What is an Inception?

The right people, the right questions, the right way

THE RIGHT PEOPLE, THE RIGHT QUESTIONS, THE RIGHT WAY

An inception is a set of pre-delivery activities run collaboratively with cross-disciplinary teams, to make sure we have enough information to start delivery with the best possible chance of success. If inceptions have just one job to do, it’s to de-risk delivery.

This range of activities includes (but is not limited to) validating and aligning on expected outcomes; clarifying scope; identifying dependencies; defining ways of working; exploring technical feasibility; and planning the subsequent delivery.

The purpose of an inception is to de-risk delivery by making sure you know what you are doing, you are doing it in the right way and have everything in place so you can hit the ground running.

Ambitious initiatives need teams to work together well, and inceptions are often the first opportunity a team has to meet: whether it’s the first time a client meets its supplier teams, or a distributed team comes together.

As we all know, successful relationships are built on empathy and trust. Inceptions are a great way to form the connections that create the foundations of trusted relationships.

Most importantly, by getting the right people in the room, and asking the right questions in the right way, we achieve alignment. Alignment on what we want to achieve, how we get there, which areas to treat with caution, and what the result will look like.