Problems we solve · Silos and dependencies
The organisation grew. The way it makes decisions didn’t.
Every initiative depends on other teams. Each team has its own priorities. Nobody can give you a clear answer about who owns the result.
What’s Really Happening
Silos are often created when an organisation is young, but as the company grows so do the walls between them.
When work crosses functions, local priorities and unclear ownership can leave customer value sitting in invisible queues.
A 20-minute conversation. No pitch.
01 / Recognition
You may be hearing yourself say…
01
“Nobody owns the outcome. Everyone owns a piece of it.”
02
“Teams bypass governance to get anything done.”
03
“The official front door is a formality; people use their own routes.”
04
“We need to scale without losing what makes us special.”
05
“Every dependency is someone else’s priority.”
Different symptoms. The same underlying question: who can make the whole outcome move?
02 / Diagnosis
Structure groups skills. Outcomes cross boundaries
Silos throw up walls that impede the progress of work through the organisation. It’s not intentional, but happens because priorities exists above, between, and within silos.
The Central Problem
A team can meet its own targets while the value needed by the customer waits elsewhere.
If the operating model cannot reconcile priorities across teams and departments, shared outcomes slip. Companies can lose millions every quarter from this alone, often without realising it.
01
Functional priorities, shared work
Each function has a sensible backlog. There is no shared basis for sequencing the work that depends on several of them.
02
Ownership has fallen behind growth
New services and responsibilities have emerged without clear accountability for their end-to-end outcomes.
03
Governance creates avoidable queues
Approval routes can become overloaded or detached from the information needed to make a decision. Workarounds hide the delay rather than resolve it.
04
Dependencies remain local knowledge
Teams plan separately, leaving shared capacity and conflicting commitments invisible until delivery slips.
Moving reporting lines alone will not resolve unclear trade-offs or competing measures of success.
03 / Intervention
Follow the work, not the org chart.
We don’t arrive with a framework, a reorganisation, or a replacement programme. We start by establishing what is actually happening, then put the evidence in front of you.
01
Trace real work end to end
We follow selected pieces of work through the organisation to identify where they wait, who decides, where ownership changes, and which commitments conflict. From this, we can build a systems picture that shows where the pain points are.
02
Clarify ownership and decision rights
We help define accountable owners for shared outcomes, the authority they need, and how teams resolve competing demands. Structural changes are proposed where the evidence supports them.
03
Make coordination part of delivery
We agree fortnightly outcomes and practical changes to intake, priorities and dependencies. We might use value-stream mapping, OKRs, flow metrics, or lean portfolio practices where they help make the whole system visible.
The objective is shared accountability that works in everyday decisions, with the controls your organisation needs. If that means updating the Operating Model, we’ll tell you. If it doesn’t, we’ll tell you that too.
04 / Typical Engagement
What working with us looks like
Clear expectations. Defined outcomes. Accountability on both sides.
01
Diagnostic first
We start with a short, structured assessment. We agree scope, duration and executive involvement upfront.
02
Two-week outcomes
We agree a three- or six-month direction, but commit to specific outcomes every fortnight, working with the people sponsoring and delivering the change.
03
Commercial alignment, not just day rates
We combine a baseline fee with payments linked to agreed outcomes. We take responsibility for our delivery, and put our mistakes right at our cost. Your commitments and dependencies are agreed upfront, so accountability works both ways.
04
Senior on every engagement
Every engagement is founder-led, with direct senior involvement throughout. Where specialist expertise or additional capacity is needed, we bring in trusted people with the right capabilities. You retain a single point of accountability.
05
Your strategy stays yours
We bring diagnosis, challenge, and intervention. Accountability for the strategic direction of your business remains with your leadership.
05 / Evidence
What this looks like in practice
Case Study
From internal activity to customer outcomes
Shell Recharge Solutions
At Shell Recharge Solutions, specialist teams worked with separate backlogs and priorities, with limited direct accountability for customer-facing services. The intervention organised work around value streams and named customer outcomes, connecting functional activity to the strategy it needed to deliver.
The intervention established customer-facing outcomes for each value stream, connecting day-to-day decisions to strategic priorities. Teams gained a clearer basis for deciding what mattered, what could wait, and what to stop.
Client Perspective
“Toby operates confidently at executive level while remaining grounded in operational reality.”
Martin Walsh
Chief Product & Technology Officer, EV sector
Additional Sector Experience
Capital markets · Insurance · Fintech · EV charging · Telecoms · Data centres
06 / FAQ
Questions people ask
Not necessarily. We first test whether clearer ownership, decision rights, shared priorities or limits on work in progress (WIP) would address the problem. If reporting structures also need to change, we explain the evidence and the implications before recommending it.
Changing the culture of an organisation is a daunting prospect but, fortunately, very doable. We’ve helped many organisations change from a culture of blame to one of productive cooperation where the feeling of being over-burdened and under-appreciated is lifted. How we do it will depend on your specific situation.
The purpose is to remove coordination delays that growth has exposed. We focus on a small number of real outcomes and agree changes around current commitments. Any time required from leaders and teams is part of the scope agreed upfront. Shell Recharge grew sevenfold across Europe as we layered in the transformation, so it can absolutely be done and doesn’t need to slow you down.
We examine how ownership and decisions can improve within your regulatory and control requirements. Required controls remain part of the design. Any proposed change needs the appropriate internal review and approval. Our experience includes working with regulated firms from Regulated Investment Exchanges (RIEs) to insurance companies.
Access to people doing the work as well as their managers, visibility of competing commitments, and a sponsor with authority to resolve ownership and priority conflicts. We agree the information, decisions and commitments needed before starting.
We combine a baseline fee with payments linked to agreed outcomes. This creates commitment on both sides while keeping the commercial focus on results rather than activity.
If we miss an agreed outcome through our own fault, we put it right. Where delivery depends on information, decisions, or commitments from your organisation, those dependencies and their commercial implications are agreed upfront.
We can also consider bespoke arrangements, including fees linked to measurable savings or other commercial benefits.
07 / Next Step
Tell us what’s stuck
A 20-minute call with Toby Corballis about your situation. Not a pitch, a demo, or a discovery call delegated to someone junior.
We’ll follow up with a short written view of what we’ve heard and where we’d look first.
There’s no proposal unless you ask for one, and “not now” is a perfectly good outcome.
Prefer email? [email protected]
Or call +44 (20) 8088-5705