Real-world challenges are at the heart of our Community.

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5 minutes reading time

In training sessions, webinars and intake conversations, I regularly hear the same question.

“How do other organisations actually approach this?”

Sometimes it’s about Product Management. Sometimes stakeholder management, AI adoption or organisational change. The exact question varies, but the underlying need is usually the same. People are curious about how others approach similar challenges and what decisions they made along the way.

It’s a perfectly understandable question. When you’re in the middle of a change or facing a difficult decision, it helps to hear how others have dealt with it. What worked well? What didn’t pan out as expected? And what did they take away from it in the end? It provides a reference point and helps you make better sense of your own situation.

At the same time, something catches my attention. Almost no one asking this question is genuinely looking for an exact copy of the solution. In fact, most professionals know perfectly well that this doesn’t work. Organisations simply differ too much from one another for that.

Context matters more than the solution

That said, best practices remain popular — and understandably so. They offer direction and show that a particular approach has worked somewhere. They help get conversations started and provide a concrete example of how an organisation dealt with a similar challenge.

Real-world examples also come up regularly in our training sessions. They make theory tangible and help participants connect abstract concepts to situations they recognise from their own working environment.

The risk arises when a best practice starts to be seen as the solution. Once an example is detached from the context in which it emerged, all that typically remains is the outcome. Yet the circumstances in which a decision was made are at least as important as the decision itself.

Context matters more than the solution

An approach that works brilliantly in one organisation can completely stall in another. Every organisation has its own culture, history, people, challenges and interests. That may sound obvious, but it is consistently underestimated in practice.

I regularly see organisations get excited about a success story from another organisation. On paper, everything looks logical. The approach is clear, the results are impressive and the reasoning is sound. They then try to adopt the same method, only to discover later that the expected results never materialise.

In most cases, the circumstances were different. Different stakeholders. Different teams. Different priorities. Different constraints. And it is precisely that context that ultimately determines whether a decision lands well.

What we actually need

Perhaps that’s where the real question behind the question lies. When someone asks how another organisation handled something, it’s rarely just about the solution itself. What’s far more interesting are the trade-offs that came before it. Why did they make that choice? What alternatives were on the table? What obstacles came up along the way? What risks did they see? And what would they do differently in hindsight?

Those are the elements you rarely see in a success story, yet that’s where the most valuable lessons are. That’s where you see how people actually arrived at a decision. You gain insight into their thinking and discover which factors ultimately played a role. For professionals facing similar choices themselves, that’s worth far more than the end result alone.

That's why everything in our Community starts from real cases

That’s perhaps also why real-world stories carry so much value. They don’t just show what someone did — they give you insight into the decisions made along the way. The conversation isn’t about a solution to be copied, but about experiences that can help you make your own informed judgement.

I see this reflected in our Community as well. During our Get Connected events, real-world stories take centre stage. Organisations, experts and partners share how they approached a particular challenge, what decisions they made and what they learnt from the experience. Those are the conversations that generate fresh perspectives for professionals dealing with similar challenges.

We go even deeper during our Round Tables. Every six weeks, Members bring their own real cases to the table. Not fictional scenarios or pre-prepared exercises, but challenges they are genuinely working through at that moment. This leads to conversations between professionals who each approach the same issue from a different context.

What matters here is that almost everything in the Community is rooted in practical experience and real cases. During Get Connected, participants hear from organisations that have genuinely lived through the challenge being discussed. During the Round Tables, Members bring their own current challenges. The conversation always stays close to everyday practice.

Participants therefore leave not only with new insights, but with experiences, perspectives and practical takeaways they can bring directly back to their own organisation. Not as a blueprint, but as input for the decisions they need to make themselves.

A Product Manager looks at a situation differently to an Agile Coach. A manager looks at a situation differently to a Change Lead. Everyone brings their own experiences, perspectives and lessons. It’s precisely those differences that make the conversations valuable.

What makes those conversations so good is that there is rarely a single answer. Different perspectives make it possible to see what the options are and what considerations go with each one.

Better decisions come from multiple perspectives

What I find perhaps most interesting is that these conversations regularly lead to new angles. Sometimes that confirms a decision someone was already leaning towards. Sometimes it prompts them to look at a situation differently.

The next time someone asks how another organisation approached something, I’m actually far more curious about the question that follows.

“Why did they make that choice?”

That conversation is worth more than the solution itself. Ultimately, every professional works within a unique context. That’s precisely why I believe multiple perspectives are more valuable than a best practice. You don’t need to adopt another organisation’s solution. But their experiences, insights and trade-offs can help you make better decisions within your own situation.

That’s perhaps also why I find so much value in conversations between professionals. You rarely get a ready-made answer. But you do get fresh perspectives, experiences from other organisations and insights you can take back to your own practice the very next day.