the litmus

Where are you, honestly?

Eight statements about how an organization holds its product truth. Slide each one to where you actually are — not where the deck says you are. The read updates as you move: your stage, the drag in expert-hours, and what three years of standing still costs.

Built to be done out loud, together. Under every statement is the question to ask the room. Nothing you slide leaves this device.

litmus map maturity — eight statements slide honestly
Who are we talking about?
01When anyone needs the current definition of an offering, there is exactly one place they go — and they trust it.

manuals, a stale wiki, and four people's heads

not us

where did the last deck's product claims actually come from?

02Finance, legal, marketing, and customers each see language written for their seat — generated from the same source.

one "approved" paragraph that everyone secretly rewrites

not us

when legal edits wording, how does marketing find out?

03Public copy always matches each capability's real lifecycle phase — alpha stays whispered, GA gets shouted.

the roadmap promise a customer screenshots

not us

has sales ever sold the beta?

04Anyone can demo any part of the product, staged for the audience, without an engineer or production access.

demos live on one calendar; sandboxes rot

not us

what happens to demos when that one engineer is on vacation?

05Our product pages are structured so search engines and AI engines cite us — and we can see it happening.

competitors becoming the answer to questions about your category

not us

ask an AI engine about your category, right now — who does it cite?

06We know every page, deck, and post that references a feature — and when it changes, they all queue for update.

a renamed feature still wearing its old name in forty places

not us

if you renamed a flagship feature today, how long until everything agrees?

07A customer can open a view of exactly what they own, what's coming for them, and what it looks like — current.

"what do we actually have?" answered by a PDF from last spring

not us

what does your renewal deck know about this customer?

08When the product changes, the site, the decks, and the social queue reflect it within days.

launch content debt, paid down every quarter, forever

not us

what's the current lag between ship and site?

One assumption — what does an expert hour cost you, loaded?
$85/h

use their number, not yours — they'll usually slide it up

a leave-behind for the initial discovery — carry these answers into that conversation · stays on this device · print this page, or score the export with node score.mjs <file>
the read slide the statements
maturity— / 40
expert hour, loaded (you set this above)
drag, this year
next year, untended
year three
three years of standing still
start the conversation at

how this is counted, in the open: each statement carries an estimate of the expert-hours it drags in a year when it's fully "not us" — roughly 70 to 160, heavier where the fix touches more of the org. Your slide scales that down: a statement's drag is its hours × how far you still are from "that's us". Summed, that's this year's lost hours, priced at the loaded rate you set above (default $85/h — change it to theirs). Untended, the same gaps cost about 25% more each year as stale claims and content pile up, so year two and three compound. Every figure is an assumption you can argue — move the rate, dispute the hours; the shape survives. Live read needs JavaScript; the statements don't.

Low on 01, 02, or 06 — the conversation is the map. Low on 03 or 04 — the model. Low on 05, 07, or 08 — the network. Low everywhere — good news: the path is short and it's ordered.

Want the longer, question-by-question version — sixteen questions across marketing, sales, operations, and product operations? That's the discovery, the full sit-down this litmus opens.

bob@30loops.com   the discovery →