The Startup Alignment Sprint
Six weeks. Decode team friction psychologically so leadership scales again. We isolate hidden roadblocks, resolve the friction between teams, and leave behind a process that runs without me.
When nobody knows what the actual cause is.
The team grows faster than the shared understanding of who decides what. The symptoms look different every time; the cause sits in almost the same three places.
Tech says requirements arrive too late. Sales says the product cannot do what was sold. From their own vantage point both are right, which is exactly why the conflict never resolves itself in day-to-day work.
Not out of malice, but because nobody wants to pay the price. Whoever says first that the roadmap cannot hold stands alone. So people nod and carry on.
If nothing gets settled between two teams, leadership settles it. Every time. That works at twenty people and collapses at eighty.
Five Phases to Clear Alignment
The Sprint brings key roles (e.g. tech, marketing, operations) and management together. Six weeks from initial hypothesis to handover.
Five phases, six weeks from kickoff to handover. If vacation, a major release, or a financing round intervenes, we adjust the schedule. The scope remains identical.
Phase 1: The alignment audit
Part of the Alignment Diagnosis.
Focus: Aligning leadership.
An intensive deep dive with founders, team leads, or critical interface roles, We decide who takes part in the discovery call.
- Your result: We formulate hypotheses about the current blockers, name the blind spots in leadership, and set the frame.
- Psychological lever: We capture the leadership team's perspective to target and align it with the lived team reality in the next phase.
Process and output
Phase 2: Diagnostic retrospectives
Part of the Alignment Diagnosis.
Focus: Unfiltered reality.
Conducting two facilitated team retrospectives. The split is flexibly derived from Phase 1 (typically split by departments or interfaces, e.g., tech vs. business team).
- Your result: I create a safe, psychologically secure space. We bring real, deep-seated system blockers to the surface that usually remain unsaid and stall scaling.
- Psychological lever: Analytical empathy in action. Quiet experts get heard too. We dig deeper than the usual "things are fine" talk to isolate causes instead of symptoms.
Process and output
Phase 3: The management insight report
Part of the Alignment Diagnosis.
Focus: Translation & clarity.
I act as your psychological translator, turning unfiltered team reality into actionable management insights.
- Your result: You receive a crystal-clear, insight-driven status report as CEO at the midpoint of the sprint. No more guesswork about where information gets lost or why priorities blur.
- Psychological lever: Immediate relief. You know exactly where the fires are and which concrete, alternative approaches we will use to minimize friction.
Process and output
Phase 4: Cross-functional action sessions
Focus: Resolving friction points.
Conducting two additional sessions. Groups are set dynamically and tailored based on the raw facts from Phase 2 and 3.
- Your result: We bring together the exact interfaces and roles where friction occurs, dissolve silos, and co-create pragmatic solutions for the first acute core issues.
- Psychological lever: I facilitate heavy conflicts with ease and humor. The goal is not a one-time hand-holding session, but a binding commitment to new, clear rules of the game.
Process and output
Phase 5: Performance roadmap and handover
Focus: A team that clears future blockers out of its own way.
What stands at the end is not my report, but what you keep working with once I am gone.
- Your result: A closing presentation to leadership and teams, the psychological roadmap for your scaling phase, the retro playbook with all templates, and an assessment of who on your side could facilitate retrospectives from here.
- Psychological lever: Confidence and clarity. You do not get a temporary band-aid, but a toolkit you use to hold alignment up yourselves.
Anyone who wants to run retrospectives in-house for good needs people who can facilitate. That is a format of its own: Retro Host Training
Process and output
And after three months, we check in.
90 minutes with you and two people from the teams. What has stuck, what has quietly died, what is new. The result is a short written update. Not a courtesy visit, but because only then does it show whether anything held.
Which of the agreed rules still apply after three months of day-to-day work, and where the old patterns have come back.
New people, shifted priorities, structures that have grown. We look at what of that puts the agreements under pressure.
A short update to the roadmap. Not a new presentation, but what you take into the coming months.
Whether it worked, I measure.
Before the first retrospective and again at the three-month follow-up, your team answers seven questions on psychological safety. Anonymous, three minutes, using a questionnaire validated for German-speaking countries.
Why only after three months
Deliberately not right after the Sprint: a score taken immediately after a workshop is always elevated. What matters is what is still there three months later.
Three minutes per person. Nobody has to sign their name, and I never see individual answers.
Before the first retrospective and at the follow-up. Enough everyday work sits in between to show whether anything held.
What I am not saying with that
"Significantly improved." With eight to fifteen people there is no robust statistic for that. And if nothing moved, I say so too.
I equally do not promise revenue growth or percentages on your quarterly numbers. Research on team development does not support that.
PDF, 13 pages. Every study with its source, every limitation named. No signup.
Who the Sprint is not for.
A conversation between two people moves more than a programme. That is what 1:1 sparring is for.
Alignment work during a round of layoffs is not credible, and everyone in the room can tell.
If change is expected but leadership does not take part, the result does not hold.
When it is no longer about the issue but about the other side losing, you need mediation, not team development. I tell you that in the discovery call, before any money changes hands.
The Sprint does not stand alone.
The Alignment Diagnosis is its first half. If you want to know the cause first, you start there and pay no more in total when you extend. The Retro Host Training is not part of the Sprint, but what comes after it.
What founders want to know first
How much time does my team have to put in?
Minimal disruption is the point. The preliminary conversations with you and selected key roles take 30 to 60 minutes each. The facilitated retrospectives and action sessions run 90 to 120 minutes per session. Analysis, design and preparation happen entirely on my side.
When is the sprint worth it?
As soon as informal agreements shouted across the room stop working and the first friction becomes noticeable. Typically from a team size of around 20 people, or after a funding round when a new growth phase begins.
Under ten people a sprint is over-engineered. A conversation between two moves more. That is what 1:1 Sparring is for.
What does "psychologically grounded" mean in practice?
That the methods rest on established models from work and organisational psychology, in particular on psychological safety, interface conflicts and team reflexivity, rather than on gut feeling or standard consulting slides.
The evidence dossier lists every source with its reference, plus a chapter on what the research does not support. 13 pages, no signup.
Discovery Call for Alignment Sprint
Let's clarify in 20 to 30 minutes where friction lies in your team and whether the Alignment Sprint fits your current phase.
Pick a slot for the discovery call
Free, 20 to 30 minutes, no sales pitch. You see my open slots and pick one. No waiting for a reply.
See available slotsIf I am the wrong person for this, I say so in the call.