The Stormholt method · Frame II
Define, Diagnose, Design, Deploy, Develop. The operating system the tools live inside. Every tool in the Stormholt toolkit belongs to one of five phases, and every phase answers one question. When a programme stalls, it is almost always because a phase was skipped.
D1. Define — what problem matters, for whom, and inside what boundary?
The moral compass, the charter, the stakeholder map, the problem statement, voice of customer and SIPOC. Define is where weak programmes lose: a vague problem produces a vague result. You leave this phase with one problem statement everyone can repeat and a scope people can point at.
D2. Diagnose — what is happening now, and what truly causes it?
Go to the place of work, map the swimlanes and the value stream, name the waste, then chase causes with fishbone, 5 whys and Pareto until a cause is verified with data rather than voted on in a meeting room. No countermeasure before a verified cause.
D3. Design — which changes best address the verified causes?
Countermeasure design, impact against effort, PDCA pilots, 5S, kanban, WIP limits, batch reduction and mistake-proofing. Design small, pilot honestly, keep what the data keeps and drop what it drops.
D4. Deploy — how do we land the change without confusion?
Implementation planning, agile delivery, change leadership, risk management and an adoption cadence. A change nobody was prepared for is a change that gets quietly reversed within a quarter.
D5. Develop — how will it stick, prove value, and scale?
Standard work, visual management, daily huddles, control plans and benefits tracking, then the capstone: tell the story, hand it over, scale it up. Develop is the phase most programmes never reach, and it is where the money is.
The CI Practitioner Program teaches all sixteen modules across the five phases; the toolkit carries the templates for each.
Where to go next
New to the method: start with the free 30-Day Starter Guide.
Ready to work: the CI Mastery Toolkit carries every template these frames use.
The full frame set lives on the methodology page.