Illustrative sample

Sample Diagnostic outputs

What the Executive Transformation Diagnostic hands to leadership, shown for a fictional company, Halden Industries.

Illustrative sample, not a client deliverable. The company, people and findings are invented to show the format and depth of the Executive Transformation Diagnostic. It is not based on any client or employer, and it uses no real figures.

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About this sample

The fictional situation. Halden Industries is a fictional mid-sized industrial group in year three of an enterprise transformation covering cloud migration, a new ERP and AI pilots. Spend is rising, the programme has been re-planned twice, and the board has asked the CEO what the investment has bought.

What this sample shows

The one-page verdict, the main output of the Focused scope.
One finding traced from observation to executive implication.
An excerpt of the Value Leakage Map.
The Executive Decision Agenda.
A three-action excerpt of the 90–180 Day Action Agenda (Full scope).

What it leaves out. The rest of the 90–180 Day Action Agenda (Full scope). The assessment method, scoring and interview material are not included.

Output 1 · Focused scope

One-page verdict

Verdict. Halden's transformation is not failing on technology. It is failing on control. No single forum owns trade-offs across the three workstreams, benefits are not tracked after go-live, and leaders see activity reports rather than evidence of value. Until those change, more spend will buy more activity, not more outcomes.

Where it is aligned. The transformation ambition is clear and backed by the board. Cloud migration is on plan, and delivery teams are capable.

The four constraints holding it back

#	Constraint	ETF dimension	Evidence confidence
1	Three steering committees, none with authority over cross-workstream trade-offs	Governance and decision rights	High
2	Benefits are defined in business cases but not tracked after go-live	Value realisation	High
3	Status reporting measures milestones and spend, not adoption or business change	Trusted data and transformation visibility	Medium
4	Business units are asked to adopt new processes with no change in roles or targets	Operating model	Medium

Decisions due. Four, set out in the Executive Decision Agenda. The most urgent is who owns trade-offs across the programme. It should be settled before the next funding round.

Not examined. Vendor contracts and the technical architecture were outside the agreed scope.

Output 2

One finding, start to finish

Every finding is reasoned through the same chain, with its evidence confidence stated. This is constraint 2: benefits are not tracked after go-live.

Illustrative evidence trail. The sources are the kinds of evidence a Diagnostic reviews; what they show here is invented.

Observation: The approved business cases name expected benefits, but none names an owner for those benefits after the project closes.
Evidence: Business cases and project closure reports; most interviewees could not say where benefits are reported; recent board packs contain no benefits line.
Pattern: Projects end at go-live, so no one is accountable for whether the change pays back.
Business consequence: Leadership cannot show the board what the investment has returned, and funding decisions rest on milestones rather than results.
Executive implication: Leadership must decide who owns benefits after go-live, and whether the next funding release depends on them being tracked.
Confidence: High: consistent across documents and interviews.

Output 3 · Excerpt

Value Leakage Map

The map follows value from spend to what the board can see, and marks where it is lost. Each leak is one of the four constraints in the verdict.

Value leaks at four points between spend and the board

Spend
1 · Trade-offs between workstreams go unresolved
Governance and decision rights · high confidence
Delivery
4 · Processes change, but roles and targets do not
Operating model · medium confidence
Adoption
2 · No one owns benefits after go-live
Value realisation · high confidence
Business outcomes
3 · Reports show milestones and spend, not value
Trusted data and transformation visibility · medium confidence
Board's view of value

High evidence confidenceMedium evidence confidence

The two high-confidence leaks, unresolved trade-offs and unowned benefits, sit at the start and in the middle of the chain. Fixing reporting alone would not close them.

Output 4

Executive Decision Agenda

Four decisions for Halden's leadership. Each is stated so it can be answered yes or no, with an owner and a date set by the event it must come before.

#	Decision required	Owner	Decide by	Options considered
1	Replace the three steering committees with one transformation board that owns cross-workstream trade-offs?	CEO	Before the next funding release	One board; a lead committee with a mandate; keep as is with a weekly trade-off forum
2	Make each business-unit head accountable for the benefits in their area after go-live?	CEO with CFO	Next planning cycle	BU-head ownership; central benefits office; programme director keeps ownership
3	Make the next funding release depend on a benefits baseline for the three largest projects?	CFO	Before the next funding release	Conditional release; partial release; release as planned
4	Pause the AI pilots that have no business owner?	CIO	Within 60 days	Pause; assign owners; continue as planned

The Diagnostic sets out the options and evidence. The decisions stay with leadership.

Output 5 · Full scope · Excerpt

90–180 Day Action Agenda

In a Full Diagnostic, the decisions become a sequenced plan for the next 90–180 days: what leadership should start, stop, simplify, consolidate or accelerate, with owners, timing and a sign that each step is working. This excerpt shows 3 of the actions in a full agenda.

Move	Action	Owner	Window	Sign it's working
Start	Name a benefits owner for each live project	BU heads	Days 1–30	Every live project has a named owner in the board pack
Stop	Funding releases tied only to milestones	CFO	Days 30–90	The next release cites a benefits baseline
Simplify	Fold three steering committees into one transformation board	CEO	Days 30–60	Cross-workstream trade-offs are decided in one forum

Each action follows from a decision in the Executive Decision Agenda. A full agenda covers every decision, with dependencies and review points.

Illustrative sample. Halden Industries is fictional. Any resemblance to a real organisation is coincidental.

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