One methodology, three working parts.
ZBT™ is the principle. GSDPI is the model that carries it. Two supporting instruments make the read actual and the outcome provable — together, the system behind every ETEGY engagement.
Zero-Based Transformation
Start from zero. Read how the enterprise actually works today — not what it was designed to do — and rebuild from evidence.
Explore →GSDPI lifecycle
Get · Sort · Do · Prove · Improve.® — the five stages every unit of work travels from demand to provable value.
Explore →Voice of the System & the Traceability Ratio
One reads the model in its actual state; the other measures whether the result can be traced to a governed origin — the input and the proof.
Explore →A challenger's note on the category's proof gap: Claims vs. evidence →
Get · Sort · Do · Prove · Improve®
Every unit of work — a request, a deal, a deliverable, a decision — travels the same five stages. Read the model across all five, and you see exactly where strategy stops converting.
An operating model, read across the Core.
An anonymized contract-management value chain — 106 pain points across 32 work nodes, weighted by severity and frequency.
Actors, systems, pain, seams, and requirement signals across the Core.
Read horizontally for handoffs, vertically for lifecycle-stage failure patterns.
Mistaking a process map or status report for what the model can actually do.
No vertical is clean. The pain is systemic, not local — heaviest at Do and Prove, where work is executed and where it must be proven.
Surfacing this stopped the CLO from digitizing a broken model. Correcting the gaps — not the tool — let the rebuild target 60% faster contract review, 95% risk-flag accuracy, and 30% less manual effort, protecting the platform spend before a dollar was committed.
Begin with actual-state. It exposes the enablement requirements hidden by current-state, ideal-state, and launch-first planning.
We read the model as it actually runs — then prove it moved.
Every operating model has two versions: the one on the slide, and the one that runs on Monday. Voice of the System surfaces the second — the real pains, gains, and requirements at each stage. The Traceability Ratio then measures how much of the result reconciles to a governed origin — the difference between a number you report and one you can defend. A number you can trace beats a change multiple you can't.
Pains
Where work stalls, reverts, or routes around the governed path.
Gains
What already works and must be protected as the model changes.
Requirements
What the model must do to carry strategy to a provable outcome.
Transformation Diagnostic
The engagement that turns the read into an executable agenda. Its base outputs are the Transformation Architecture and the Enablement Blueprint, delivered together — plus a weighted pain register that is yours to keep. Forming the portfolio and standing up a TMO is a separate engagement: Transformation Strategy & Program Development. Yours to act on
Two words the field uses loosely. We hold them precisely.
Method lives in language. Where the vocabulary is fuzzy, the work drifts — so two terms carry a sharper definition inside GSDPI than the market gives them.
Mining and analytics render the current state from system logs — the paths the software can see. We read the actual state: how the work truly runs, including the pains, gains, and workarounds no log records. The current state is the map; the actual state is the territory.
In the field, enablement is often reduced to tools and training for the front line. We hold it higher and earlier: enablement is the set of executive decisions, integrations, prioritization, and funding the redesigned flow depends on. Change the model, and these are the moves leadership must own for it to run — not a training rollout after the fact.
How the method shows up in an engagement.
The same three moves run inside every ETEGY engagement, whatever the mandate. What changes is the subject they are applied to — a value stream to be defined, a portfolio to be formed, a transformation already in motion, or a seat to be carried.
Establish the actual state
Frame the subject, align sponsors, and read how the work genuinely runs — in structured working sessions with the people who do it, not from the org chart or a survey.
Locate it on the lifecycle
Every pain point is placed by stage, actor and system across GSDPI™ — horizontally for handoffs, vertically for stage failure — then weighted and prioritized.
Convert evidence into a decision
Findings become something a sponsor can act on: a requirement with an owner, a funding decision, a governance change, or a correction — never a list of observations.
What those moves produce depends on the engagement. See Transformation Diagnostic, Strategy & Program Development, Transformation Oversight or Executive Transformation Leadership for the defined outputs of each.
The method is not the product. It is what every engagement is delivered through.
Zero-Based Transformation™ is the ETEGY methodology. GSDPI™ is the shared taxonomy and integrated execution model it reads through. Neither is sold as an engagement — all four engagements are delivered through them.
Transformation Diagnostic
The current-state engagement. Reads how work actually runs across the subject, weights every pain point, and converts them into requirements. Its base outputs are the Transformation Architecture and the Enablement Blueprint — delivered, not optional.
Explore →Strategy & Program Development
A separate engagement. Rationalizes the register with sponsors, matches a solution to every surfaced pain with light business cases, and forms the executable portfolio — standing up a TMO where the mandate requires one.
Explore →GSDPI™ in full
The five stages, their gates, and the practice behind them — the taxonomy every engagement reads through, detailed across the ETEGY methodology.
Explore →Oversight of work already in motion, and executive ownership of the mandate, are delivered through the same methodology: Transformation Oversight → · Executive Transformation Leadership →