Stage 1: Engage

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"Teams went to the training, but nobody seems to care whether the new way of working takes hold."

Engage is the first stage of Sense & Play. It builds a shared sense of why the change matters and the pull to take part, through two checkpoints: Purpose (we know why) and Pull (we want in). Engage succeeds when teams can explain the why in their own words and choose to join in.

• Strategic Clarity: Does work trace to a goal and an outcome?
• Leadership Posture: Do leaders welcome bad news and let evidence settle questions?
• Relational Trust: Do hard conversations happen early, across team lines?

Healthy

• Teams can say which outcome their work moves
• Concerns get raised in the open
• People opt in to challenges

Struggling

• Work is justified by "leadership wants it"
• Concerns travel in side conversations
• Challenges need reminders to fill

• Quest map: teams chart how their own work connects to the outcomes leaders care about.
• Opt-in challenges: short, voluntary quests with a clear purpose and no penalty for sitting out.
• Sponsor conversations: when Leadership Posture is weak, work with sponsors before launching more games.

Voluntary participation, reported per team.

Sponsor silence: leaders back the change at kickoff but go quiet when the signals turn unflattering. Opt-in games stall when bad news isn't welcome.

A portfolio launches a new Agile operating model. The pulse shows weak Pull, and Strategic Clarity is low: half the stories in flight don't trace to an initiative. The team builds a quest map linking its backlog to two business outcomes, and more people opt in to the next challenge.

Equip · The Sense Layer · Principles · The Big Picture

Sense & Play is an Agile Latte framework. For usage and permissions, contact us.