Read a department and you find complaints. Read a unit of work and you find where conversion actually stops.
Name the unit of work — a contract, a requisition, an order, a change — and scope the read to it.
Documented process describes intent. The gap between intent and behavior is the finding you are looking for.
Trace three real instances end to end before reading any process documentation.
Accepting documentation as baseline imports every error in it and hides every workaround around it.
Mark each documented step as verified, contradicted or unobserved, with a date and a source.
Target state pulls the read toward the plan you already have, which is how enablement requirements get missed.
Box the target-state material and agree not to reference it until the read is signed off.
The org chart shows who is accountable. It does not show who actually does the work or decides.
List every actor in the flow and record how each was verified — observed, interviewed or assumed.
Reads that stop at Do describe activity. Prove and Improve are where value is confirmed or quietly lost.
Extend the read past delivery: how is the outcome proven, and what changes as a result?
Correcting a bypass mid-read destroys the evidence of why it exists. The bypass is usually rational.
Log each bypass with its trigger and who uses it. Correct nothing until the read is complete.
Each side of a seam believes it handed over something complete. Both accounts are needed to see the gap.
Interview both sides of every handoff separately and record where the two accounts diverge.
An undated, unattributed finding cannot survive challenge, and challenge is guaranteed.
Attach a date and a named source to every finding before it goes in the report.
Frequency measures who talked most. Conversion impact measures what is actually costing you.
Re-rank the findings by where conversion breaks, and state the weighting basis.
An assessment tells you how wide. Foundation teaches your people to close them without buying the read again.