It's not all about unicorns and rainbows... but they are vital to your success

A fairly simple concept occurred to me the other day, really the result of a number of conversations that all went along similar lines - why is my [ role | organization | department | service | pitch ] (delete as applicable) not valued?


What it boils down to is this - whatever it is you deliver, you need balanced delivery.  You need things that are happening now.  You need stuff that promises a bright future.  You need value that covers the basics.  And you also need to deliver beyond the basics.


When you throw all that into a quadrant (like I love to do with pretty much every idea I ever had), and give those things labels, this is what you get;

To be perceived as delivering value sustainably, my thinking is that you need to deliver stuff that fits into every quadrant.  You need Pebbles that quickly establish that everything is under control.  Rocks that make it clear you can be left to get on with it and things won't fall over.  Unicorns that demonstrate a capability to do more than the just the basics.  Rainbows that keep people excited for the long term.


This isn't just for your customers either.  Getting the balance right is highly motivating for everyone involved.

Defining relevant innovation – the elusive ‘credible challenge’

Credible challenge – what is it, and why is it important? 

In order for something to be credible, it requires belief.  Belief not only that each associate will be affected by the challenge, but that they can influence the outcome.  Belief that the challenge is possible, but also difficult.  Above all, belief that the challenge has relevance to the group.  It’s this last piece that I want to focus on, how to establish the belief in your stakeholder group that the defined challenge is relevant.

Relevance in this context can really be defined through evaluating ease of execution, of both your own and competing business.  This is not to say that any products or services in your market are irrelevant.  The opposite is true – all products and services in your market are relevant.  Depending on the evaluation, the challenge should be approached differently.  The intent is to drive relevance and ultimately support the credibility of the defined challenge.

The key is understanding that it is not the challenge itself, but the response required, that drives relevance for the stakeholder. 

Product mapping quadrant

 

The model above demonstrates an appropriate response for each product or service in a market, based on evaluating the ease of delivery.  Note that this evaluation is intended to cover any and all aspects of business support.  It should not be limited to the purely technical capability of production.  For example, a critical aspect of this holistic view is the profit margin and the level that is deemed acceptable.

The response in each case should be to drive the consumers accessing those products or services into the core business quadrant, by altering or switching the product. 

It is important to note here that ‘innovation’ does not include dabbling in the core business quadrant.  Although these changes to products identified as core business might be important to execute, they do not represent a challenge and will not have any significant impact on the market.  Therefore they cannot meet the definition of credible challenge.

The glaring hole in everything I have described so far (just in case you didn’t spot it) is that I haven’t included the introduction of *new* products – only the evaluation of existing ones.  As a consequence, we have also ignored the possibility of significantly growing the market. 

To be fair, this is partly deliberate, as my intent was to cover the larger business point of view, where significant market disruption is to be avoided.  If this is not possible, at least the pace of disruption should be controlled.  Ideally each product falling into the convert to alternative quadrant would spawn a successive but largely equivalent product into the reduce cost quadrant.  In reality however, genuinely new to market products could be introduced into the reduce cost quadrant, simply as a response to grow the market.  If you expand these lines of thinking, an individual product will have a lifecycle through the model.

Product mapping quadrant showing typical lifecycle

 

The interactions are in reality much more complex, with consumers shifting in and out of complex repertoires.  However, the intent of this model is to identify product innovation responses which are self-evidently relevant to the stakeholders involved in the process. 

Defining a preferred shape of products in a particular quadrant (which ultimately sets the boundaries between the quadrants), and how much of the portfolio should sit in each quadrant, will enable effective prioritization.  This prioritization can then drive a sustainable and relevant product portfolio, with new products feeding in at one end and obsolete products exiting then pipeline at the other. 

Time, Cost, Scope, Risk, Quality and Benefit - and how they relate

So…  I felt like revisiting an old favourite this time, something I am sure that many, if not most, have seen before.  But this time I want to push it, stretch the idea as far as it will go.

The diagram below describes one of the central ideas behind Project Management – that it is necessary to balance Time, Scope and Cost (or Resource) to deliver a project.  For example, when a project is planned, the amount of Time, Scope and Cost is defined.  If something occurs which is not to plan, a compromise must be found.  Possible responses might be to reduce Scope to ensure that Time and Cost are still delivered as planned.  Or increase the amount of Time and Cost so that the full Scope is delivered.  In reality it is rarely that simple, but you get the idea.

These three parameters could be classified as inputs, and changes to any of them alters the shape of the project.  This in turn will often affect the planned outcome of the project – the Objective.  If we develop our diagram a little further, at this point we can plot our Objective on a fourth scale, the Benefit scale.

As the project progresses, we can draw lines from the planned departure points of each input towards our objective.  The length of line could denote how much of each input parameter has been consumed.  Errors in planning alter the departure point of each of these lines, as the assumption of how much of that input was required was in error.  Using this method it is clear to see that the closer the project is to completion, the harder it is to adjust for incorrect assumptions and still hit the objective. 

Further, it is apparent that should the Objective change partway through a project, although it may be possible to adjust it will also mean that consumption lines will not be straight (and therefore less efficient).

Those more familiar with Project Management will at this point be wondering about Risk and Quality – where do they fit in this model?  Let’s start with Risk.  Risk is by definition an ambiguity, and can easily be considered as a cone around each of our input parameters.  The earlier a Risk is to eventuate in a project, the greater the potential impact on the eventual objective.

Finally, Quality - assuming that our definition is consuming our three input parameters as planned to deliver our Objective.  This is by far the simplest concept, so much so I am not even going to draw it on the diagram.  Delivery of a Quality outcome is simply bringing the three input parameters together at the point of Objective, despite changes in project requirements, erroneous assumptions or eventuating Risk.  The greater the variance, the greater impact on Quality.  The key to delivering Quality is therefore alignment.  If all those involved in a project fully understand the input parameters, the Objective, the Risks, and most importantly – how these relate to each other, the result will inevitably be a Quality outcome.