DECISION TOOLBOX

MAKE YOUR VISION REAL USING THE RIGHT DECISION MODEL FOR THE CHALLENGE YOU ARE EXPERIENCING - NOW 

Quickly unblock a team with decisions for what you create, not on how.  From all you could do to what you should do, now.  Fast. 

Whether you use Agile, Lean, Waterfall or some other project management method - they guide you on HOW you create a new offering, but not on WHAT.  At several points, each askes you to whittle down your options from all you could do to what you should do to create value, now, and take the next step.  These models suggest you create a clear, precise hypothesis, but they do not offer the best practice for making these decisions.   

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E.g. Which Features?  Which Product? Which Market?  Which User?  Which Decision Maker?  

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The Decision Toolbox is a large, highly varied portfolio of 45+, powerful, laser-focused, heavily researched and proven best practices. Each is specific to a common, important challenge in deciding what you create - across the entire innovation cycle.  

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Each enables a crisp, clear, precise answer - a target - the team can streamline their efforts - and then delight.  

Complementary to any project management methodology, this set of uncommon, paradigm-shifting models are combined in unique ways to fit your team and the challenges you are experiencing, now.

KNOW AND REALIZE YOUR GROWTH STRATEGY

Ansoff Strategy Matrix

Quickly, precisely identify and communicate your growth strategy - in a way the team can fulfill.

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Use simple themes to inspire innovative new concepts.

Then make it real - with a clear understanding of your inherent risks - so you can manage, meter and mitigate them.

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CAPTURE, VALIDATE YOUR VISION

Value Prop Scratchpad

Well before you make big investments - 7 quick bullet points to succinctly, precisely describe your vision.

Not just a picture with words - but gain feedback early to validate and refine it with your - before you take big leaps. 

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Learn more and get your free starter kit

HERE

SELECT - DON'T KILL -THE MOST INNOVATIVE IDEA

Concept Tournament

Use a well-known concept in sports - the bracketed tournament - to inspire your team to create and select great ideas.   

Then leverage your growth strategy to transparently select the most innovative one - and NOT kill the best ideas (well proven in brainstorming).

With clear criteria, this inclusive model gains the team's full support.

BEST FIT MARKET

Weighted Priorities

Target the best potential market match. 

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Of the many markets you could focus on, know the one your competitive advantage fits with now, and which potentially bigger one fits later.  

HOW CUSTOMERS VALUE YOUR EFFORT

Market Fit Fast

Value is NOT high vs. low.

Customers asses different components of the same offering as creating different types of value. 

In a normal planning meeting, your team can identify what they can do to creating something compelling vs. viable. 

NEW REVENUES OFTEN 75% FASTER

Minimum Compelling offering (MCO)

Align your effort - your investments - to value.

Viable, technically functional capabilities are not enough to change how customers act and what they do.

Align your teams efforts to the value they create.  

• "Gold Plate" delighting value 

• "Minbar" what you can

• Cut what you don't need, now

THE PARTNERS THAT WILL GET YOU TO THE MASSES

Channel Focus

Entering a new market is tough.  Potential partners with top market position don't want to change.
Some competitors want to challenge, but don't have the skills or strategy.  
Engage the challenger partner that will lead the market and help create a standard that others follow

MAXIMIZE YOU IMPACT, ROI ON YOUR EFFORTS - BEYOND AGILE OR LEAN

Focus First - on the risk that matters most, now- enough

Give Lean and Agile a Mission.  The Next Generation of Lean (NGL)

Know your profile for the 4 risk types for your - or any project.  Focus on the top issue, until it is not. 

Emulate the winning best-practices of Gateway Adopters - never sub-optimize.

Select and focus on one issue at a time, quickly. 

This principle offers a new way to govern your project - invest - to have the biggest impact

TARGET THE PEOPLE THAT LEADS THE MASSES

Gateway Adopters Psychographic 

There is a key identifiable psychographic segment in every market that acts as the catalyst to transition nascent concepts into solutions the mass market then follows.

Learn More 

KNOW WHAT COMPELS CUSTOMERS.  DON'T GET BLINDSIDED

The hourglass Interview

Engage potential customers about what they know and care about.  Ask three simple questions and then shut up and listen to find out what is most important, valuable, compelling to them - and what is not.

MAXIMIZE YOUR PROJECT ROI, MITIGATE YOUR BIGGEST RISKS

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Gateway Adopter Vision Team

Don't just touch the market - engage the right people in a dialogue in what matters most to them - and you.  

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Engage your market's catalysts - your Gateway Adopters - in a serial conversation to understand what could compel them to change how they do things today and maximize your return on investments.  

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Learn More HERE

UNSTICK YOUR TEAM, NOW!

35+ other decision models

We have compiled and often created a large portfolio of decision tools that quickly unstick a team wherever they are in the innovation process.  Each powerful for a given, endemic challenge to the innovation process.  

These models complement the Lean Innovation cycle that clearly identifies the opportunity - well beyond these "top 10".  

GENESIS OF DECISION MODELS: HEALTHY CONFLICT IDENTIFICATION AND RESOLUTION

We continuously develop and share new techniques to unblock teams and unleash their creativity.  

The greatest opportunities are when we see and hear;   We keep getting stuck here!!  Why so contentious?! Controversial?  Take sooo long!? Why does this keeps happening?!?! 

Our Methodology reveals where teams get stuck creating new offerings - from selecting the best project from many options to targeting one customer persona from many customer types to which features to "gold plate".  To move forward quickly teams need to focus, but often don't because they can't.   

At each of these key decisions, there are different levels of information, different perspectives, and different goals that render traditional and "normal" models and thinking insufficient. 

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At each of these key points, our team has spent years researching and developing new models to help teams quickly create a new, common perspective and share data that quickly unblock teams, often in minutes. 

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Contrast:  What vs. How.

In contrast to the most common project management models that teams use - be it Lean, Agile,  or Waterfall, these models govern on HOW a team creates an offering, these common sticking points are the WHAT the team creates - irrespective of how.  

The tools often start as sophisticated analytical tools, then transition to collaborative methods with a new, common language that teams use to create a common vision using customer value as the target metric for success. 

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Our decision tools offer the team an opportunity to share what they know with a new language that brings a team together with a new perspective.

PRESENTATIONS

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WE HAVE SHARED THESE DECISION TOOLS IN PUBLIC FORUMS LIKE BEYOND AGILE, LEAN STARTUP SEATTLE, PRODUCT MANAGEMENT COMMUNITY AND THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON COMOTION LABS

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For our most recent presentation to CoMotion Labs, the University of Washington's Technology Transfer team

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Market Fit Fast and Minimum Compelling Offering  

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Session description: Reach your target market and generate revenue in a fraction of the typical time. 

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See full 1 hr presentation of Market Fit Fast at Fundamentals for Startups