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Software Product Management Consulting

Product delivery, now with more product-ivity

Build the right thing. Build it right. Build it right when you need it.

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Capabilities drive outcomes

Outcomes determine success

We're on a mission to elevate the way people work together to meet modern demands, from sprint planning to annual planning. We do this by delivering designed, time-managed coaching, primarily focused on the lean, agile, DevOps, and product management domains. Let’s build a plan that offers the best chance at meaningful improvement for your organization.

Unlikely inspiration

What would Lorne do?

We apply lessons from an industry that's learned to navigate (and even harness) volatility: sketch comedy. Yes, seriously.
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Evolve faster

Your team has to anticipate customer needs in a volatile market... but they need to do it in a way that is both smart and scalable. That doesn’t mean adding more and more people to the team. It means building cross-functional teams that have confidence in their direction, scope, and structure.
OUR 8 OUTCOMES

Our consulting programs drive you toward measurable improvements

Engineers don't want non-technical people telling them how to build software. Sketch builds world-class software for some of the most successful enterprises out there, so we're speaking from experience and teaching what really works, not just a set of rules.
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Faster speed to market

Faster Speed to Market

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Higher quality

Quality of Solution

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Increased adaptability

Adaptability

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Tighter alignment

Alignment

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Better predictability

Predictability

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More satisfied customers

Customer Satisfaction

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Happier teams

Happy Teams

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Routine innovation

Culture of Continuous Innovation

What our Clients Are Saying

At the end of the training, even some of our most skeptical team members were more accepting of the new concepts than anticipated. This was a huge win for our organization!

Supervisor, Applications Development

AECI

transformation - order from chaos
Using lessons from Sketch comedy

Achieve enterprise agility

SNL has stacked awards, printed advertising dollars, and stayed on air for 50 years by establishing productive habits. It's time for businesses to learn from their success:

Outcome optimization

Prioritize user satisfaction over activity levels to eliminate wasted motion. In other words, listen for the laugh.

Continuous improvement

Foster a culture of learning, innovation, and iterative progress to keep adapting for long-term success.

Continuous delivery

Deliver value early and often. See how the market responds. Repeat.
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Proven results

Don't let the sense of humor fool you. This isn't the fluffy kind of training with trust falls and safe spaces. We'll implement objective mentrics to find your baseline, then track progress toward your objectives and key results.

Agile delivery training

We turn training into an experience, using humor and storytelling to make ideas stick. Whether you want to focus on leadership development, product delivery practices, or even non-technical team dynamics, our sessions will inspire your team and give you the tools you need to excel.

Everything we do is customized to meet your needs, but these are a few of the most common problems we solve for software development, product delivery, and even non-technical teams.

Software delivery assessment

Some agile consultants give the whole field a bad name by trying to force the same square peg into every hole. We measure where you currently stand across 33 distinct capabilities that we've found to correlate with high-performing organizations. Sketch’s analysis identifies the best points of entry for improvement, allowing all of us to hit the ground running with the right focus and objectives.

Poor team performance

What it sounds like: Teams miss commitments and struggle to plan realistically. Leaders don’t trust the teams’ delivery timelines. Work is constantly interrupted or reprioritized. “Agile” exists in name only​.

What we do: We assess how teams work in practice (not how they think they work), then coach them through modern, lightweight delivery practices that improve predictability, quality, and team health. This is hands-on, embedded consulting—not theoretical training.​

How we do it:

  • Team Assessment​
  • Team Accelerator Program​
  • Modern Ways of Working Training​
  • Team Building Workshops​
  • Agile Bootcamps​
  • Working Agreements Workshops​
  • Backlog Management Consulting​
  • Tooling Consulting
Unclear product direction

What it sounds like: Teams are busy, but they’re not delivering meaningful outcomes. There’s no shared understanding of priorities or success. Roadmaps feel aspirational instead of achievable. Stakeholders disagree on what matters most.​

What we do: We help leaders and teams clarify what they’re building, why it matters, and howsuccess is measured. This often includes redefining product ownership, improving prioritization, leveraging AI, and creating realistic roadmaps tied to business outcomes.​

How we do it:

  • Product Vision Workshops​
  • Roadmapping Workshops​
  • Product Owner/Manager Training and Consulting​
  • Story Mapping Workshops​
  • Backlog Prioritization Workshops​
  • Rolling-Horizon Planning and Quarterly Checkpoints​
Leadership vs. micromanagement

What it sounds like: Leaders feel forced to step into day-to-day execution. There’s no clear way to inspect progress without scheduling status meetings. Teams wait for direction instead of owning outcomes.​

What we do: We help leaders craft clarity, alignment, and accountability without reverting tocommand-and-control. This includes redefining leadership roles, decision boundaries, and successmeasures.​

How we do it:

  • Modern Leadership Training​
  • Leadership Alignment Workshops​
  • Tooling Consulting​
  • Leadership Coaching​
  • Metrics that Matter Buildout​
Growing pains

What it sounds like: Every team is showing you they’re underwater or could accomplish more with more headcount. None of them is wrong, but you’ve got a limited hiring budget. ​

What we do: Using rolling-horizon planning, we help you step out of today’s noise and look forward. By forecasting demand and capacity across teams in short, repeatable planning windows, we identify the hires that will unlock the most progress—now and next.​

How we do it:

  • Rolling-Horizon Roadmapping​
  • Plan-Do-Check-Adapt Capacity Management​
  • Cross-Team Planning 
Sloppy handoffs

What it sounds like: Marketing did their part, but now Sales is stuck reworking things. Four teams are waiting on Legal approval. Meanwhile everyone is waiting on annual goals from the CEO.​

What we do: We make the work visible across teams and design clearer handoffs sodecisions made upstream don’t create surprises downstream. Using lightweight, rolling-horizon planning, we help you align teams around what’s coming next, who needs to be involved earlier, and where coordination actually matters—so work flows smoothly instead of bouncing back and forth.​

How we do it:

  • Capacity Management​
  • Rolling-horizon Planning​
  • Value Stream Mapping​
  • Build Feedback Loops
Agile not scaling

What it sounds like: Teams operate inconsistently across the organization. Leadership can’t see or explain the impact of process on delivery. Discipline backslides after initial transformation efforts. There’s no clear owner of how work gets done.​

What we do: We help large organizations institutionalize agile practices through lightweight models, Communities of Practice, shared metrics, and ongoing coaching, with an emphasis on ensuring the changes stick.​

How we do it:

  • Enterprise Agile Assessment​
  • Operating Model Roadmapping​
  • Community of Practice (CoP) Design & Leadership​
  • Continuous Growth Consulting​
Unproductive operating model

What it sounds like: Between projects, products, and platforms, the teams are confused. Product Managers lack the authority or clarity to deliver on the products they own. Business and IT operate on different planning cadences with conflicting reward structures. Investment decisions don’t align with value delivery.​

What we do: We work with leadership to define and roll out a coherent product operating model. We clarify roles, funding, governance, and decision-making so product teams can operate with autonomy,  alignment, and accountability.​

How we do it:

  • Product Operating Model Design​
  • Enterprise Product Management (EPM) Rollout​
  • Capability Mapping & User Group Design​
  • Product Health & Outcome Metrics​
Unclear, politicized priorities

What it sounds like: Too many initiatives competing for the same people. The annual plan is out of date within weeks. There’s no shared mechanism for evaluating tradeoffs. Leaders disagree on what “highest value” means.​

What we do: We help organizations move from static, annual planning to adaptive portfolio management using shared criteria, clear metrics, and frequent recalibration to align strategy with execution.​

How we do it:

  • Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) Consulting​
  • Portfolio Assessments​
  • Rolling Horizon Planning​
  • Executive Alignment Facilitation​
Stalled transformation losing trust

What it sounds like: Previous transformation attempts have failed or plateaued. Teams are fatigued or cynical. Executives want results, not another framework.​

What we do: We reset stalled transformations by diagnosing reality, narrowing focus, and embedding alongside teams and leaders to produce visible, measurable progress.​

How we do it:

  • Transformation Assessment​
  • Embedded Coaching and Facilitation​
  • Team Accelerator Programs​
  • Continuous Growth Consulting​
"By the book" agile not a fit

What it sounds like: Years ago, you got some Agile training on the SDLC, user stories, and Scrum. Your platform, data, and support teams have no idea how to use that framework for their workstreams, and it’s causing more churn than value.​

What we do: We help non-development teams adopt agile principles without pretending they’re software teams, replacing rigid frameworks with lightweight planning, clear priorities, and predictable delivery. We stop asking them to predict the future and instead react quickly by managing Work In Progress.​

How we do it:

  • Workflow Mapping Workshops​
  • Kanban Training​
  • Build Tooling to Visualize Workload​
  • Inspect and Adapt Cadence​
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from agile to ai consulting

Consulting for AI-first enterprises

The world is changing fast, and that should be exciting, not scary. The same business practices and methodologies we've been teaching for a decade are now helping companies adopt AI with almost no effort.

Your mileage may will vary

Your large organization won't face the same issues as every other enterprise, and each small business certainly has its own challenges. That's why every engagement is entirely bespoke. Rest assured, though, we have the experience we need to tailor something that will fit you just right. Reach out any time, and we'll take your measurements.

Custom solutions

We've seen a lot, and that has taught us not to walk into any organization with pre-baked notions of how you operate. Our assessments measure where you stand across 33 distinct capabilities that drive successful outcomes. Whether we help you with the change, or you’re just looking for some expert advice, our analysis identifies the steps you should take to kick your organization into overdrive.

Get it on the calendar

Free custom assessment

Let us give you a free assessment – up to half a day, depending on your schedule. We’ll give a technical analysis of your code base, check out your practices and processes, and have a retrospective with you. Then we’ll send you a document that illustrates what you’re doing well, which improvements could have the greatest impact, and how we can make that happen together.