Rubicon Consulting

Insight+: Speaking Events: Reinvention as an Economic Necessity

2009-09-13T20:00:00Z

A quick look around makes it obvious that "business as usual" isn't working.

When inventing their future, companies too often focus on the what: what is the right thing to do, what is the right idea, what is the answer to this problem? The reality is that good ideas alone are no safeguard against the disruptive and fast changing global markets we face, so strategy creation can no longer be defined in terms of mere ideas. Strategy creation must also include the way those ideas are created. And it must do so quickly, enabling organizations to think, make tough choices, and act fast.

Just as Clayton Christensen highlights The Innovator's Dilemma, we must identify and name The Collaborator's Dilemma to describe the way we create--or fail to create--strategies that work.

Organizations face three classic dilemmas when creating strategies: the "air sandwich" between executives and others, the chief of answers who creates an information bottleneck, and the fear of driving collective decision-making when aiming for collaboration. This session explains how each of these is fixable if one is willing to reinvent their firm to win.

Insight+: Speaking Events: The Collaborator's Dilemma

2009-06-14T16:00:00Z

It's obvious that "business as usual" isn't working.

Companies focus on the what: what to do, what's the right idea, what's the answer to this problem? Good ideas are no safeguard against disruptive and fast changing global markets so we can no longer define strategy creation in terms of mere ideas. Strategy must include the way ideas are created. And it must do so quickly, enabling organizations to think, make tough choices, and act fast.

Just as Clayton Christensen highlights The Innovator's Dilemma, we must identify and name The Collaborator's Dilemma to describe the way we create strategies that work.

Organizations face three classic dilemmas: the "air sandwich" between executives and others, the chief of answers information bottleneck, and the fear of driving collective decision-making when aiming for collaboration. This session explains how to address these if one is willing to reinvent their firm to win.

Insight+: Speaking Events: About New Era, New Culture, Change How Work is Done - "The War Inside Your Organization"

2009-05-06T15:00:00Z

Nilofer is a sought after global high-tech industry thought leader and trusted strategic advisor for companies such as Adobe, Symantec and VMWare. As Rubicon's CEO, she has built a distinguished team of fellow strategists, who collaborate with a wide range of Silicon Valley executives at client firms such as Autodesk, Cogito, Hewlett-Packard, Pinnacle, Riverside, SAP, VA Software and others. Rubicon's proprietary methodology continuously delivers significant material results to clients, driving revenue growth, market share-price and profits.

More information

Insight+: Speaking Events: Practice Your Customer Pitch

2009-04-01T17:50:00Z

During Web 2.0 Expo, five startups give their customer pitches (not their VC pitches) and get feedback. They come prepared to pitch their product as if they're meeting a potential customer at a cocktail party. They get two minutes and no slides. The panel and the attendees then give each company feedback. It's fun, but not competitive, so there's no judging or ranking.

About Us: As Seen In...: Embracing a Reinvention Opportunity

2009-03-24T21:00:00Z

By studying Carol Bartz' prospects as Yahoo's new CEO, executives across the technology industry can enhance their own reinvention strategies.

About Us: As Seen In...: Can Apple Keep a Shine on the iPhone?

2009-03-17T21:39:06Z

It needs to focus on hardware and competitive pricing if it plans to stay ahead of rivals introducing their own cheap and feature-rich smartphones

Insight+: Speaking Events: Reinvention as an Economic Necessity

2009-02-27T02:00:00Z

On Thursday, February 26th, Nilofer Merchant will speak at The Synergos Series in Palo Alto. The Synergos Series is a monthly thought-leadership sponsored by The Hayden Group, a marketing and creative services firm specializing in product launches and marketing facelifts. The Synergos Series features Bay Area business leaders and authors in an intimate, salon setting. The Synergos Series is free to invited guests.

Niolofer will talk about Reinvention as an Economic Necessity. With businesses failing all around us, we can see that "business as usual" isn't working. We not only need new strategies to win, we need new approaches to strategy. Strategy CANNOT simply be some abstract mind-centric process that a few elite people do. Instead, it's a highly inclusive and practical activity for finding and optimizing the best ideas for reinventing oneself, one's team and one's company successfully. If you are interested in attending Nilofer's February 26th talk, email victoria@thehaydengroup.com to RSVP and get directions.

About Us: As Seen In...: 2009 Wireless Forecast: Applications

2009-02-12T21:02:01Z

Developers gung-ho on year: Most see increased spending on development Businesses in nearly every industry seem to be adopting a bunker mentality and shedding workers in an effort to weather an increasingly brutal economic storm. But wireless software developers are more bullish than ever on their industry. Evans Data last week released a report indicating an astounding 48% of enterprise-focused developers expect activity in the space to increase in 2009, and nearly as many (46%) expect the same amount of development as last year. Only 6% of the nearly 400 polled expect development in the space to decrease, and two-thirds of the developers expect data revenues to rise this year. Even more interesting: Money was cited as “the most important consideration by far,” according to the market research firm, with one-quarter of respondents claiming revenue potential was their primary driving factor and another 21% identifying bigger marketing opportunities. Only 15% of those polled said platform openness was the most important consideration. Stores of gold Two main factors behind the optimism, according to Evans Data CEO John Andrews: Companies are investing in wireless offerings that improve efficiency, and consumers are increasingly buying mobile applications from storefronts such as Apple Inc.’s App Store. “What we’re finding is that there are a significant number of corporate development initiatives that either have been started or have yet to be started related to wireless that essentially improve productivity, which of course is key in this economic environment we’re operating in right now,” Andrews said. “And for commercially oriented developers, we just see the distribution channels being cleaned up and made more efficient. … Prior to, say, Apple, the distribution channel was largely through the carriers. And anyone who has any knowledge of this industry knows that that channel is not friendly.” That sentiment is supported by a second Evans Data study of developers involved in open source Linux projects on any device. While the most lucrative developers — those making more than $10,000 from their own open-source apps — often sell directly to end users, small- to mid-range developers who can’t reach consumers directly have flocked to retailers such as the App Store and Android Market, where they can upload their offerings and enjoy broad reach without jumping through carriers’ hoops. Eggs in one basket Just as they’re providing developers with new channels to market, though, they’re creating a fragmented market where coders must carefully choose which offerings to build on or risk pouring resources into a platform that won’t gain traction. Which means they need to look beyond the developer tools available to them and ensure platforms can support viable business models and full ecosystems, Rubicon Consulting principal Michael Mace wrote late last year. “If you’re a software developer and some platform vendor or Web company comes around evangelizing their software store or their API’s, you should evaluate the overall ecosystem they’re providing, not just the store or APIs alone,” Mace wrote on his blog. “If they haven’t thought through issues like billing and discovery, it’s a big warning sign.” Marketshare Meanwhile, Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile continues to be the platform of choice for mobile enterprise developers, with 40% more developers planning to target Microsoft’s venerable platform than those planning to build for Apple’s iPhone, EDC found. And 46% more say they will target the .NET Compact Framework — a key component of Microsoft’s mobile development platform — than Google Inc.’s Android. But the days of Windows Mobile’s dominance may be numbered: One-third of respondents are using the .NET Compact Framework, according to EDC, down from 40% just six months ago, as the iPhone and Android close ground. That gap will likely continue to close as the new players continue to gain traction and planned storefronts come online from Palm Inc., Research In Motion Ltd. and a handful of others . And there’s no reason to expect a surge from Microsoft’s wireless platform until Windows Mobile 7.0 comes to market — which isn’t expected until the second half of the year. “Over the last six or nine months, Windows Mobile adoption has been flat and/or decreasing, whereas you’ve seen the iPhone tripling,” Andrews observed. “Of course, it’s tripling from a base that’s much smaller. … But there’s nothing on the near-term planning horizon that says Windows Mobile is going to stop that (movement) anytime soon.”

Insight+: Articles: Open Letter to Carol Bartz on Helping Yahoo Thrive

2009-02-03T14:00:00Z

To: Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo
From: The team at Rubicon
Re: The challenges ahead

Dear Carol:

Congrats on your new role. For many of us in the tech industry, Yahoo is more than a company, it's a Silicon Valley icon. By putting in the kind of strong management you represent, I hope the board is signaling the company's intent to reinvent itself and thrive once again.

Since the days when you and I worked together at Autodesk, I have gone on to form a strategy consulting firm that is defined by the diversity and experience of its members. We're all tech industry veterans, and we each have unique perspectives on what it will take for Yahoo to succeed. Your opportunities speak to opportunities for every tech firm, so we're going to make this an Open Letter in the hope that everyone can learn from the experience you're about to have.

Best of luck. We're rooting for you.

Nilofer

Making the right cuts, Nilofer Merchant

During an economic downturn like the one we're experiencing now, there's not a consumer product company that isn't cutting spending. Such cuts are rooted in fears that customers will stop buying, advertising will slow, and the conviction that it's better to cut quickly and hunker down for the rough road ahead. It's the business version of "fight or flight," and it causes severe problems.

You want to get ahead of the market trend, but slashing without a strategy is not the way to do it. Cutting randomly can reduce profitability by cutting your strongest market segments. Or you may cut your weak market segments too little, and they'll continue be a drag on revenue.

But how to make the right cuts?

Carol, I know the first thing you're going to do is to figure out what Yahoo really is, and what it aspires to be. I've heard some of your predecessors describe it as a media or technology or software or communications company ... sometimes it seemed like there was a new identity for every day of the week. You need to pick one. Take the first 30 days of your tenure to spend the brainpower of your board and exec team on this core question.

Next, your c-suite needs to develop a perspective on how the future might play out, so you can place strategic bets. You need to make sure these bets are relevant across the company because you want everyone engaged in this discussion. And I wouldn't have your team just talk to themselves; I suspect that's why they are where they are. You need new data, which means fact-finding with analysts and other smart people in the industry. Then you need to debate that information within the confidential walls of the company to evaluate what you're learning. Given where Yahoo is, I'd have you choose no more than three big disruptive opportunities because any more and you won't accomplish any of them.

Then and only then should you look at your current portfolio, in light of the new opportunities. What fits and what doesn't? Not many people remember that when Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997, he cut huge parts of the company, including significant revenue streams. He did it knowing he needed to focus. The market will accept this if you have a story to tell. And I know you will.

It is simple but not easy. But you've never been one to back down from a tough and fair fight. You can do this in the next 90 days.

Building a consumer internet culture at Yahoo, Harry Max

The biggest risk to your assessment of Yahoo's strengths and weaknesses is the kind of "diagnosis bias" that gets even the best doctors and their patients in dire trouble. It's a mental blind spot that causes people to accept information that confirms a given diagnosis, while unconsciously disregarding seemingly contradictory facts and dissenting opinions.

Given your unparalleled experience in the software industry, the most likely area you could fall prey to diagnosis bias is in the one area that, at Yahoo, demands a subtle, intuitive sense: the consumer internet and what makes it tick.

To help Yahoo not just survive but thrive, there are two categories of consumer internet experience to manage for: market facing and company facing. The market facing consumer internet experience involves understanding the utility, entertainment value, and psychology that promotes on-line conversations, community, commitments, and transactions.

The company facing internet experience, on the other hand, involves fostering a Yahoo culture that will produce great consumer internet experiences. The culture needs to embrace people as leaders of ideas, customer-driven innovation, agile development methods, experimentation, and a reverence for passion and heart.

As you assess the people, assets, and resources throughout Yahoo, seek out and listen mindfully to the people who can speak openly and honestly with you without fear of retribution, because business is people. Carefully consider the facts and opinions you gather in terms of what they mean in the context of consumer internet experience.

My priority list of Yahoo opportunities:

1) Win our kids' attention by offering an awesome social network / community like Facebook. Yahoo's core competencies in on-line community, user-experience design, communication, new media, and brand strength align perfectly to give people a real alternative to what's currently the only game in town.

2) Re-architect Yahoo shopping to give dissatisfied eBay users a new place to engage. Again, harness Yahoo's core strengths and extraordinary user base to provide a more elegant ecosystem of buyers, sellers, services, and enabling technologies.

3) Repair Yahoo Answers and sharpen its focus to identify and serve the unmet needs of on-line consumers.

4) Finally, invest meaningfully in design research to ferret out the opportunities that Google, eBay, Amazon, Facebook, and others are simply leaving on the table.

The best ideas can come from anywhere.

Beat Google by going around it, Michael Mace

Carol, one of the first questions people will expect you to answer is, "what will you do about Google?" It's the easiest thing in the world to reply, "search advertising is Google's financial engine, we have to go after it." That's what a traditional computer company would probably do, and it's certainly how Microsoft thinks.

My advice: Get over it. Most people in the US and Europe are now trained to search first on Google, and it's almost impossible to change that sort of muscle memory. But that doesn't mean you should give up. Apple still hasn't beaten Windows, but it has built a very nice business by thinking different(ly). That's what you need to do...

How to use your nimbleness. One of the greatest assets of any Internet software company is nimbleness. You're used to companies that have 18-month development cycles, and as a result do very thorough advance planning. In contrast, an Internet company may revise its products weekly or even daily. If something goes wrong, you just revert to the previous version. This improvisational development process will look incredibly sloppy to you, but don't be too quick to "fix" it. Maneuvering like a hummingbird can be a huge strength -- if you know where you're going.

Google has used its nimbleness to produce a paradise for engineers. It's a giant research lab where Ph.D's can try any clever computing idea that occurs to them, toss them into the market, and see what succeeds. The problem for Google is that most of those engineering fantasies don't succeed, at least in terms of making money. Other than search advertising, Google has been very bad at producing big new lines of business. You can do better...

Implement grown-up product management. Although you shouldn't burden Yahoo with traditional software engineering cycles, traditional product management is something that could help. The companies you've worked with are very good at understanding what a customer really needs and how to solve those problems (Autodesk is a case study in how to build deeper and deeper relationships with designers). Yahoo generally lacks this skill. It launches things energetically, and if one of them takes off it does a fine job of matching ads to content. But it rarely goes beyond that initial hit to deepen the user relationship systematically with new services and topical extensions.

My colleague Harry cites Flickr as a great example. It's a wonderful photo sharing site, but that's all it is. What if someone at Yahoo had the vision to grow Flickr into the best destination in the world for photography enthusiasts? You might have added a lot of other photography-related services to the site. You might have also bought DPReview.com, the leading camera review site, instead of letting Amazon snatch it up.

To play counterpoint to Google, you should make Yahoo a paradise for product managers, the people who identify real user needs and translate them into product visions.

So, when Steve Ballmer visits with his suitcase full of cash, it's OK to sell him the right to place ads in your search results. Let him go bash his forehead against the adamantine walls of Google's search advertising empire. But it's not OK to sell him the Yahoo search page, brand, or control over the user relationship, because...

The audience is your greatest asset. Another question you'll get frequently is, "are you a technology company or a media company?" The answer is: none of the above. Yahoo is an Internet company, which lives or dies on the volume of its traffic and its ability to monetize that traffic. In that spirit, the most important strategic fact about Yahoo is not that it's the #2 web destination after Google (link http://rubiconconsulting.com/insight/winmarkets/michael_mace/2008/10/online-communities-and-their-i-2.html ) -- it's that it is the #1 web destination whose users are willing to be marketed to. Unlike Google, your users expect to see prominent advertising for other Yahoo services and products.

That's the most exciting thing about Yahoo -- once you get the services right, you have the world's biggest channel to sell them through. That concept is just as valuable in the new computing world as it was in the old school.

Family synergies, Bruce La Fetra

Yahoo is not like other technology companies in Silicon Valley. It is a family of web properties under an umbrella of a common infrastructure and brand. Yahoo is all about content, segmentation, and leveraging multiple revenue streams. A successful Yahoo must be able to generate efficiencies without managing every property in the same way -- lots of common infrastructure has to support a variety of different properties. Yahoo is sick today because it has forgotten what it takes to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. A hundred different properties backed by the powerful Yahoo brand should play like a fine orchestra, each part supporting the others, but currently Yahoo is managed more like 100 tubas playing without a conductor or score.

A good brand and good content attracts the users that form the core of your business. An informative segmentation model will identify user needs, interests, desires, and wants. Multiple revenue streams let you capture value in many different ways, allowing you to reach even more users in a virtuous cycle. If these work in harmony, the result is a company envied by others. Identifying appealing content is always a moving target, but this is both a current and historical strength of Yahoo's, and is reinforced by Yahoo's exceptional brand. Build on this. Yahoo's properties must be leveraged to develop the types of segmentation that advertisers, sponsors and users all crave. Google gets money from search, and not much else. Yahoo is a different kind of company, and must tap a variety of revenue streams: subscriptions, advertising, sponsorships, and data. So while display ads on the web provide a start, stopping there--or trying to make Yahoo into something it is not--will only lead you right back to where Yahoo is today.

Insight+: Speaking Events: YOU! the Brand

2009-01-18T22:21:21Z

As you navigate today’s interesting economic times, and continue to ponder how to raise your profile to continue to expand in your career or find a Board seat, it's never been more important to increase your credibility and professional power. Investing in creating a Personal Brand will give you an advantage by allowing you to maximize your visibility and reputation, be a more effective leader, and feel more fulfilled in your work. The first step in creating an authentic Personal Brand is not creating a blog or setting up a page on Facebook, but understanding your own unique core strengths and values and how you can use them.

About Us: As Seen In...: Nilofer Merchant Widely Quoted On Carol Bartz

2009-01-15T19:47:24Z

While running Autodesk, Ms. Bartz was known for her sometimes salty language. Arriving at work at 6:50 a.m. one day, former Autodesk business-development manager Nilofer Merchant saw Ms. Bartz's name pop up on the caller ID. "I heard, 'WTF happened with the General Motors [account] yesterday?'" recalled Ms. Merchant, now CEO of tech strategy-consulting firm Rubicon Consulting. "It hadn't been my responsibility till that point, but you'd better believe I led the recovery effort to get that account back." Ms. Bartz was known for a direct management style at Autodesk. "You never had to guess what she thought of your idea," added Ms. Merchant. But "you never wondered if she said one thing to you and something else to others." ### Nilofer Merchant, a former Autodesk manager who is now CEO of technology consultants Rubicon said she was "driven by doing the best thing for the business." ### In her corporate life, Mr Merchant told the Associated Press Ms Bartz talked more like a sailor, recalling profanity-laced phone calls, and describing her as someone who "doesn't spend a lot of time worrying about how people are going to feel. She always wanted to make sure the job got done". ### Read the full articles:

Wall Street Journal

USA Today

BBC

About Us: As Seen In...: Young People are Social Networking in Droves

2009-01-12T22:04:57Z
By Jessica Hilberman Find a Date, Then Change the World Each morning when I launch my Internet browser, I go through the same routine: e-mail, news headlines and Facebook. I spend a few minutes checking in on my friends and then I buckle down to work. It's the same at the desks of 20-somethings across America. Whether they prefer MySpace, Facebook or another social site, everyone takes a minute each day (at least once) to say hi to their pals. It's called "social networking," which is a buzz term for interacting online and building social circles online. Today, young people in the United States are networking in droves, connecting online and using online relationships to build their lives and even effect change offline. Social networks are being used for everything from dating to organizing protests and finding jobs for the poor. Teens and people in their 20s make up the age demographic with the highest percentage of users of MySpace and Facebook, the largest social networking sites, according to a study on Web communities and social life by Rubicon Consulting. Michael Mace, scribe of the Rubicon blog, recently wrote that the social sites online have a larger impact on younger users of the Internet. "The Web has taken on an important role in social lives of Web users," Mace wrote of the study's findings. That role is to keep young social networkers connected and involved with everyone they know, from family and friends to professional colleagues. Social networks are more than just an updated version of Mom's Rolodex. Young networkers have grown up with e-mail, digital organizers and cell phones. They are comfortable making connections from anywhere with Internet access, from a mobile phone to an iPod Touch. Rather than ask for your business card, they'll add you as a friend on Facebook. According to Seth Porges, associate editor at Popular Mechanics, the Web is becoming more social - and enabling sociability - because of its portability. "Because of the mobile nature of these devices, they really allow online social activity to become increasingly indistinguishable from offline social activity," Porges says. Porges anticipates that with the migration of Internet-based social activity from the desktop and laptop to mobile devices, more people will adopt programs that allow them to use the Global Positioning System on their mobiles to reach out to others. Within two years, he expects to see "applications that allow people to see which of their friends are nearby so they can meet up. ... As opposed to substituting for real-life interaction, they are going to facilitate it more. Instead of just chatting with a friend from my house, I'm going to be able to see who is walking around in the neighborhood and easily meet up with them for coffee," Porges says. Even without GPS-enabled phones, younger Web users already have a way of letting each other know exactly where they are and what they're doing at any moment; it's called microblogging. Popular Mechanics' Porges says the trend in microblogging is "most obvious through services such as Twitter, which allow people to broadcast one- or two-line updates on what they are doing" or looking to do. Microblogging is not tied to a particular Web page, and sites such as Twitter allow users to update their blog "feeds" through text message or SMS (short message service), and then broadcast those updates to social networks like Facebook. It's blogging and networking at once. On Facebook, Porges says, constant "status" updates by users also serve as a kind of microblog because a person's friends are all notified when that user's page is updated. A microblog can act like a phone tree on steroids - when one person shares information about an event, a protest or a video with his or her network, that information can be reposted until it has traveled far away from its original source. Ben Rogers, driver of the Filene Research Institute's CU Tomorrow Project and director of Filene's 30 Under 30 initiative, recently wrote a report for his organization about the ways credit unions are using social networking to reach out to young people. "Social media might as well be Greek to most credit unions, which are generally small, local financial institutions, but that's slowly changing," Rogers says. By reaching out through social initiatives like blogging and allowing members to rate and comment on financial products (the way customers rate products on Amazon.com), the businesses show they're literate in the Web culture of their younger users. It shows, Rogers says, "that the institution gets it: that sharing and social media is how young adults interact with each other and that savvy, authentic companies can interact with them." Rogers knows when the institutions he works with hit their targets. At 29, he is a veteran user of social networks - a Facebook user and a Twitterer. Rogers says: "There's a pretty active credit union Twitter group. Most of the chatter through the day is more like water cooler talk than anything. About a quarter of what we tweet is links to credit union or financial stories. The rest ranges from where we are today, what our kids are sick with, and what we're listening to on our headsets. It's a great way to share things we've stumbled onto during our daily Web browsing." For a young professional like Rogers, Twitter provides a fast, satisfying way to reach out and connect with colleagues, friends and family. "For those of us that blog, [Twitter is] also a convenient outlet to announce our newest posts. For a home worker, it's like having an office of intelligent people sharing news and pretty often arguing over politics and the economy," he says. To learn more about other ways young people are using social networking, see "People Use Social Networking to Fight Violence, Extremism" and "This revolution brought to you by Facebook." Jessica Hilberman is a writer and editor who has published widely on the subjects of technology, health, popular culture and urban issues. She lives in Northern California.

About Us: As Seen In...: Strategy Matters: Goal-Setting In A Recession

2008-12-15T19:31:54Z
Achieving success has a lot to do with how you define and measure it. How do you know you're winning? More importantly, how do you change goals when the economic picture shifts (and it has certainly shifted), yet still keep the team aligned? The short answer is that you need smart criteria. If your business offers a competitive product or service and has customers who are able and willing to pay, your next step should be focusing on stability. That means making and saving money, eliminating waste and hiring and retaining the right talent. It also means developing the right criteria to help you achieve those goals. Criteria Development The goal of criteria development is to learn what matters to your organization so that you can choose from various strategy possibilities. Organizations often use directional phrases like "getting traction" and "achieving momentum" as substitutes for articulated goals. Such phrases are not specific enough to allow alignment within the team or the organization. The more specific the goal is in people's hearts and minds, the better they will make decisions that support the vision. Not all success factors are equally important. Be sure to explicitly identify which particular success factors are crucial early in the criteria development process. Criteria development is essential because there will be many choices made during the strategy creation process. It's vital to know why A is selected over B. Publicly developing criteria is important because it helps people state what is important to them as a team, a division and as an organization--it helps them internalize why the strategy is important. Having clear criteria up front keeps the strategy creation process focused on what is good for the business. It allows the team to work from a shared vision as they approach the goal. The following table includes several sample criteria:

Criterion Explanation
Size/Sales It will be big enough to be a material focus for the division.

Timeframe It will match our needs in terms of the number of quarters/years to yield.

Portfolio It will match our portfolio of products/services/offers.

Region It will appear in regions where we are strong.

Certainty We will have the right data available to make a good decision.

Affinity We will need to follow what our team wants, and they really want to do this.

Defensive Move We will do it because we want to prevent others from doing it.

Sales Model We will already be set up to sell it.

Customer The account type will match buyers that we know how to reach.

Leverage It will use our core strengths (product, channel, know-how) best.

Service We will be able to perform to meet customer satisfaction expectations.

Profitability It will support add-on of items like professional services.

There are two key points to remember about criteria development. First, keep in mind that the purpose of criteria development is to expose tacit assumptions about the project goal. It's about helping the team come to a common understanding about what matters. There may be disagreement about what success looks like. If so, discussions during criteria development will test people's assumptions about what really matters to the team and the organization. The discussions also will verify that the assumptions are current and valid. Second, the act of making criteria explicit will help each team member know how to make decisions at any point in the process where they need to make a trade-off. People will be aware of the logic and beliefs underlying the strategy and will be able to articulate them. Hallway Conversations Criteria development isn't a heavy-duty exercise. Criteria meetings are short and to the point. If your team is used to working together or is highly familiar with the issue you're trying to solve, you can poll people in the hallway and test to see if there is a natural consensus about the markers of success. Ask participants to make criteria explicit so that a common language for what you are trying to do can be developed. With an aligned team, simply summarize what you've heard. Most important and not to be skipped--present the results for the entire team to validate and ratify at your next meeting. If your team isn't aligned, discuss criteria and what you are trying to accomplish at a meeting. "How will we know when we are done?" is a simple question that can be used to start the visioning process. Get people to think about what the end-solution should look like before they consider options. Another question is "Imagine you're looking at a series of options that we could do and pointing and saying, 'That's the ONE!' What about that solution would make you sure?" This question helps people make their decision-making criteria conscious and helps them communicate explicitly what will drive the decision for them. Asking what the criteria should be before you have any ideas to work with allows later decision-making processes to be cleaner and more neutral. Without any particular idea to focus on, you can fully consider what would be best for the business. When criteria aren't made public and explicit early on, people tend to invest in ideas, then let the ideas drive the criteria selection later. This is a mistake. Focus on the criteria first and use them to drive the creation of additional ideas. Exit this phase of criteria development with a clear picture of what success will look like. This means something that everyone agrees on and that can be described in concrete, simple language. When everyone on the team can describe it in a very similar way, you know you're there.

About Us: As Seen In...: Strategy Matters: How To Gather Facts For Tough Decisions

2008-11-14T21:08:27Z
By Nilofer Merchant, CEO of Rubicon Consulting In bad times, it's tempting to slash costs and cut head count. But acting blindly on those impulses can damage your company more than any economic downturn. Business owners should use their company strategy as the foundation for tough decisions, and making good choices means gathering hard data. During an economic downturn, consumer product companies often react first and predictably: they cut spending. Such cuts are rooted in fears that customers will stop buying and the conviction that it's better to cut quickly and hunker down for the rough road ahead. It's the business version of "fight or flight," and it causes problems that result in severe difficulty. First, across-the-board cuts slash everything equally. This makes no sense. Why would you reduce the profitability of your best products by cutting your strongest market segments? Second, though you may cut your weak market segments a bit, you're not eliminating them, so they'll continue be a drag on revenue. Tough times are the best time to cut weak products and services, the business version of "survival of the fittest." And while some business owners mortally injure their business by reactively slashing and burning, taking a "wait and see" approach can inflict just as many wounds -- bleeding out slowly or quickly both have the same result. In either case, business owners abandon their strategy and squander the objective identification of strengths that can carry their company through bad times. Rather than being reactive, business leaders should take a proactive stance and that requires data, which means fact-finding. Fortunately, there's a methodology that can help you know what you need to do, and quickly, so you can craft a strategy and get moving: a fact-gathering process framework for thinking about what you learn, so you have the context you need to make better decisions. The four components of fact gathering:

Inquiry

Interview

Confidentiality

Categorize and verify

Though it's tempting to skip ahead or over some steps -- the urge will be strongest for internal groups familiar with a situation or organization -- skipping steps will result in a strategy that's not aligned with the real issues facing your business. Inquiry Focus on asking questions. Treat fact gathering like a discovery process and remain open to what you might find and don't assume you know the answer. Don't try to find answers; that can limit the discovery process. These questions can help start a fact gathering session:

What do we know about what has been done before?

Who has been involved?

What results did they generate?

What do we need to know about why this worked or didn't work?

Capture the results of these and other questions and be sure to note the source of each fact. For instance, if you identify the 2007 Consumer Software TAM was $X million, it's important to know where that data came from as you may need to re-evaluate that fact later or gather more information. Tracking sources also increases team credibility in future discussions. Interview Gathering information and insight are important steps in the fact-gathering process and interviews are a good tool for soliciting this data. Plus, they also can help you build support for your strategy. Whenever possible, conduct interviews face to face, especially when you're discussing a complex problem. The additional cues you observe during an in-person interview can provide insights on the factors that influence responses and give you exposure to people across the organization. Interviews can be a gold mine for discovering things you didn't know you were looking for. Asking crazy off-the-wall questions signals interviewees that you welcome a wide-ranging discussion and that's when you'll get the really interesting input -- the interviews may take longer, but there's a payoff. Asking for help also can be a productive interview technique. Ask people to help you understand what's happening. Ask them to share what they think you should know. Ask them what matters most. Asking for help will open doors and that extends to identifying other interview candidates. Ask every interviewee to suggest other people for other interviews and keep track of them -- you'll see patterns that will tip you off to key people within the organization. Confidentiality Make sure that everyone you interview understands that you will keep the information they provide confidential. This will free them to speak candidly and give you more opportunities to discover important information. Maintaining confidentiality does require that you scrub your materials before sharing them beyond the fact-gathering team. It is crucial that everyone on the team respect the pledge of confidentiality and contribute to enforcing it. Categorize And Verify You can gather great information, but without a framework to organize it, you won't be able to use the data, much less share it with others to build toward a coherent strategy. Dividing the data into the following four categories will make it easier to understand and determine what you've discovered: What you know and can confirm -- This data will come from many sources, but should only include items that the fact-gathering team believes to be accurate. Anecdotal data provided by multiple sources might be in this category, but a single-source anecdote would not. And make sure the data is current -- last year's numbers won't do you any good. What you believe but can't confirm -- Typically, this category includes personal experiences, single-source anecdotes, and subjective impressions. This data is often powerful and persuasive, but unless you can verify it, don't be swayed from keeping it in the unconfirmed category. What you doubt -- During the fact-gathering process, you'll unearth bits of information that aren't quite believable. From strange sets of numbers to goals that don't sound right to conflicting information, this data should be tagged as questionable. But questionable doesn't mean unvalued -- this data can often help you identify gaps in people's view of the issues. What doesn't fit -- This category is the catchall for red herring and corporate myths like the huge sales deal from five years back that became a benchmark for closing deals, but doesn't have anything to do with the problem you're trying to solve. Data in this category should be set aside so it doesn't get dragged into every conversation and bog down your progress. Key Findings Framework After you've categorized your data, you need a framework for understanding it and communicating it the organization. To prepare your findings, follow these steps: Set aside time to reread everything in your four categories (everything!) Create an outline as your reread the data that asks:

What did I learn?

What does it mean?

From the outline, draft a list of key points from your findings

Identify at least three supporting facts for each key point

Review the sources for the supporting facts -- reconfirm and document so you know they are solid

Review your key findings with the fact-gathering team to identify any gaps

After you've filled any holes in your key findings, share them as a part of a discussion about the "state of the organization." Report the facts you discovered with specific details; this will minimize dissent about your key findings and may lead to discovering additional data that augments what you've already learned. This fact-gathering phase is a precursor to crafting the strategy that will propel your company forward -- the diagnosis that leads to cure -- and provides a platform for you to make important decisions.

Insight+: Speaking Events: See Rubicon at SoftLetter's Marketing and Selling SaaS Seminar

2008-10-23T17:00:00Z
Bruce LaFetra http://www.rubiconconsulting.com/insight/winmarkets/bruce-lafetra/

Criterion	Explanation
Size/Sales	It will be big enough to be a material focus for the division.
Timeframe	It will match our needs in terms of the number of quarters/years to yield.
Portfolio	It will match our portfolio of products/services/offers.
Region	It will appear in regions where we are strong.
Certainty	We will have the right data available to make a good decision.
Affinity	We will need to follow what our team wants, and they really want to do this.
Defensive	Move We will do it because we want to prevent others from doing it.
Sales Model	We will already be set up to sell it.
Customer	The account type will match buyers that we know how to reach.
Leverage	It will use our core strengths (product, channel, know-how) best.
Service	We will be able to perform to meet customer satisfaction expectations.
Profitability	It will support add-on of items like professional services.