Case Study — Rebuilding Organizational Clarity
Case Study

Rebuilding Organizational Clarity at a 350-Employee CRO in 40 Days

The engagement began without a predefined problem to solve. Broad access was granted across teams, systems, and leadership to observe how decisions, information, and execution actually flowed—then translate findings into executive-ready clarity and immediate operational improvements.

Organization
Mid-Size Bioanalytical CRO (350 employees)
Sponsor
Chief Operating Officer
Scope
7 Departments • Commercial → Delivery
40-day embedded engagement
92-step workflow mapped
4.7× cascading failure pattern quantified
“30 in 30” trust-building sprint
150+ redundant distribution lists exposed
8 zero-cost fixes delivered • 3 redundant initiatives resolved

Rapid growth created systemic execution strain—leaders could sense friction, but couldn’t see the root causes.

The organization faced unclear ownership across departments, redundant initiatives competing for the same resources, inconsistent handoffs between BD, PM, Ops, and Marketing, fragmented data systems, and merger-era documentation that never integrated into production workflows.

Leadership needed fast, accurate intelligence to understand how work actually moved through the organization—without guessing and without waiting for a long consulting cycle.

"Execution wasn’t failing in one place. It was failing through accumulation—small handoff losses compounding until only symptoms were visible."

An open diagnostic: trust-building, system mapping, and executive synthesis—without a scoped hypothesis.

Instead of starting with a narrow project definition, the engagement started with visibility. Trust was built quickly, the end-to-end operational system was mapped, and issues with no clear owner were pulled forward. Findings were translated into implementation-ready decisions.

Trust Sprint
“30 in 30” meetings across entry, mid, and senior levels to surface informal workflows and hidden workload.
System Mapping
Mapped intake-to-delivery across seven departments; documented a 92-step workflow and major visibility gaps.
Unowned Analyses
Investigated merger integration, CRM/LIMS inconsistencies, distribution list sprawl, and handoff quality variance.

Multiple “small” failures were compounding into a measurable execution risk pattern.

The core issue was not effort or talent. It was how decisions, definitions, ownership, and information moved across boundaries. Where ownership was unclear or systems were fragmented, handoffs degraded and duplicated work emerged.

Amplification Pattern
A 4.7× cascading failure pattern: each handoff increased the likelihood of downstream rework and escalation.
Merger Residue
A 5-year-old merger remained unintegrated in production systems, creating divergence and data mismatches.
Signal Degradation
BD → PM → Ops handoffs varied in quality; inconsistent definitions and orphaned documentation drove friction.

Mapped the system, quantified risk, resolved high-leverage issues, and delivered executive-ready direction.

Conducted “30 in 30” trust-building meetings to surface informal workflows, hidden workload, and institutional knowledge
Mapped operations across seven departments, documenting the full client intake-to-delivery pathway
Documented a 92-step workflow and quantified a 4.7× cascading failure pattern across handoffs
Consolidated 100+ commercial battle-deck slides into a coherent executive narrative and reusable assets
Identified and documented 150+ redundant distribution lists and associated communication loops
Uncovered and analyzed unowned structural issues: merger integration gaps, orphaned data dictionary
Designed and ran a cross-department survey with full participation to align BD–Marketing signals with evidence
Delivered eight zero-cost operational improvements and resolved three redundant initiatives
Presented 10+ strategic recommendations with ownership pathways and risk notes for leadership action

Materials designed for leadership decisions and fast adoption.

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Workflow Visualizations
End-to-end map of how work actually moves (and where it breaks)
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Findings + Risk Notes
Department-level issues, visibility gaps, and execution failure drivers
⚙️
Implementation-Ready Fixes
Zero-budget improvements, ownership pathways, and near-term rollout steps

Organizational clarity restored—without forcing a new bureaucracy.

Mapped operations across seven departments; made execution risk visible and explainable
Improved cross-functional alignment by translating fragmented signal into shared definitions and decision pathways
Implemented zero-cost fixes and resolved 3 redundant initiatives to reduce friction and rework
Exposed legacy decisions embedded in workflows, knowledge dependencies, and inherited system fragmentation constraining execution