General Thinking

Smart and simple is my motto

[dionashton]

Year in Review: 2016 in 12 Charts (and a video)

A look at the data reveals some of the challenges we face but also the progress we’ve made toward a more peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable future.

A really interesting breakdown on some stats globally. Some things to spark ideas interests on solving some of these problems? I hope so! 

[dionashton]

Data and ‘insights’ are quickly snowballing into a major factor in the corporate landscape. Gone are the days that executives can go on gut instinct to make key decisions. With the correct structure and some savvy analysts  you really can make up significant ground in not only your designated ‘lane’; but also strategically aligned markets and industries that surround you using readily available data insights.

So how do you harvest what is ripe for the picking?

Consider a theme that is more than just ‘deeper customer insights’ (that’s just the tip of the iceberg)

Consider how data and information can be monetised

Find the right people that can sell, set up and deliver data and insights to your entity

Your themes

Data is too often an internal initiative and something you would never share with any organisation and certainly not your customers.

Share the wealth – the information marketplace

Sure there are some personal info components that should be locked down but for the most part contributing to and leveraging off the information sharing marketplace is not only beneficial to your organisation but also the customers that you are responsible for (If you do it right this does not compromise your customers and the information they entrust to you nor does it leave them exposed to spam and unwanted marketing).

 We must accept and even encourage that our customers’ needs extend far beyond what we can offer individually. But as a market and with strategic partnerships your offering can really be extended to the nth degree. Give the people what they want – comparative pricing and a shared and collaborative marketplace that is connected far beyond your entities’ digital and physical realms. To ensure we truly understand and service our customer’s needs. All of this can be greatly complemented with information shared.

Don’t forget me (the customer)

“The customer” as a stakeholder should not be forgotten in any organisation’s quest for powerful analytics and deeper customer insights. Exposing analytics to the customer that can be personalised, generic and/or even segmented enables customers to make more informed decisions on purchasing the goods and services available.

The value of transparency is something that helps to build trust in a brand/organisation and also ensures your customers can feel involved in your culture, growth and the journey you are on together. It can help “humanise” an organisation and ensure a customer sees you ‘eye-to-eye’.

Insights start long before data and these are based on strategic decision making for systems and the data quality of capture which are dependent on good operational procedures and sound considerations made on how and when data is captured and available.

Out-weighing the cost

Analytics can be a nice little Bunsen burner (earner) for those that have the entrepreneurial nous. It could be monetised

as a service to customers (using the freemium approach)

and/or as part of B2B strategic partnerships that are offered to favourable entities

Insights presented can also be attributed to cost savings to offset against running a team and the analytical tools required to deliver to the chosen audience.

Ultimately there is going to be an upfront cost, but if your delegated leader is the right person for the job, then they should be looking at opportunities to capitalise on the services that they are providing both internally and more importantly externally of your organisation.

The right person for the job

Finding the right individual(s) to lead your initiative will require a blend of the following:

The technical knowhow to understand multi-dimensional data

The business acumen to understand your business at face value

The vision of what’s coming next to lead an enthusiastic group of people

And; the charisma to sell the idea of data and its power to your organisation

Data that was seen previously as a boring topic and area to work in is now attracting more “T-shaped” individuals with a good balance of the aforementioned skills. These individuals understand your entities data backdrop and typically live & breathe nextgen technologies and lifestyles which enables them to understand the market and the world outside of your organisational bubble.

Gone are the days of technologists without social skills (this was always only ever a generalisation anyway). These people are passionate about steering your organisational ship in the right direction.

Like what your reading? If you want a casual conversation about how data could rock your world, I am only too happy to help.

[dionashton]

Be prepared to take risks - my new CV

In the digital age and given the amount of time we believe we all have nowadays our visual sense is becoming more important. The average persons’ attention span is now less than that of a goldfish (8.5 seconds). 

In order to ‘paint a picture’ of your key characteristics and to ensure that you capture the attention of your target audience, an infographic is a far more effective way of getting your best attributes across.

You might think infographics are beyond your technical capability (that's if you aren't in technology or design). Well, it’s your lucky day. Que; piktochart, venngage, canva, visualize.me and many more freemium infographic and presentation tools available in the internet of things! Some of these are even specifically geared towards creating A more visually impressive CV.

You might say the future of the CV is in your social profiles and I wouldn’t disagree. However some work is required to make this more visually impressive content to both the candidates and those seeking talent.

For now, I am personally going to take the leap and give something new a try.

https://magic.piktochart.com/output/16637542-new-piktochart (here is an interactive version of the picture below).

Gone are the days of companies shying away from risk. This means that we as individuals must demonstrate a willingness to be more confident risk takers.

[dionashton]

Mucking in at my old school #dilworth #dragonsden great bunch of guys with some fantastic pitches! And what's more they are only y10 #economics #nz #talent #geny (at Dilworth School)

[dionashton]

On a roll with continuous improvement - the dummies, light touch guide

Continuous improvement is so often swept under the rug! The part that it plays in an organisation is integral. If it is set up properly and the importance of this function is given an effective amount of representation across all levels of (and I hate to use this word, but I will) management with a budget to match it really can drive growth in:

The bottom line

Sales

Operational efficiency

Reduction in complexity

Increase in transparency

Continuous improvement can and should cover sales, process, technology, DevOps, systems, customer experience, operations, finance, team & organisational structure and even strategy to name a few.

So where should a continuous improvement team sit to get the right level of exposure?

Unfortunately, continuous improvement roles, do not enjoy as much of the limelight as projects and strategy based initiatives. But there is no reason that they should not.

The team could report directly into the COO, CIO or equivalent, with regular check-ins and updates on the problems that they are solving.

The work they have undertaken, are undertaking and about to undertake should be visible across your entity. People should be kept up to date and engaged with changes they are making, how they will affect them and when they will come into effect (front page of an intranet, regular communications etc).

What should a continuous improvement team look like? 

 If the team consists of an enthusiastic bunch of people that are passionate about making an organisation operate more efficiently with a skill set to match they would effectively operate as an internal audit team on steroids.

The team should be small in nature (if you are a big organisation then multiple smaller teams will do fine) that have a nice diverse range of skills from technologists through to accountants and sales people. 

They should be proactive and responsive to problems and issues across a wide range of areas

They should have a strong understanding of the organisational and technology architecture of your company (you don't have to be an architect)

There should be a balance of experience and new (without the new you won't uncover the why didn't I think of that moments)

Skill sets/background should include development, BI, data, sales, accountancy, operations but most importantly common sense.

They should have the ability, dynamism and confidence to talk all the way up, down and across an organisation(s)

Short and sharp documentation is key. Someone that weeds out the fluff and gets to the bottom of it all is a very strong candidate for your team

This team should not only act as a “doing” team but provide assistance as the continuous improvement discipline owners

They should have the intuition to challenge the current operating model and plug into and recommend on the target operating model that is being discussed and planned for at the executive level

The high-level backlog, work priority and budget should be managed by the executive responsible; during regular meetings that are short sharp and carry the same level of enthusiasm to making the strategic adjustments.

 Responsibility and budget to make a difference

The team will have the authority of the executive team, to review and act where issues reside. Mechanisms should be in place to identify problems with agility. Including reports, data models, and strategy documentation and mandates.

The team should take ownership of the target operating model, strategic adjustment documentation and SOP & repositories

They should have dotted lines into release cycles, technology teams, operational teams, project teams and sales business units.

Projects often tend to pick up the flack on small changes within systems, this approach is very tactical and often the documentation and changes get lost in between. Organisations should avoid this behaviour at all costs.

The continuous improvement budget should be something that is set annually, it should consist of 20% of the project budget, for your organisation (lots of these projects will go away if you create a backlog approach to prioritising the work to complete).

Empowering this team will better enable and prepare for the transitions and upgrades that will inevitably take place on your organisation’s road map. 

With that in mind, the budget set for this team can certainly be balanced and offset with benefits realised ($$).

If you are a CEO or leader that believes, continuous improvement is an operational and day to day item, you are missing a very strategic trick . 

Continuous improvement leads to realising the path that is to be laid ahead for any organisation if managed effectively. 

Now, there is nothing like the renaming of a team to transition the change and perception of a team, so how about “Strategic Adjustment Unit” or “business operations innovation lab”.

[dionashton]

Tracking interactions

Tracking interactions that are outgoing, incoming and external within your market or industry are all very important. It can lead to making positive changes that impact on your two most important commodities; your customers and your team.

When making strategic plans for the future, just going on gut feeling or one person’s intuition is no longer acceptable. Using independent reviews, feedback & listening to the voice of your customers and the team that surrounds you ignites passion and belief in a brand that they have collectively helped build and continue to contribute too. It will almost certainly lead to more rapid growth and widening your organisations reach!

Cue; Your interactions model! This facilitates findings and insights that can help you uncover areas for improvement, gaps in and trends in the market you operate around, the behaviours of your audience, how your product resonates with them and the current reach of your brand and organisation.

It is important to build something that is simplistic, source agnostic (where possible), transparent, adaptable and widely accepted as the 'single-source-of-truth' for your organisation. (Scope, size and cost are all considerations you must make when implementing this).

Once you have built the model, It is important to have a trusted and dedicated team of interpreters in place to provide the organisation with a robust interpretations mechanism, enabling rapid strategic decision-making and nimble & responsive business units that can carry out change based on the interactions that are collected.

Your ‘line of interaction’ or point of sale will be forever moving because of the learnings, findings and insights presented. Some of these will cost or could cost a considerable amount of money. Prioritise the change based on the prediction of growth or mitigating the loss of customers that the interactions might be causing.

Of course, this is based on the assumption that you are socially engaged, contribute to and operate in a market where data is readily available, have a robust warehouse and a culture of encouraged facilitators that respond to these interactions.

[dionashton]

Something for organisations big and small. You should have a robust social strategy in place! Platforms
Themes
Who
What
When
Why
Where Most importantly consider the customer scale and how you intend to step through it and break levels down to extend your organisations reach!

[dionashton]

BASE LINING STRATEGY and focus on the DOING:

I appreciate that businesses require some form of long-term plan, but with a market moving faster than you can say “agile”, do 3-year strategic plans and goals still have a place in the corporate world?

What are the latest ‘coined phrases’  used in ‘strategy’ at the moment? Digital, Deeper customer relationships, cross-sell/ upsell, small company culture and feel (for big corps), leverage data, leverage data, leverage data, disrupt, innovate. Have I missed anything? What does all of this really mean? These big sweeping statements are actually rather obvious after a quick glance (scratch and sniff) at the market that surrounds us. 

I guess the perception is that this is what drives a business forward, it provides clarity to employees and something to aim towards, but by the time we write these all up on the board (that’s a digital board, whiteboards are a thing of the past!) the market has already moved and the next big thing is already out and another opportunity is missed.

That’s where ‘baselining’ your long term strategy comes into play. Now, let me state that I am not suggesting that you get rid of strategy or strategic teams, I am suggesting that strategy plays a larger part in more regular interactions within a business, across all levels. Some of this actually requires getting your hands dirty and getting down in the trenches!

So let’s start by considering what's behind those large, sweeping and sometimes generic statements we could use to drive a workforce:

These 3 areas, provide focus for a business to measure growth, consider change and put their customers first. They should be treated as concepts that employees and even customers use and interpret on a regular basis which contributes to the iterations of a companies strategy. They can be used as a checkpoint and considered for clarity when a team is deep in innovation, pitching, sales or BAU mode.

Group reviews and recalibration of the strategic landscape should be something that employees undertake between 2-4 times annually. This really is a group activity (For a variety of reasons that I will go into later).

Doing this allows for a business to mould itself as the market moves fluidly whilst keeping your team on point and on the journey to success.

Some considerations and light touch direction should be given to these strategic themes, something like the below. It is important that this direction isn’t to restrictive.

Now for the fun stuff, contributing to the success of an organisation on a daily basis, as a team!

We will explore the three areas stated above further in future posts. These will be short, sharp and hopefully a little thought provoking.

In the meantime, see some other useful habits to consider when planning and strategising for your business:

Detach strategy and remuneration, it just doesn’t breed innovation, good culture and is actually rather tactical by definition. Remunerate by changing a culture, and if nothing needs changing (impossible) then maintaining

Redefine what ‘leadership’ means, (more on this later but consider substitutes, sharing the burden, a sports captain vs. sports coach vs. the star player, bottom-up approach to innovation)

Competitiveness is a team sport

Changing a ‘meeting’ culture into something that presents output through productive interactions rather than sitting in a room and wasting time

Simplicity and transparency leads to a more adaptable, scalable and interchangeable team

The biannual strategic recalibration session

Mindfulness about the impact on environment, internal & external and customers when completing work and/or making changes

Don’t forget the core business model, no matter how much it changes. e.g. why are we doing all of this?

Offshoring vs. “Onshoring

Are you cutting the legs from under you? And crippling those in need within your own community/country, is there an opportunity to upskill whole communities for the same price as offshoring?

Give and receive in the global community

[dionashton]

You never know what you might find if you put your head above the clouds!