal!) in their work, leading them to take our
high-level online training and coaching program, Workshopper Master.
I share these not to brag about how great our programs are, but to
show you what’s possible:
• Emily R: Closed a $40k workshop deal. “I’m never pricing hourly
again.” Emily joined Workshopper Master and learned strategies to
charge appropriately for her work.
• Nichelle K: “We came into this meeting foggy about where to even start

83
 on the work we have to do this year, and now we have clarity and we are
focused.” - Feedback from a leader in Nichelle’s workshop. She sold a
2-day workshop for €5,000.
• Ren F: Sold a Sales Strategy Sprint for €14k after joining Workshop-
per Master in July 2023. Got 100% ROI in 7 months by pivoting from
yearly contract-based services to project-based workshops.
• Sabrina D: Successfully facilitated a workshop for 80 participants,
aligning them around a shared goal for the next 2 years within just 2
hours. The board signed off instantly.
• Jean-Michel M: “I’m now selling workshops at $5k+/day and I feel confi-
dent throwing custom workshops together. Did Workshopper (Master) deliver
on that 5-2-1 thing from the sales pitch? I suppose it did.”
• Loell K: “Thanks to Workshopper Master, I confidently quit my job to
facilitate full-time. Now I run 10 workshops per week!” - Loell left her
corporate role as Head of Agile Design & Facilitation to launch Art of
Teams Ltd., her own business.
• Iain M: Made £5k from one workshop gig, which paid for his entire
Workshopper Master training. “Never pricing hourly again.”
• Angela: Loves Workshopper Master and used it to charge €96,000
for her first mastermind.
• Graham: Secured a 2-day workshop for a large event location in
Scotland using the sales script from Workshopper Master. Called it
his “BEST sales call yet!”
• Ben: Scored £1,500 for a 3-hour custom workshop with Google at a
rate of £500/hour.
• Javier: Reached a milestone by charging $4,000 for a 2-hour work-
shop, doubling his day rate by “just asking.”
• Daniel S: Transformed his career by becoming the go-to “workshop
person” within his company thanks to Workshopper Master.

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These aren’t people with some secret inaccessible information or un-
attainable skills. They’re professionals working in all different types of
industries who learned a specific, repeatable process for designing and
facilitating effective workshops.
When you master the principles of facilitation, guiding groups through
focused exercises in a deliberate sequence, you can create similar outcomes.

BEYOND STRATEGY SIGNAL: THE PATH TO MASTERY

If Strategy Signal is the first step in your facilitation journey, you might be
wondering what comes next. Because while a single, powerful workshop fra-
mework can transform your career, it’s just the beginning of what’s possible.
Think of Strategy Signal as your gateway to the world of facilitation.
Once you experience the impact of facilitating a structured process and
seeing the clarity you can achieve, the decisions you can unlock, and the
relationships you can build, you might find yourself wanting more, and
I’m pretty sure your team and clients will want more, too!
That’s where the broader world of workshop design and facilitation
opens up. Beyond learning a single framework, there’s the ability to design
and facilitate custom workshops for any team, any challenge, at any time.
Imagine walking into a room with nothing but sticky notes and Shar-
pies, listening to a team’s unique challenge, and within minutes, you’re
sketching out a workshop structure that will get them unstuck. No pre-pre-
pared agenda, no scripts, just an understanding of collaboration principles
and exercise mechanics that lets you build the perfect workshop on the fly.
That’s what mastering workshop design and facilitation looks like. It’s
understanding how different exercises connect and build on each other. It’s
knowing when to diverge and when to converge. It’s feeling exactly when a
group needs silent work versus open discussion. These skills lead to a level
of flexibility that few people ever experience in their work.

85
 This is exactly what my team and I specialize in helping people do. Over
the years we’ve built-out a robust training program called Workshopper Mas-
ter that has helped thousands of people go from “order takers” who execute,
to strategic partners who guide and facilitate business-critical initiatives.
I created our Workshopper Master program with the goal of teaching peo-
ple these skills, but what I didn’t expect was that the complete life and work
transformation that I had experienced would also happen to so many of our
students. I thought what I was teaching would be helpful and practical, but I
was (very pleasantly) surprised that it also turned out to be transformational,
and completely overhaul how so many of our students experience their work.

FUTURE-PROOFING YOUR CAREER

Not only is learning how to facilitate hugely beneficial today, but I also dee-
ply believe that mastering facilitation is “career insurance” for the future.
For the foreseeable future, humans will need to come together and
make complex decisions. Group dynamics will always be at-play. Collabo-
ration will always be complicated, messy and highly nuanced. Being the
person who can guide and facilitate groups, regardless of the context or
circumstances, is a timeless superpower that will always be in-demand and,
I believe, will always be complimentary with fast-evolving technology.
Learning how to facilitate one specific workshop, like Strategy Signal,
will already set you apart from most people. Learning how to additionally
facilitate other types of workshops, like the Design Sprint, will make you
stand out even more. Learning how to build and facilitate any type of
workshop for any team or challenge will put you in the top 1% (this is what
our Workshopper Master program does)...
But there’s an even deeper level beyond that: what we call Emergent
Facilitation.
Emergent facilitation isn’t about planning the perfect workshop - it’s

86
about responding perfectly when the plan falls apart. It’s the abili-
ty to adapt in real-time as the situation evolves, regardless of who’s in
the room, the constraints you face, or what unexpected things arise.
Imagine you’re midway through a Strategy Signal workshop with a lea-
dership team. You’ve built momentum, the energy is high, and you’re just
about to move into a critical exercise. Suddenly, the CEO gets an urgent
call and has to leave. The remaining executives start looking nervous. So-
meone suggests, “maybe we should reschedule?” The energy drops.
An average Facilitator might panic or rigidly stick to the plan. But an
“emergent Facilitator” would seamlessly pivot, perhaps saying: “Actu-
ally, this is perfect timing. Let’s use this opportunity to look at our strongest
options without worrying about selling them. When [CEO’s name] returns,
we’ll have more build-out ideas to present.”
They might then modify the exercise on the spot, change voting met-
hods, or collect valuable insights that wouldn’t have necessarily been shared
before, turning the CEO’s absence into an advantage rather than an issue.
That’s emergent facilitation: the ability to work with whatever reality
presents while still guiding the group towards the goal. And importantly:
emergent facilitation is the ability to do all of this while remaining opti-
mistic, unfazed, and, what we call, “unshakeable”.
I won’t go deep into workshop design or emergent facilitation here,
because these topics deserve their own books entirely. I touch on this now
to give you a sense of what your forward journey could look like, if you’re
to follow this thread further.
My goal now is to get you comfortable with Strategy Signal and excited
about running your first one. But what I do want you to know is that Strate-
gy Signal is just the beginning of what’s possible in your facilitation journey.
Strategy Signal gives you immediate value, but the full spectrum of
facilitation skills can transform not just individual sessions, but your ent-
ire professional identity.

87
 For now though, focus on running your first Strategy Signal work-
shop. Get comfortable with the framework, see the impact it creates, and
enjoy the shift in how teams and clients perceive your value. Then, when
you’re ready to go deeper, know that there’s a whole world of facilitation
mastery waiting for you.
The journey from execution to strategy is powerful. The leap from stra-
tegy to facilitation mastery? It’s a huge (and very exciting) transformation!

WANT A SHORTCUT?

My goal with this book is to get you excited about running your first Stra-
tegy Signal workshop, and I hope I’ve achieved that goal. But if this book
has resonated with you beyond just Strategy Signal, and you see potential
for going even deeper into the topic of facilitation and workshop design,
then my team and I would love to help.
If you’d like to learn more about what it means to be a “top 1%” Fa-
cilitator - someone who can design and facilitate any workshop, for any
challenge, for any team - and build a high-paid career around this ability,
then head over to facilitator.com/freetraining and unlock my free 45-mi-
nute training video where I explain how to do exactly that.
Towards the end of the training, I explain how you can book a free
“Facilitation Career Roadmap Call” with an expert from my team. On
that call, they’ll help you assess how you can best leverage facilitation,
and what your path to becoming a “top 1%” Facilitator could look like.
Yes, we do have programs that we can recommend to you, but our
goal with this call isn’t to push these on you. Our goal is to give you clarity
and momentum on your journey, and hopefully assist you in your next
step to leveraging the superpower of facilitation.

88
IT’S YOUR TURN

If you were looking for a sign that it’s time to do something different in
your work, then here is it.
If you had a feeling that “something is missing” but you couldn’t qui-
te put your finger on what “it” was, then hopefully this book shows you
what could be missing.
But books don’t change things - actions do.
So, pick a client, set a date, run Strategy Signal. It won’t be perfect the
first time. It might be messy, and that’s fine. The framework is robust enough
to deliver value even in your first attempt, even if you only nail 10% of it.
When your first Strategy Signal is complete, tag me in a photo of it on
LinkedIn. My team and I will be cheering you on, and we’ll maybe even
share it with our facilitation community.
A warning, though: once you experience more leverage, hourly work feels
painful and slow. Once you see the impact you can bring as a facilitator, traditio-
nal consulting feels horribly outdated, and it’s very hard to “unsee” it.
I’m excited for you to experience the power of Strategy Signal, and I
hope it’s as transformational for you as it was for me.

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90
THANK YOU
NOTES
My name is on this book, but this book (and everything around it) was
the work of a bunch of amazing people from every part of the AJ&Smart
team. Some are new and some I’ve worked with for over a decade.
So let me use this space to say a big thanks to all of them:

Laura Faint: For being able to take my chaotic ideas and turn them into
words people can understand and connect with. And also for doing this
while running multiple companies with me! But the main thing I want to
say thanks for is for being my hype-man! You keep making sure I don’t give
up on my ideas even after I’ve already gotten sick of them.

Ryan De Metz: For being the man that holds everything together behind
the scenes at Facilitator and the broader AJ&Smart portfolio. Without you
pulling the strings in the background I’m sure everything would grind to halt.

Tim Höfer: For being the most flexible, patient and talented designer
I’ve ever worked with. And for being weirdly good at binding books for
some reason??

Rebecca Courtney: For moving from Ireland to join in on the crazy Fa-
cilitator.com journey and for patiently putting together the instructions
in this book from my ramblings. And especially for being willing to travel
around the world to teach our Facilitation magic!

Adam Courtney: For being a ridiculously amazing sales person who

ALWAYS wants to be top dog. But also for making me almost wet my-
self (multiple times) with your ridiculous facial expressions! The wolf of
Paul-street is back!

Juan Elinan: For turning my loosely connected ideas and concepts into

93
amazing videos that keep people hooked to our YouTube channel, our
courses and of COURSE our non-stop ads!

Kyle McEnery: For making sure we don’t go bankrupt or spend wayyyy

too much on silly things like… self publishing… and stuff like that. And
for making the ultimate transformation from drummer (in our band) to
badass accountant!

Inka Kehr: For making the AJ&Smart office one of the most pleasant
places to work in and visit. If you weren’t making sure things weren’t in
order, we’d all be living like dirty rats. Digging holes… eating cheese…
etc. No but seriously thanks for taking such good care of us!!!

Dom Domonkus Nyari: For keeping the beating heart of Facilitator.com

(our funnels) fed with amazing new customers every week who’ve never
even heard of us! You’re a paid ads magician, and on top of that a great
Sales Lead too!

Daniel Mallon: For reminding us on this exact project that we need to

remember who we’re making products for. For being the voice of our cus-
tomers (because you talk to them every day), caring about our business
so deeply, and for just being a genuinely great dude who people connect
with and trust instantly.

Alec Perry: For being such a calm, steady, sharp and disciplined force in
our team. You approach every conversation and project so professionally
and skillfully. Aside from being a killer salesperson, your level-headed and
consistent approach is admirable and we can all learn so much from you!

Amr Khalifeh: Besides keeping our customers happy and engaged in

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our highest-level community, you’re also always the person I go to when
I need something to be created with a lot of depth and craft. I always
pull you into workshops to get a perspective on a new product I’d never
have thought of, but more importantly you’re the only other person at the
company as addicted to videogames as I am!

Paul Murphy: For jumping in and getting to work whenever we need your
copywriting genius. It’s not often that someone so quickly gets our weird
vibe, but you got it right away and felt like part of the team from day one!

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Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (1996). The balanced scorecard: Transla-
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Knapp, J., Zeratsky, J., & Kowitz, B. (2016). Sprint: How to solve big
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Law, V. (2018). WTF is strategy? HackerNoon.
Rumelt, R. (2011). Good strategy/bad strategy: The difference and why it
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Sivers, D. (2011). Anything you want: 40 lessons for a new kind of entre-
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