Welcome to goalwards® on Goalwards®

Executive Coaching and Mentoring

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bespoke coaching and mentoring to CxOs and their teams

Initial Assessment

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A focused exercise to interview a cross-section of your organization and make recommendations.

Speeding up delivery

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Identifying and eliminating the delays and dependencies that slow your teams down

Value Stream Mapping

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Modelling an entire business process from end to end in a high-energy, hands-on workshop

Implementing delivery metrics

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

When your teams are reporting the same metrics, you get a consistent programme-level view.

Defining Vision and Strategy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Building a shared vision and actionable strategy with the entire executive team

Introducing modern engineering practices

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Raising the technical bar with Continuous Delivery, Data Mesh and related disciplines

Creating high-performing teams-of-teams

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Teams form dynamically around the most important work, to manage uncertainty and navigate shifting priorities

Delivery Club: growing engineering managers

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A comprehensive coaching and mentoring programme for new and experienced engineering managers

Visualizing your estate

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We apply two powerful visualization tools to understand your products and services and your portfolio of work.

Establishing Communities of Practice

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Shared ways of working enable economies of scale and staff mobility, creating opportunities for personal and professional growth

Path to Production review

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Shining the spotlight on deployment and release practises to identify opportunities to reduce time to value.

Architecture review

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A blame-free and objective assessment of architecture decisions to expose risks and trade-offs for new or existing systems.

Fragments

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Consultants

operates as an associate network of expert practitioner-consultants.

Listen like we don’t know
Initial Assessment
Co-create an engagement
Go as fast or as slow, as broad or as narrow, as you need
Flex the team around the situation, scaling up and down, rotating different skills and expertise as needed

Key person risk

Before the latest reorg, each legacy app had its own maintenance team—usually only one or two people who understood how it worked, supported by more junior folks. This carried significant key person risk, where all the knowledge for each system resided in one or two heads, and if those people were to leave (or get run over by a bus) then the business would be at risk. (These people were not hoarding their knowledge, they were just the last ones left after their colleagues had retired or moved on over the years.)

Autonomy Through Alignment

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

— Anonymous

A single team can move quickly, but to do anything at scale you need a team of teams. Beyond this, you are looking at programmes and portfolios of programmes. That is a lot of coordination!

challenges the assumption that you have to trade off speed to achieve scale. Instead, we advocate a model of autonomy through alignment, where teams are free to make their own decisions within clear parameters.

Who we are

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

is an initiative by technology and organizational veteran Daniel Terhorst-North as an antidote to the heavyweight frameworks coming out of the big consultancies.

He describes it as minimum viable consulting: placing the smallest team on the ground to have the biggest impact, able to adapt and flex as the need arises.

has depth

With an extensive associate network of expert practitioners, can assemble a team of specialists that is exactly fit for purpose, whatever the situation. Many of them are renowned speakers and authors, each is an innovator and pioneer of modern working methods.

Understanding your context

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

For a change initiative to be successful, we need to understand where you are and where you want to get to. This sounds obvious, but too many consultancies start with a solution and inflict it on your organization regardless of whether it will achieve any results.

TODO content

It needs focus and accountability. Where are the current bottlenecks? What could we start doing tomorrow that would have the maximum benefit to the organization, without disenfranchizing people or making them more anxious than they already are?

Whole Company

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Get in touch

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Are you a CIO wrangling a large, complex technology organization? A CFO making sense of governance and risk in a fast-moving environment? A CTO or CPO implementing a digital product strategy across a large enterprise? A CEO building alignment in your executive team?

Are you looking for an independent opinion from an external observer? A robust mentoring programme for your engineering managers? Inspiring talks and engaging classes for your delivery organization? Or simply an experienced guide to help you build a high-performing business?

Cookie Policy

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This cookie policy (‘Policy’) describes what cookies are and how and they’re being used by the https://goalwards.co website (‘Website’ or ‘Service’) and any of its related products and services (collectively, ‘Services’).

Disclaimer

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This disclaimer (‘Disclaimer’) sets forth the general guidelines, disclosures, and terms of your use of the https://goalwards.co website (‘Website’ or ‘Service’) and any of its related products and services (collectively, ‘Services’).

Privacy Policy

Mon, 26 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

We want to do everything possible to protect your privacy and confidentiality. Dan North & Associates Limited (“We”, “Our”) understands that all users of this website are quite rightly concerned to know that their data will not be used for any purpose unintended by them and will not accidentally fall into the hands of a third party.

Great Delivery Habits

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Confident programme delivery in a complex and changing environment

Great Programming Habits

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bringing software development practises into the 21st century

Great Team Habits

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Strategies and techniques for building high-performing teams

Great Testing Habits

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Understanding software testing and testability, for the whole team!

How we engage

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

While our approach is consistent, each engagement is unique. We build a team to meet your needs—there is no one-size-fits-all framework—and we flex this over time as your needs change. So our priority is to understand your context before making any recommendations.

We adapt to your scale, your business environment, and most importantly to your priorities, to deliver a light-touch, high-impact engagement.

Assess

You cannot change what you cannot see, so we start by understanding how things are on the ground. At this stage we are looking for patterns of symptoms to identify underlying themes.

How we measure

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Any change initiative should be accountable, which means we need to measure progress and impact, and be prepared to adapt our strategy based on feedback.

Welcome to goalwards® on Goalwards®

Executive Coaching and Mentoring

Initial Assessment

Speeding up delivery

Value Stream Mapping

Implementing delivery metrics

Defining Vision and Strategy

Introducing modern engineering practices

Creating high-performing teams-of-teams

Delivery Club: growing engineering managers

Visualizing your estate

Establishing Communities of Practice

Path to Production review

Architecture review

Fragments

Consultants

Key person risk

Autonomy Through Alignment

Who we are

has depth

Understanding your context

Whole Company

Get in touch

Cookie Policy

Disclaimer

Privacy Policy

Great Delivery Habits

Great Programming Habits

Great Team Habits

Great Testing Habits

How we engage

Assess

How we measure

Business goal