#217 - Impact Intelligence: Deliver Real Business Impact from Your Initiatives - Sriram Narayan
Tech Lead Journal
Navigating Career Transitions
This chapter explores the guest's career trajectory, detailing key turning points that influenced his professional growth. From dissatisfaction in previous roles to embracing Agile methodologies and becoming an independent consultant, the conversation illustrates how personal motivation drives career decisions and impacts organizational success.
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Why do so many well-intentioned initiatives fail to move the needle?
In this episode, Sriram Narayan, author of ‘Impact Intelligence,’ reveals how to ensure your efforts translate into real, measurable business impact. Stop shooting in the dark and start delivering tangible results that matter.
Key topics discussed:
- What “Impact Intelligence” means and why it is crucial for any business
- The common pitfalls: Why many tech and digital initiatives fail to achieve their intended business impact
- The common misconceptions about “outcomes” in tech and product teams, and why delivery or adoption metrics are not enough
- Surprising insights from the non-profit sector on rigorous impact measurement practices
- Understanding the difference between immediate (proximate) results and long-term (downstream) impact
- How to visualize and map your initiatives to core business goals using an “Impact Network”
- The critical challenge of “Impact Attribution” – how to know if your project actually moved the needle
- Addressing “Measurement Debt” — if you can’t measure it, should you build it?
- The iRex framework: A modular approach to building your organization’s Impact Intelligence
- Balancing speed vs impact: Not just shipping features, but delivering measurable business results
Whether you’re a tech leader, product manager, or executive, this episode will equip you with actionable frameworks and real-world examples to focus on what really matters: delivering measurable, meaningful business impact.
Tune in and start building your organization’s Impact Intelligence muscle today!
Timestamps:
- (00:00) Trailer & Intro
- (02:22) Career Turning Points
- (10:52) Impact Intelligence
- (11:40) The Importance of Impact Intelligence
- (15:09) Understanding Business Impact
- (19:11) Learning & Adopting from the NGO Space
- (22:35) Impact Feedback Loops
- (26:25) Proximate vs Downstream Impact
- (28:20) Building an Impact Network
- (36:47) Differences with OKR
- (38:12) Impact Attribution
- (44:51) The Importance of Measurement & Measurement Debt
- (48:31) iRex Framework
- (54:26) Balancing Between Speed of Delivery and Business Impact
- (57:32) 1 Tech lead Wisdom
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Sriram Narayan’s Bio
Sriram Narayan is an independent consultant in the area of impact intelligence. He also helps clients improve digital, product and tech performance.
Pearson published his first book, Agile IT Org Design , in 2015. It won endorsements from the then CIO of The Vanguard Group and the then MD of Consumer Digital at Lloyds Bank.
Sriram has served in product, technology, innovation, and transformation leadership roles since 2006. He has also helped some of his clients move to a product operating model. His write-up of the topic in 2018 has since become a de facto industry reference. His other writings and talks are available at agileorgdesign.com
Follow Sriram:
- LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/mrsriramnarayan
- Bluesky - @srny.bsky.social
- Twitter / X – @sriramnarayan
- 📚 Impact Intelligence Website – impactintel.net
- 📚 Agile Org Design Website – agileorgdesign.com
- Email – sriram@agileorgdesign.com
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