The goals of this exercise are to: Identify where the team is aligned; Surface disagreements early; Create a shared and believable vision; Build a foundation for collaboration.

The team will produce: A map of surfaced alignment and disagreements; A shared vision that the team believes in; A foundation for collaborative execution.

Teams assume shared understanding. "We all want to delight users!" sounds aligned, but interpretations vary widely. Probe beneath surface-level agreement.

Psychological safety is critical. If people can't voice disagreement, you'll get performance of alignment, not actual alignment. Create space for honesty.

Discovering misalignment feels bad, but it's progress. You can't fix what you don't see. The problem isn't divergence, but hidden divergence.

Alignment mapping is a diagnostic tool. It reveals gaps, but doesn't fix them. After mapping, the team must resolve what it can, get leadership decisions on the rest, and document the agreed-upon vision.