METHODOLOGY
The Mind + Heart + Gut Assessment
Most software that shouldn’t exist was approved by a business case alone. We check every important decision against three kinds of intelligence (logic, people, and intuition) and only build when all three say yes.
Three kinds of intelligence
Logic
Mind
Does it make sense?
Evidence, data, economics, and technical feasibility. The part of the decision you can put in a spreadsheet.
- What problem does this solve, and how do we know?
- What will it cost to build and run, and what is it worth?
- What could break technically, and how badly?
People
Heart
Does it matter?
Users, the team, stakeholders, purpose, and values. The people who will use it, build it, and live with it.
- Who does it serve, and do they actually want it?
- Does the team building it believe in it?
- Does it fit our values and the change we want to create?
Intuition
Gut
What is the system telling us?
Tension, timing, and unspoken risk. What experienced people sense before the data can show it.
- Where is the tension in the system?
- What is nobody saying out loud?
- Is this the right moment, and are we ready to commit?
Two out of three isn’t enough
Each overlap looks like a good reason to build. Each one is missing something, and you can predict how it will fail.
Mind + Heart
Meaningful
Missing: Gut
A sound plan people care about, but no conviction. It stalls at the first obstacle, or ships at the wrong moment.
Mind + Gut
Grounded
Missing: Heart
Efficient and well-timed, but nobody truly wants it. Adoption is slow and the team burns out building it.
Heart + Gut
Courageous
Missing: Mind
A passion project with momentum, but the numbers or the architecture don't hold. It runs out of money or collapses under load.
How the assessment works
01
Sense
Interviews, working sessions, and observation of how the system really behaves. We look for tension: where energy is stuck, where people disagree, what keeps getting avoided.
02
Test
Quick prototypes aimed at the weakest dimension. A prototype in front of users answers Heart questions; a technical spike answers Mind questions; a commitment conversation answers Gut questions.
03
Score
Each dimension gets a score with the evidence behind it, done together with your team, not handed down. Gaps between how different people score are findings in themselves.
04
Decide
Build when all three align. When they don't, we say what is missing and what it would take, or recommend not building at all.
PUT IT TO WORK
Run it on your idea in a 2-week Value Discovery Sprint
The Mind + Heart + Gut Assessment sits at the core of our Outcome-Driven Software Development.
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