Category: Services

Strategy, Architecture & Problem-Solving

Pugh Matrix Template

Pugh Matrix Template

In Running With Knickers on Your Head book, I introduced the Pugh Matrix to assist with deciding on which solution to proceed with. You need either the excel or the pdf (the pdf is just an export of the Excel sheets). Excel: Pugh Matrix PDF: Pugh Matrix Intro PDF: Pugh Matrix

Gemba WasteWalk

Gemba Templates

The two Gemba templates used in the Running With Knickers On Your Head book. These are used to help identify waste in your organisation. They’re not the only tool, but they’re a good tool to start with. The Excel download includes the two pdfs. Excel download 1: Gemba Pdf download 1: Stand in the Circle…
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Stealth Plane

Stealth Mode is a Novice’s Game

Yet again, I’ve come across another post by a would-be/current founder who’s asking for advice. They’ve framed the question in an abstract way, dancing around the subject, trying to get the advice that they want but without providing sufficient information about their idea for the community to be able to add any significant value.  It’s…
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Electric car

Range Anxiety: Customer Issue or Product Issue?

I mentioned in a previous short article about how companies can misinterpret what their clients want and in another about industry reactions to issues. In this article, I want to explore how companies can force their issues onto the customers. Background I was reading up on electric cars (EVs) and in the last year the…
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headphones

False Features

Are the features you provide in your products the features that your customers want or those you think they want? Variants on that question are common. But all too often, a feature slips through and you have to wonder how it got there, how was it approved, why did the company spend time and effort…
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Port

Customer vs Enterprise Perspective

Here’s a quick exercise on perspective, scope and how we view problems.  How big is your enterprise? Follow that question with these two questions: How big is it compared to the size of your organisation? How big is it compared to the size of your team? That’s the internal focus.  Now let’s try a different…
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grave

The Truth Behind Reducing Death Rates

I was being interviewed by a prospective client a few years ago and I was asked an odd variant of a common question. There are more typical versions of that question, e.g. “what accomplishments are you most proud of?”. This variant blended the 3rd person perspective with reputation and achievement. If was more along the…
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NateSmith

Participation

A short while ago, I posted about how we can engage others in making decisions through the creation of an appropriate framework. Today, I noticed something else similar. I saw a video of the drummer Nate Smith engaging an audience in counting. Now if you’ve got even a basic level of musical talent, you’ve probably…
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drops-of-water

Invest in Now

Also known as “Take care of the customer in front of you, not their future selves.”  I’m minded of this, specifically regarding how organisations can manipulate the perceived balance of power between them and their customers when applying refunds. Mistreatment I’ve noticed that it’s not necessarily specific companies, but the industry sectors they operate in.…
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Jumbled music

Devolving Decision-Making through Frameworks

If you create an appropriate framework, people can understand what to do when you haven’t told them the details. All too often, organisations define rules that do not need defining. They may choose to set criteria for approvals, or host panels in order to evaluate submissions. A better approach in many cases is to create…
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