Capstone: Diagnose Before You Build

Apply the model to a customer-onboarding problem and save a reviewable project brief.

Work in progress · 0/3 parts checked.

Understand the situation

A fresh customer-onboarding case

Use the same way of thinking on a new part of Northstar’s customer journey. This time Sales-to-Customer-Success onboarding is the problem. No lead scoring is involved.

Six signed customers should have reached an onboarding owner. All six integration jobs succeeded. Four handoffs have an owner and an accepted start date. Two lack those fields. Support receives “who is helping us?” messages, and an administrator spends two hours each week investigating.

The current CRM can require an owner and record acceptance. A CS queue already exists. Luis owns the shared process, Taylor operates the integration, and the assigned CSM owns onboarding. The customer-success leader approves onboarding requirements. No evidence yet shows an effect on renewal revenue.

“Different team, same question: what outcome do people depend on, and what is missing between here and there?”Taylor · Northstar Learning · Teaching case

Observed: Two of six handoffs lack a recorded owner and accepted start date.
Available: Existing CRM fields and the CS queue; an identified technical operator.
Unknown: Whether those customers already received help through an unrecorded channel.
Success: Every eligible customer reaches an accountable onboarding owner, with exceptions visible.

Your GTM Engineering Project Brief

Your recommendation and notes from the example case.

Your notes or a problem you want to try next (optional)

Read the current brief

# GTM Engineering Project Brief

Learning exercise: Northstar Learning is a teaching example. These choices are not a deployed system or a claim of professional certification.

Current status: Draft or changed since validation

## Customer onboarding recommendation

### State the onboarding problem without blaming the team
- Observed problem: Not selected
- Who does this serve?: Not selected

### Choose the smallest recommendation that fixes the observed gap
- First intervention: Not selected
- Operating responsibilities: Not selected
- What still needs investigation?: Not selected

### Choose the evidence that would tell you whether the handoff improved
- Primary measure: Not selected
- Handling missing ownership: Not selected
- Review plan: Not selected

## Learning notes from the inbound case

### Problem brief
Sort what we know from what we are guessing: not currently validated.
Choose what to inspect before buying or building: not currently validated.

### Clients and outcome
Assign each responsibility to a real owner: not currently validated.
Choose the outcome all three teams can live with: not currently validated.

### GTM System Map
Build the five-part system map: not currently validated.
Say exactly what this handoff receipt proves: not currently validated.

### Architecture and decision note
Assign each fact or job to the system that should own it: not currently validated.
Choose a workable intervention and name the tradeoff: not currently validated.
Selected implementation: Not selected.

### Mini workflow contract
Route four requests into the right queue: not currently validated.
Put the recovery steps in the order you would actually run them: not currently validated.

### Measurement and review plan
Build the denominator from the actual records: not currently validated.
Choose the conclusion the evidence supports: not currently validated.

## My notes (not automatically graded)
No personal notes added.

## Source references
- https://gtmjosh.com/reference/gtm-engineer
- https://gtmjosh.com/reference/gtm-engineering-problem-solving
- https://gtmjosh.com/reference/gtm-engineering-vs-revops
- https://gtmjosh.com/reference/gtm-system-anatomy
- https://gtmjosh.com/reference/crm-entities-leads-contacts-accounts-opportunities
- https://gtmjosh.com/reference/gtm-tech-stack-architecture
- https://gtmjosh.com/reference/deterministic-rules-vs-ai-judgment
- https://gtmjosh.com/reference/gtm-engineering-use-cases
- https://gtmjosh.com/reference/gtm-workflow-specification-template
- https://gtmjosh.com/reference/handoff-contracts-between-systems
- https://gtmjosh.com/reference/retry-defer-and-escalation
- https://gtmjosh.com/reference/leading-and-lagging-gtm-indicators
- https://gtmjosh.com/reference/reporting-populations-and-denominators

Look it up in Reference

The explanation and implementation detail, without the exercise.

← Previous chapter

Replay changes your reading position only. It keeps your drafts and earned history. Editing a checked answer makes that part need validation again.