What is happening when your whole team agrees on what's broken, but at the end of the day, nothing changes?

In this episode I sit down with Emma Marks and Audrey Damman to talk about what they learned rolling out a new work management system to their team. We get into some of their findings about how just because everyone agrees that something is a problem, it doesn't mean that solving that problem is a priority for everyone. Agreement is definitely not commitment!

This is part one of a two part conversation about designing internal change projects- the kind where you're trying to shift how your team works, not just deliver a product to external stakeholders. Emma and Audrey walk us through their design process, what they wish they'd done differently, and why leading with vision matters more than listing pain points.

If you've ever wondered why your well-designed project lost momentum, or why stakeholder buy-in seemed solid until it wasn't, you might find some tid bits in this conversation.

My Favorite Quotes of the Episode:

"...you don't want to over-index for your point of view because your pain point isn't necessarily everyone's pain point." - Emma Marks

"We might reach consensus and be all on the same page about what the problem is, but how meaningful that problem is to people varied. People didn't see it as needing the same level of intervention or the same level of time investment." - Audrey Damman

Episode Breakdown

00:00 - 07:00 - Introductions and setting up the project

07:00 - 14:00 - What project design means for internal change projects

14:00 - 20:00 - The theory of change rollout that inspired this work 20:00 - 29:00 - How they facilitated problem definition without over-indexing

29:00 - 34:00 - The gap between consensus and commitment

34:00 - End - Why vision matters and preview of Part 2

In this final part of the conversation with Sebastian Varela, we get into something that might be the most important piece of the puzzle: how do you build organizational structures that create coherence without crushing the diversity of perspectives that actually makes your work valuable?

Sebastian is the Director of Strategy and Institutional Alignment for the Cities Program at the World Resources Institute (WRI), a global think-do tank focused on environmental work. Over the course of this three-part series, he's walked us through the tensions of alignment, how organizational vision creates space for flexibility, and now—the organizational foundations that make any of this possible.

Part 3 digs into what Danielle calls "designing for the design." Sebastian shares how WRI spent years building frameworks and vision—the guardrails that let you actually prioritize instead of trying to do everything at once. Without them, you can't commit to metrics, you can't attract larger grants, and decisions get made by whoever's loudest rather than what's most evidence-based. It's painful work that involves real organizational transformation, redistribution of power, and discomfort.

But here's the tension: those guardrails aren't meant to shut people down. Sebastian's closing message is about embracing diversity—of intentions, values, ways of doing things. "Every person is a universe," as one of his bosses used to say. The goal isn't to constrain those galaxies of perspective, but to create enough structure that you can actually harness them. Use facilitation to make space for the people who aren't naturally vocal, because they often have the most transformative insights.

If you've ever struggled with balancing the need for organizational clarity with the messiness of multiple voices, or wondered how to build structure without stifling creativity, this episode is for you.

Welcome back to Part 2 of my conversation with Sebastian Varela! If you haven't listened to Part 1, I recommend starting there — we set up the core tension between clear, top-down alignment and the flexibility that local teams need to actually get things done.

In Part 2, we dig into the "how." If too much rigidity backfires, how do you know how much flexibility to give? Sebastian's thinking on this has evolved over the years. He used to be more lax about whether teams even needed a shared framework. Now he sees it differently — having that collective vision isn't what restricts flexibility, it's what makes flexibility possible. When everyone understands the "why," you don't have to micromanage the "how."

But here's the thing that really stuck with me: without a shared vision, anything can be a priority. And when anything can be a priority, the loudest voices in the room end up driving decisions. That's not alignment — that's just politics. A clear vision gives you something to point to when you're making hard calls, so decisions are grounded in shared understanding rather than whoever talks the most or pushes the hardest.

Key Takeaways from Part 2:

• Without a shared vision, anything can be a priority — and the loudest voices end up winning
• Frameworks don't have to be restrictive; when everyone understands the vision, teams have the freedom to adapt the "how"
• A clear vision gives you something to anchor decisions to, so you're not just navigating internal politics
• The donor dimension is real — building shared understanding with local teams about constraints is essential, but that understanding has to go both ways

Want to hear how organizations can set themselves up for this kind of clarity? Subscribe to Project Design: The Good, The Bad, and The Wild so you don't miss Part 3, where we get into "designing for the design" — the organizational foundations that need to be in place before any of this works.