The Challenge
Following a restructure of JLR’s Propulsion Division, the Current Quality team faced mounting complexity, misaligned priorities, and fragmented collaboration. Despite strong technical capability, teams were constantly in firefighting mode. Strategic initiatives often lacked cohesion and were siloed and disconnected.
JLR needed a clear, adaptive strategy that would unify teams under a shared direction—and give them tools to navigate an unpredictable, fast-moving environment .
“Working with Steve and Brian has been fantastic. Having read around the subject of complexity and how it impacts our work, it was invaluable having experts who have supported adoption of complexity-conscious methods across various companies and industries. The tools and methods shared allowed us to consistently push ourselves to a better approach.”
Project Objective
To implement AGLX’s Adaptive Strategy process to establish a Shared Understanding of Success (SUS) and enable the JLR team to operate with clarity, alignment, and agility in an unpredictable environment.
“We started with really understanding where we were. This emphasised that we are not all in the same place and that we cannot all move in the same direction at the same speed, together. Defining a clear shared understanding of success and main efforts gave us clear focus and ability to prioritize, and then the experimentation methodology engaged everyone and allowed us to progress from where we all were, as individuals and teams.”
Approach
Phase I: SenseMaker® Scan
AGLX deployed a SenseMaker® narrative capture. We prompted participants to share stories that revealed their perspectives on team priorities, operational challenges, and perceived areas of strategic importance. Participants were prompted to share stories about:
● How work gets done
● Strategic tensions
● Collaboration challenges
● Sources of success and failure
The goal was to surface the ground truth—unfiltered patterns that traditional surveys usually miss.
Key findings included:
● Positive signals of adaptability, collaboration, and ownership when teams had the space to think and connect
● Frustrations about processes, information flow, and fragmented decision-making
● A tendency toward short-term fixes over long-term improvement
● Desire for clarity on who owns what, particularly in cross-functional fault resolution
● Signals that resilience comes more from peer consultation than formal procedures
This “bottom-up” insight was paired with top-down intent from Alan Baker and other senior leaders.
Phase II: Strategy Workshop
On June 9–10, a two-day in-person workshop brought together 15 representatives from engineering, quality, leadership, and operational functions.
Key methods used:
- The Ideal Present: Mapped what the team wanted to move away from and toward, exposing hidden assumptions and cultural blockers
- Divergence-Convergence: Surfaced diverse ideas before filtering to practical actions
- Safe-to-Fail Experiments: Designed to provide a method to rapidly test new ideas.
- Complex facilitation: Ensured psychological safety, encouraged full participation, and minimized groupthink.
Outputs of the workshop included:
- A clear Direction of Travel: Deliver faster, more robust solutions through active control of tempo
- A defined Main Effort for 90 Days: Connect & Explore
- A set of guiding principles around connection, curiosity, and adaptability
Phase III: Strategy Documentation
AGLX worked closely with Alan Baker to produce a succinct, high-impact strategy document capturing:
- The team’s Shared Understanding of Success
- A description of the desired mode of operation
- A blueprint for feedback, learning, and adjustment using L-ROVER Debriefs and real-time retrospectives
This document became the team’s north star for operational alignment and decision-making.
Outcomes
Strategic Clarity
Teams aligned around a shared strategic direction—focused on faster, more robust delivery—and understood how to manage tempo intentionally rather than reactively.
Cultural Shift
Teams were empowered to challenge outdated procedures, propose experiments, and connect across silos.
Embedded Learning System
The L-ROVER and ICE Innovation® frameworks introduced rhythms for learning, debriefing, and course correction.
First Set of Experiments Launched
Within the first 90 days, teams launched experiments aimed at improving cross-departmental integration, customer signal detection, and knowledge reuse.
What Made It Work
- Narrative Data at Scale: The SenseMaker® scan captured nuance and context that surveys could not.
- Multi-level Engagement: Both executive intent and frontline insight shaped the strategy.
- Safe-to-Fail Framing: Encouraged bold but bounded action without fear of failure.
- Focus on Tempo, not Speed: Allowed for smarter, more sustainable execution.
Conclusion
By shifting from plan-driven to adaptive thinking, the Current Quality Domain gained clarity, momentum, and resilience in the face of ongoing complexity.
“As a senior leader responsible for a large domain delivering a complex work scope, I have found adaptive strategy incredibly beneficial. We have a common understanding with our team members of strategic direction and have given them a tool (and mindset) that guides them to improve how they work. Adaptive strategy is now a core element/tool of my leadership approach and expect to use in perpetuity!!”
Dr. Alan Baker – Quality Domain Ways of Working Leader