See how your team’s ideas become results, and what’s slowing them down.
The Idea to Value Workshop shows your team how its ideas actually become results, so more of them get there faster, and your best people stay to do it. Three hours or a full day.
The Idea to Value Workshop
Every organisation has more good ideas than it delivers. That's rarely down to effort. Each team sees its own stretch of the journey, and few see the whole thing.
The Idea to Value Workshop puts the whole road in front of your team. They find where work slows, where costs build up and where friction is high, then agree what to change first.
Most teams leave with their first changes ready to start the following week.
The Idea to Value Workshop at a glance
Your real work. What's slowing it. A short list of changes your team owns.
Three hours
Built around a puzzle game. A sharp first look for a leadership team or a whole department, up to 150 people at a time.
A full day
Your team's own work, end to end, on one wall. For 8 to 40 people who want to leave with owned changes.
Who
Leadership teams, cross-functional groups, product and delivery teams
Where
In person at your place, UK and international
Built on
Your own work, not case studies, and no framework to adopt
Track record
Delivered more than 300 times
Before the day
A 20-minute call and a short conversation to shape it
What changes
You get two things leaders want and rarely get from the same day.
Better results. Ideas reach customers sooner, with less time spent waiting, reworking or starting things that don't finish.
People who stay. When people can see how their work becomes value, the work makes sense, and that's a big part of why good people stay.
Speed and retention come from the same place: a team that can see what it's doing and why.
Not another agility framework
Most organisations already have agility. They had it at the start, when a handful of people could see the whole journey and act on it. Then success arrived, and with it more people, more process, more meetings and more layers, each added for a good reason. The agility didn't go anywhere. It got held in place.
So this workshop doesn't install a framework, with its ceremonies, roles and rituals. It starts from your work and asks a simpler question: is it moving in the right direction, at a pace your people can sustain? Then it helps your team choose what to let go of first.
Two ways to run it
Three hours · up to 150 people
Play the game, then see your own organisation in it.
First hour
Play the game
Teams work through a puzzle game at their tables. No slides, no theory. Just the pressures most organisations know from their own work.
Second hour
See what happened
A guided debrief. By now the room has felt what holds work back, so the conversation is about recognition, not persuasion.
Third hour
Release it
Five questions applied to your own organisation, with a first step agreed before people leave.
The five questions
- 01Where are we heading?
- 02What's in the way?
- 03Who do we need, and what do they need?
- 04What do we do in the moment?
- 05How do we get better?
A full day · 8 to 40 people
Your real work, from first idea to something a customer is glad of.
Morning
See the whole journey
The group lays out its own work along the path, end to end. For many people it's the first time they've seen the stretches either side of their own.
Midday
Find where it slows
Where work waits, where it gets handed on and misunderstood, and where effort goes into things that won't reach a customer. Each finding is tied to time, money or people.
Afternoon
Choose what to change first
A short list of changes, each with an owner and a first step, and a plan for explaining them to the people who weren't in the room.
A common pattern is to run the three-hour session for a wide group first, then the full day with the teams that want to go further.
What your team leaves with
- One shared picture of how your work becomes value
- A shared language for what slows work down, which makes it easier to talk about without anyone getting defensive
- A short list of changes, each with an owner and a first step
- A clear case for those changes, ready to share with the wider business
- Reference materials for everyone in the room
Want to focus on one part of the journey? The same method can be aimed at a single lens: communication, creativity and the climate around the work, the manager's role, or turning ideas into talks that land. See all workshops →
Why it works
It's built from four things that rarely sit in one person.
Delivery
I've been a VP of Engineering, and Head of Business Agility. I've run the work, not just advised on it.
People
VP of HR, in the same business where I'd led engineering. Results and retention, looked at together.
Meaning
A background in Media Science and journalism: how ideas are understood, retold and lost as they travel.
Making
Hands-on throughout, with no hours of slides, and the option to make something the team keeps.
300+
times delivered, including three cohorts of 150 at a global energy company
Weekly
releases, down from every 14 months, while an engineering team scaled from 6 to 200+
+53%
delivery capability, and 23% lower operating cost, in a regulated payments turnaround
60%+
delivery effectiveness across a 1,000-initiative portfolio
The portfolio model behind that last figure later became the blueprint for a 16,000-person technology organisation. A utilities company built the three-hour game into how it welcomes new starters.
“The whole business was buzzing after the session.”
Chief Technology Officer, global energy company
Who it's for
It suits leadership teams who want one honest picture of how work moves, groups that hand work to each other, and product and delivery teams. It also works for studios and smaller businesses, because the journey has the same shape at any size.
It's not the right fit if you want a methodology to roll out, a certification, or tools to buy.
Make something you keep (optional)
Turn the day into something the rest of the organisation can use: a printed reference set, a short film of the day, or a podcast episode. It's priced separately and agreed on the call.
Questions people ask
Which format should we start with?
If you want a wide group to share the same experience quickly, start with the three hours. If you want one team to work through its own journey and leave with owned changes, take the full day. Many organisations do the first, then the second.
How much does it cost?
Every workshop is shaped around your team, its size and where we're working, so we agree the price on the 20-minute call.
Is this Agile training?
No. There's no certification and no framework to adopt, and it doesn't take sides between Scrum, Kanban, SAFe or anything else. If your organisation already uses a framework, I'll use its language and examples. If it doesn't, we'll work from first principles. The workshop is the same either way.
Does the team need to learn anything first?
No. The path and the five questions take five minutes to explain. The rest is your own work.
Can it run remotely?
It works best in person, with the whole journey on one wall. If that isn't possible, ask me about a remote version.
How is this different from The Read?
The Read is me looking at your organisation from the outside and writing up what I find. The workshop is your team seeing it together. Plenty of organisations do one, then the other.
What do you need from us?
A short conversation beforehand, a list of the real work you'd like to look at, a room with wall space, and the people who do the work.
Can I work on this on my own first?
Yes. An Idea to Value Office Hour (one hour, £200) looks at one idea or piece of work you’re trying to move, using the same approach. It’s also a good way to see whether the workshop would suit your team. Alternatively, get started on your own with Life of an Idea.
The Trade List · No. 01
Everything in one place, to read or pass on.
Talks, workshops, advice and books, with an essay to begin. Twelve pages, free to download, written for whoever holds the budget.
Start with a 20-minute call.
Tell me about your team and what you'd like to be different. There's no pitch and no follow-up sequence. If it isn't the right fit, I'll say so.
Or email info@cultivatednotes.com. I usually reply within 24 hours.
For whoever holds the budget
The Idea to Value Workshop shows our team how its work actually becomes results, finds where it slows, and leaves us with a short list of owned changes. It runs as a three-hour session built around a puzzle game (up to 150 people) or a full day on our own work (8 to 40 people). It's been delivered more than 300 times, and it's run by Rob Lambert, former VP of Engineering and VP of HR, so it looks at delivery results and staff retention together.