It holds for the section that was checked and for the moment it was checked. Anyone who wants to change that immediately faces a second question: where to start. Plants rarely fail at the method. They fail because the first step was chosen too large, or on a section of the line where nothing can be decided at all.
A pilot across a whole line ties up people from four departments and produces a statement only after months. A pilot on one unit module produces the same statement in weeks — and if it fails, it costs nothing that hurts.
A first step that is not allowed to fail is not a first step.As long as it is not settled what the plant should be able to do in three years, every question of scope becomes a matter of taste. The workshop puts the target picture in writing — not because paper helps, but because contradictions only show up in writing.
WhiteBox does not mean you can see the code. WhiteBox means conformity becomes decidable instead of a matter of judgment.The workshop runs at your site, with your people, at your line. We bring the questions and the experience of plants that took the same step.
Not a vision but a checkable statement: which decisions should be made at the object in future instead of in a meeting. Who makes them. And how you would recognize that it worked.
We look for the section with the best ratio of significance to effort: small enough to be finished in weeks, large enough that the result carries over to the rest. Usually that is a unit module, not a line.
A scope without a named edge is not a scope. We write down what the pilot covers, what it deliberately leaves out, and which statement it will not be able to make at the end.
Which steps build on each other and which can run in parallel. A date per step only exists once the scope does — before that it would be a number without a basis.
The result is short and it is yours. It is written so that your management can decide with it, without anyone from us standing next to them.
One page: what should hold, who decides, how success would be recognized.
The named section of the line, with the reasoning for why it and not another.
What belongs, what does not, and which statement remains open at the end.
The order of steps with dependencies — without dates that have no basis yet.
Anything we could not settle in two days is marked in the result as an assumption — not as a finding.
A gate is a decision, not a date. The workshop leads to exactly one: whether the intent is determined well enough for engineering to start without silent assumptions.
Participants, available documents, bounding the sections of the line under review.
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Day 1 target picture and use case. Day 2 scope, edges and order — written as we go, not minuted afterwards.
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The result is discussed, not mailed. Then you decide on the next step.
Gate 0
An offer does not become stronger by covering everything. It becomes stronger when its edge is known.
Facilitation, questions, minutes. Two people from us, so that writing happens while talking happens.
Target picture, use case, scope sheet, roadmap, open assumptions — finished on day two, not two weeks later.
The result is yours and may be used internally and towards third parties without asking us.
Establishing where conformity is decidable today is the WhiteBox Assessment.
Creating a released Behavior Reference (BR) is the PTF- & Behavior-Reference-Pilot.
A number before the assessment would be a claim about a line we have not seen.
Which controller, which system — that is a question of implementation and does not belong in the workshop.
The order is the path, not the revenue. The Strategy Workshop is the first step: it determines the intent. The Behavior Reference (BR) is not after-the-fact documentation of the code. It exists before the code — which is why it only comes into being once it is clear what for. Verification asks: was it built right? Validation asks: was the right thing built? The workshop answers neither. It settles what the right thing is supposed to mean in the first place.
Target picture, use case and roadmap.
Where conformity is decidable today and where behavior has no reference.
One released Behavior Reference (BR) for a bounded unit module.
Implementation derived from the Behavior Reference (BR) and verified against it.
Behavior-Centric Engineering (BCE) as the standard across several plants.
Behavioral integrity across the lifecycle, changes as change verification.
Enabling the team, Selmo-owned qualifications.
The workshop works with your statements. What you know about your behavior is itself part of what is checked later — the intent is determined, not verified.
The question every workshop starts from
15–30 minutes. We bring the answer, not the presentation.