A Painful Reality Check

Ben and Laura discuss the results of their recent organizational maturity assessments over coffee in Austin.

A Painful Reality Check

Listen and choose the right answer

What did Ben and Laura discover about their organizational maturity?

• They scored much higher than the industry leaders.
• They both suffered from severe self-assessment bias.
• Their research capabilities exceeded all expectations.

How does Ben describe his current design team?

• As a true strategic partner to the executive board
• As a laggard with no UI craft whatsoever
• As more of a reactive ticket-taking machine than a strategic partner

What did the external assessor say about their plans?

• Their ambition gap is too wide to leapfrog competitors easily.
• Their maturity roadmap is already fully implemented.
• Their capability map is the best in the industry.

How does Laura feel about presenting the results to the executives?

• She is excited to share the glowing review.
• She would rather swallow glass than explain the bad scores.
• She wants to cancel the meeting entirely.

Listen again and complete the sentences

• Ben: I have, Laura, and honestly, it's a complete disaster for our ____ metrics.
• Laura: Tell me about it because our ____ score was nowhere near as high as we expected.
• Ben: At least you're not a ____ in the field; our team is a far cry from a leader.
• Ben: That's true on paper, but our research ____ is twice the size of yours.
• Laura: Can we park that painful truth for a moment and look at the ____ data?

Sources: photo by Vitaly Gariev on Pexels