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We post articles here that we hope will engage and enlighten our clients and colleagues. There is always a great deal of discussion and evolution of thinking in our business consulting space. We hope to stimulate some discussion here.

The following posts and topics are on line – click on the links below or in the margin at the right, or scroll down to see them.

Current Posts

We hope you enjoy these articles and the others in the post and look forward to your comments and suggestions.

Trust Your Gut

We are change and strategy practitioners. We have the privilege of working in many corporate settings and on a wide range of projects. Over time, when you do what we do, patterns start to emerge.

In previous articles we have written about the psychology of program management and the role of optimism and human biases in project failures and delays. We have also explored why strategic plans fail and suggest a number of remedies.

One of the reasons that strategic plans and associated projects stall is a failure to follow thru, a failure to take account of varied, and sometimes diametrically opposed, inputs and pick a way forward. Sometimes this is a change management issue, a failure to inspire and galvanise a team with an achievable plan designed to overcome human and technical hurdles. But surprisingly often, it just comes down to an unwillingness to make a “big bet”. Continue reading

Those Dreaded Statements

In a past life, as a technology business owner, one of my colleagues made a real effort to get us to develop mission and vision statements. I am embarrassed to say that I rebelled and poisoned the entire session. I was aghast at the prospect of my innovative entrepreneurial baby being branded by some bland mindless prose.

We have all seen appalling mission statements. They usually end up being flowery gibberish about valuing customers, or employees, or shareholders, or everyone and blah blah blah.The truth is, they are (or should be) quite central to strategic planning, and their crafting usually both precedes and follows in depth strategic analysis. They can be quite hard to create if you want them to have real meaning.

It is worth the effort, however, and your inability to create these statements is a red flag that your strategy has not been refined and may not be actionable. Continue reading

Six Simple Questions for Strategic Planning

 

Regardless of the type of strategy that you are developing; capture, corporate, change, product, etc., it is critical that you refine the strategy down to its essential elements. Complexity does you no favours. It makes the strategy hard to understand and easy to attack or avoid. Buy-in occurs when the fundamental tenants of your strategy are easily understood, easily remembered and easily put into practice. Continue reading

The Thrill of the Chase

A well-considered large pursuit capture strategy should initially be drafted years in advance of a formal release of the Request for Proposals (RFP).

This may seem like motherhood, but we rarely see well developed, long term, mature capture strategies, even in corporations with sophisticated bid and capture processes. More often we see some combination of last minute decisions, very poor competitive intel, simplistic pricing, late teaming, unnecessary additional program costs, and risk.

Why?  Most likely because humans generally hold off, fear mistakes, want more certainty, like to deal in “the now” and underestimate their competition. Our articles on human biases here and here explore this issue. Continue reading

Proposal Best Practices

We have seen a lot go right and wrong over many years and many proposals. We have learned that, regardless of the type of opportunity or the size of program or target market, there are common threads – things that work well and common behaviours that trip up proposal teams. This article provides a high level overview of some of the key lessons that we have learned, with emphasis on what should be done in advance of the formal RFP release. Continue reading

Why we buy brands

Cust Value PyramidCustomers buy from you for a large number of reasons and the psychology of purchase decisions is very complex.  At a very basic level, however, you can allocate most customers into one of four value bins.

We have expressed this as a pyramid (consultants love geometric shapes for some reason), reflecting the diminishing number of customers at each level.

Your job is to move customers up the value pyramid.

Continue reading

Psychological Sleight of Hand – Part 2

In Part 1, “It’s All Your Fault”, we briefly explored current thinking on human biases and the role of optimism in human evolution. We declared that common biases, including our inherent optimism, are key contributors to our persistent inability to complete programs on time and within budget.

In this article, we identify some key actions that you can take to acknowledge, temper and compensate for common problematic human behaviours.

This is a long and detailed article – it is not a simple problem. If the contents ring true, we can help you self-assess and identify those strategies that best fit your reality.

Why should you get outside help? Because, apart from the fact that your circumstances are unique, as we noted in Part 1 you and your team carry a suitcase full of biases that impede your ability to act objectively.

Please read Part 1 before you proceed. Continue reading

The “Executive SuperTemp”

In their article “The Rise of the Executive Super Temp”[1] , Jody and Matt Miller describe the growing phenomena of highly skilled executive level independent consultants in the market.

“Supertemps are top managers and professionals from lawyers to CFOs to consultants who’ve been trained at top schools and companies and choose to pursue project-based careers independent of any major firm. They’re increasingly trusted by corporations to do mission-critical work that in the past would have been done by permanent employees or established outside firms.” Continue reading

Psychological Sleight of Hand – Part 1, The Optimistic Ape

Anthropologists estimate that four or five million years ago, an ape moved down from the trees and looked out of the forest across the tall swaying grasses of the Savannah.  Likely driven by local climate changes and a need for food, he rose on two legs to see over the long grass. Grass that hid dangers, predators and unknowns. Others had tried to cross, with mixed and often tragic results. But he knew that he was bigger, stronger and more sure footed. And he knew that he would persevere where others had failed.

He was an optimistic ape.

Thus began a spiral of human evolution that led to better diets, higher birth rates, bigger brains and tools. His optimistic outlook, so fundamental to successful evolution, persists in us today. It is central to our ability to function, plan, conceive of new opportunities, to seize the day and make progress.

Perversely it also sets us up for persistent project overruns and schedule slippage. Continue reading