Go to market (GTM) teams are meant to act as a unified front. Marketing, sales, and R&D must come together to deliver value to the customer. But in reality, these teams often operate in silos.
In our latest research titled “The GTM Alignment Gap: Why Teams Fall Out of Sync and What to Do About It” there was a persistent lack of alignment reported across GTM functions, even when the strategy is sound and the intent is shared. A striking 85% of teams report ongoing misalignment in their day-to-day experience, even when 85% express perceived confidence in their GTM strategies. We call this the “85/85 GTM Alignment Gap”—a silent threat to business performance.
What are typical reasons for information silos within GTM teams and why can’t leaders see the alignment gap? It turns out that the methods GTM teams use to move work forward are part of the problem. But they are also part of the solution. Let’s take a closer look.
The bottom layer: tactical sales frameworks
Many GTM teams rely on tactical frameworks like MEDDIC, SPIN Selling, and BANT. These tools are valuable for very specific situations, primarily in sales qualification and opportunity management. They bring discipline to conversations and help teams identify high-quality prospects.
Take MEDDIC, for instance. As a sales qualification process, the technique helps sales teams identify and qualify high-potential leads by focusing on specific aspects of the customer's buying process. The acronym stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, and Champion. By understanding these elements, sales reps can better align their efforts with the customer's needs and increase their chances of closing deals.
SPIN Selling and BANT take a similar approach. And of course there is also SPIN Marketing. Each gives clear categories of insight to improve go to market motions.
But all of these methods are narrow by design. They don’t help teams decide what to go to market with, why customers need it, or how different functions should coordinate to deliver it. They are precise, but they don’t scale across the GTM landscape. And they do little to directly address the alignment gap between people and teams.
The middle layer: agile as operating rhythm
In recent years, many GTM teams have turned to Agile methodologies as a way to bring more speed and structure to their work. In fact, our research shows that a large number of people surveyed are applying Agile in GTM contexts. 53% of our respondents identified Agile as an important methodology to define not just who is working together but how, enabling teams to ultimately make the most of the GTM team's time and talent.
This is good news. Agile excels at organizing tasks and improving velocity. Rituals like stand-ups, sprints, and backlogs are now common in marketing and customer success, not just in product development.
Agile brings rhythm, but it has limitations. As we often say: Agile lacks both a brain (strategic insight) and a heart (empathy and connection). It simply wasn’t designed to unify purpose, embrace complexity, or foster deep collaboration across disciplines.
The missing piece: aligning on meaningful problems with Design Thinking
Why is collaboration more critical than ever for GTM success? It is because a lack of collaboration and misalignment has real, concrete impacts on the bottom line. An overwhelming 89% of respondents say breakdowns in their go to market collaboration have direct revenue-related impacts including inconsistent customer experiences. This directly affects how user-focused your work can be, lessening the customer value of your product.
What GTM teams truly need is a way to create alignment around customer value—not just activity. They need tools that help them co-create, make decisions together, and stay connected to the real-world needs of the people they serve.
That’s where Design Thinking comes in.
Design Thinking is the missing layer for GTM alignment. It complements rather than replaces approaches like MEDDIC, BANT, and SPIN selling, as well as Agile practices.
Design Thinking offers a set of methods purpose-built for collaborative problem solving, especially in complex, cross-functional contexts like GTM. Think of it as shared language for team interactions and decision making. How can GTM teams continuously improve their collaboration methodologies? By adopting human-centered frameworks like Design Thinking.
Design Thinking emphasizes understanding user needs, creating innovative solutions, and testing them iteratively. It's a non-linear process that involves empathizing with users, defining the problem, ideating potential solutions, prototyping, and testing those prototypes.
Unlike sales frameworks or agile routines, Design Thinking is:
- Inclusive – It brings multiple perspectives to the table, surfacing insights from across the org.
- Iterative – It embraces experimentation and learning, reducing the risk of big missteps.
- Customer-centered – It keeps the end user in focus, so GTM teams don’t lose sight of real needs.
- Creative – It helps teams explore beyond the obvious, generating new and better options.
- Connecting – It gives people shared tools, language, and rituals that build trust and cohesion.
In short, Design Thinking fills the gaps that other methods leave behind. Our research shows just how effective it can be, with 52% of decision makers agreeing that Design Thinking is a key methodology in their go to market teams. For leaders, it’s the glue that helps GTM teams not just do the work—but do the right work together.
Achieving better alignment and execution with Design Thinking
When GTM teams adopt Design Thinking methods—such as journey mapping, co-creation workshops, empathy interviews, and rapid prototyping—they don’t just produce better ideas. They build stronger relationships, clearer shared goals, and deeper buy-in. When considering these methods, ask yourself ‘What defines a successful GTM team in today's market?’ The answer would likely be a team that effectively leverages these collaborative methods to achieve cross-functional alignment and deliver customer value. In our report, we found that an overwhelming 95% of respondents say that a centralized planning system that supports cross-functional collaboration for go to market strategies is highly impactful. This means that centralizing methods for your GTM teams can drive the results that you need.
For example, let’s look at the simple technique of Problem Tree analysis. This helps GTM teams overcome a very common symptom found in most organizations: jumping too quickly to solutions. Instead, teams should make space to truly understand the problem they endeavor to solve together and re-frame the challenge as needed.
The Problem Tree analysis is simple to learn and to implement. First, place the challenge to be addressed in the center. Then, ask the team to explore the effects of this problem branching up in the tree. Finally, consider the root causes going down on the diagram.
We recommend revisiting the initial problem statement after this analysis. Oftentimes, you’ll find the need to rephrase and make it more specific or add clarification. The benefits of taking a team through this simple 30-minute exercise can be outsized. And, notably, 81% of respondents in our study place a lot or a great deal of value on visuals to drive greater alignment and efficiency, with visual learning being the top-rated style at 35% among survey respondents. So by utilizing the Problem Tree as a visual tool through Design Thinking, it can build a shared understanding of the challenge at hand. This provides a direction for problem solving, keeping teams aligned later on as they implement a plan together. That’s what real alignment looks like: not just agreement on tasks, but shared understanding, ownership, and purpose. The benefits are many:
1. More resilient teams in the face of frequent organizational changes
Design Thinking emphasizes adaptability and iteration, which can equip teams to better navigate shifting priorities and market dynamics. By embedding a mindset of experimentation and customer-centric problem-solving, teams become more comfortable with ambiguity and better able to pivot when faced with new challenges. This resilience translates to faster adjustment to new business realities and more consistent execution of GTM strategies, even in the face of disruptions.
2. Deeper alignment with strategy and goals
Design Thinking’s collaborative, user-focused approach ensures that teams are not only generating creative ideas but also connecting those ideas back to overarching business objectives. Through methods like reframing challenges and clarifying user needs, teams can align their daily work with the organization’s strategy, driving purposeful innovation. In go to market efforts, this alignment ensures that product or service launches address real customer pain points and reinforce key strategic priorities.
3. Clearer communication between team members
Design Thinking relies on visual tools, co-creation sessions, and shared frameworks that foster open dialogue and shared understanding. These practices cut through jargon and hierarchy, creating a common language for teams to articulate and refine their ideas. As a result, cross functional communication becomes clearer, more focused, and easier to translate into effective go to market tactics. Teams working this way are better equipped to resolve misunderstandings early, reducing rework and accelerating execution.
Design Thinking as a strategic enabler
In the toolkit of modern GTM teams, tactical methods like MEDDIC and operational frameworks like Agile play important roles. But to truly progress and work forward, teams need a deeper operating system. They need a repeatable way to navigate uncertainty, adapt quickly, and stay grounded in customer value.
Design Thinking is that system. It brings the brain and the heart GTM teams have been missing.
If alignment is the goal, then Design Thinking is not just a nice-to-have, it’s the way forward.
