The first site visit playbook
A practical agenda for the first day an engineer spends inside a customer operation, warehouse, clinic, field team, branch, or back office.
Outcome: Leave the building with a mapped workflow, named bottlenecks, and one buildable wedge.
Operating sequence
- Start with the money/workflow trail: what event creates value, what blocks it, and who touches it?
- Shadow the real operators without interrupting them. Capture exceptions, re-keying, queue waits, and local language.
- Draw the system map in front of the team so they can correct it while the context is fresh.
- Pick one wedge that can be shipped in days, measured in the workflow, and either killed or generalised.
Artifacts to leave behind
- workflow map
- exception log
- systems inventory
- first-wedge decision memo
Kev’s blunt rule
If the engagement does not produce a visible workflow change, reusable product learning, or a clear kill decision, it was just expensive tourism with a laptop.