FIVEWMD

Probe

Enterprises, portfolios, clusters and teams that have not fully pivoted into the Digital Age routinely have information-sharing gaps. More of the Forbes Global 2000 are captive in the Industrial Age & Information Age Maze (p. 83) than not. The Probe step is the DFFP Cycle step that will set the captives free. After Iteration 2, the team puts the Probe Overlay on the Feedback Artifact and the Acceptance Test log. A summary table of the Probe Overlay: 

The Probe Step shapes what needs to be Distilled for Iteration 3. Teams can use the Probe Overlay "by hand" for their first DFFP Cycle and then leverage the automated Probe Overlay with Natural Language Processing (NLP) on the Probe Overlay section of LeanForward.App. In our example, the Probe step is helping Silverline explore some potential wastes in Flux, Volume and Mismatch. 

Ming checks the overlay and says, "How could a Volume waste be found when data was not generated to resolve root cause? Our forecast for fixing the auto-update was not inaccurate given what we knew at the time we wrote the Acceptance Tests." 

"Yeah, I think the waste we are experiencing is the Mismatch waste by definition," Ithakar posits. 

Lisa agrees, "Lets update the Overlay to reflect this:"