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Lean Engineering Readiness Scorecard | Gradion

LEAN ENGINEERING READINESS SCORECARD (2026 EDITION)

A Strategic Assessment for CEOs, CFOs, and CTOs

The Goal: Move beyond "headcount-based" engineering to a high-velocity AI-Orchestration model.

Scoring Instructions:

Rate each statement from 1 to 5

  • 1 Strongly Disagree (Process is manual, reactive, or non-existent).
  • 2 Disagree
  • 3 Partial/Inconsistent (Some teams do this, others don't).
  • 4 Largely True
  • 5 Fully True and Evidence-Backed (Automated, measured, and verified).

Total Score Range: 0–100.

Pillar 1: Delivery Velocity & The Review Bottleneck

Focus: Is technical debt and "AI review toil" slowing your speed to market?

Lead Time: We have a real-time dashboard showing exactly how long an idea takes to go from a ticket to a live customer feature.

Rate 1–5:

The Senior Squeeze: Our top engineers spend <20% of their week reviewing code; their primary focus is on high-level architecture and innovation.

Rate 1–5:

Deployment Frequency: Software changes are released in small, automated increments multiple times per day without manual intervention.

Rate 1–5:

Resilience: The system is stable enough that engineers can deploy urgent fixes in minutes without disrupting the entire roadmap.

Rate 1–5:

Pillar 2: AI Orchestration & Automation ROI

Focus: Are you actually saving money with AI, or just buying expensive licenses?

Agentic Workflows: AI agents handle "commodity" tasks (documentation, unit tests, and boilerplate) autonomously, not just as a "copilot" for humans.

Rate 1–5:

Controlled Adoption: AI-assisted tools are used in a governed, secure environment that protects our proprietary IP.

Rate 1–5:

Economic Validation: We explicitly measure whether AI/automation is reducing man-hours or just increasing code volume.

Rate 1–5:

Focus Ratio: Engineers spend significantly more time solving business problems than on repetitive manual setup or "toil".

Rate 1–5:

Pillar 3: Engineering Platform & IP Safety

Focus: Does the system depend on "hero" individuals or a repeatable, secure platform?

Standardization: Teams use a unified "Golden Path" for building and deploying software, preventing "re-inventing the wheel".

Rate 1–5:

Onboarding Speed: Setting up a new environment is fully automated and repeatable, regardless of which individual is doing it.

Rate 1–5:

Built-in Security: Compliance and security "gates" are hard-coded into the workflow, not added as a stressful final check.

Rate 1–5:

Clear Ownership: Every piece of code has a clear owner and a documented standard, ensuring the business is never "held hostage" by technical debt.

Rate 1–5:

Pillar 4: Global Collaboration (Right-Shoring)

Focus: Leveraging global talent for 24/7 output without losing US-level governance.

Value-Based Loading: Work is assigned by complexity: our US core handles high-risk IP; our global units handle execution and "review toil".

Rate 1–5:

Frictionless Handovers: Teams across time zones have clear, automated rules for moving work forward while the US office sleeps.

Rate 1–5:

Governance: Global delivery is managed via strict SLAs and US-based leadership, not just "cheap labor" hours.

Rate 1–5:

Data Security: Access to systems and sensitive data is strictly controlled based on role and location to ensure full IP protection.

Rate 1–5:

Pillar 5: Governance & Economic Alignment

Focus: Does engineering move the needle on revenue and profit?

Strategic Linkage: Every engineering sprint is clearly linked to a C-Suite goal (e.g., Revenue growth, Churn reduction, or Efficiency).

Rate 1–5:

Performance Audits: Leadership reviews delivery velocity and risk metrics monthly, not just "is the project done yet?".

Rate 1–5:

Explicit Trade-offs: Decisions to favor "speed" over "quality" (or vice-versa) are made by leadership, not as accidental outcomes of poor code.

Rate 1–5:

Investment Logic: Budget is intentionally allocated to improve how we build software, reducing future costs and "hiring debt".

Rate 1–5: