Road Testing Your Business Case Before Presentation

Road Testing Your Business Case Before Presentation

I have been writing business cases for a couple of years. I have found a compelling business case helps you as a visionary provide a case for senior management, stakeholders and peers to see the "why" as to how this project/program is an important component of growth. It will endeavor to answer the performance measures or the change & it's management needed to move your organization forward. It also helps you to credibly show how this project or program fits into the big picture of  strategic initiatives of the organization. So, the advise is after you have laid out your draft call some key players to a pow- wow session to give you insights into your initiative. Send them a rough draft and sufficient time to read through your case. Welcome their criticisms before and after you meet because on presentation day you have allies and supporters when the tough questions are fielded at you. During presentation use the feedback you got as credibility points and give your peers and seniors honor and appreciation in having helped you draft your case.

Simple practices like this help you push forward your business case.

Thoughts,

Sam Kurien

Reasoning and Understanding.

From my journal entry on 09/01/2013
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The story of Henry Humidor is an interesting introduction to the world of reasoning re-written here from the "The Little Blue Thinking Book" by Brandon Royal  who adapted it from a story that appeared in New York Times.

Henry Humidor purchased a box of very rare, very expensive cigars and insured them, among other
things, against fire.  Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of cigars, he filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, Henry stated the cigars were lost "in a series of small fires". The insurance company refused to pay citing the obvious reason: He had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.

Henry sued and won!

In delivering the ruling, the judge agreed that the claim was frivolous. He stated the man nevertheless held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure against fire, without adequately defining what is considered to be an "unacceptable fire" and was obligated to pay the claim. Rather than endure a lengthy costly appeals process the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid Henry $15,000 for the rare cigars he lost in the fires....

But....

After Henry cashed in the check, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of arson! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case used against him; Henry Humidor was convicted of intentionally setting fire to his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and $24,000 fine.
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Welcome to the wonderful world of reasoning :)

Classical reasoning states there are four mindsets - Realist, Idealist, Analyst and Synthesist. Practicality and emotion in varying degrees in people will categorize them into either one of them strongly. Of course this can even go back and forth in varying degrees based on circumstances. At least this is my observational
opinion. However a good thinker should use each mindset in creative ways. Holistic integrative thinking merging analysis with right brain imagination will help you be that "Good thinker". Sadly the place I grew up in (India) didn't allow for this kind of thinking in the classroom especially when there are 50 to 60 in each class. The United States seems to be following suit in process based learning in public, charter and private schools this is sad indeed. I believe as we are so prone to process oriented linear thinking we want everything to be standardized, its easy if its in a box and that is what our fast food culture demands. We however have to step back and think and re-think. Yesterday on my other blog I wrote about understanding stating the example of Lincoln who convulsed for not understanding the meaning of the word "demonstrate". I want to end by quoting Solomon in the proverbs : "In all this my son gain "understanding" and it will go well with you." (paraphrase mine).

Data Artisan's

I like the term "Data Artisans"

George Mathew, president and COO of Alteryx, predicts one of the hottest jobs in the future will be the "data artisan," a hybrid role that mixes data analysis with business savvy. "Data artisans will be asked to pull from structured and unstructured sources to drive the most important decisions within an organization -- like where it should open its next retail location, whether to pursue a new market, and which products to push,"

There's a lot of talk about big Data! and data artisans will be the new breed of thinkers that are strategically going to make management revolution by utilizing the technology around them. Though these are fancy new terms and not new for manager's who have always used data driven approach, yet the software tools that are available have grown leaps and bounds. These tools allow Data Artisans for handling large volume's of data, along with speed at which this data is being collected in real time to make substantial decisive actions.

A recent article on Big Data in HBR summarizes that data driven decision are better decisions as it enables the manager to look at evidence rather than intuition. It comes easy for companies that were born digital like Amazon and Google who are masters on big data. To know buying behavior and having key insights on what a consumer thinks that affects the bottom line changes the very fate/profits and direction of your organization.

Some key points I want to record here:

1) Big Data does not replace insight
2) Big Data does not replace vision
3) Big Data cannot replace value but can definitely help in understanding, inferring how our people are doing on core value.
4) Big Data coupled with insight will give you an edge in speed of decision making.
5) Big Data coupled with insight will help you minimize cost by allowing you to refocus your strategies.
6) Big Data has several kinds of information descriptive that may be (financial, demographic, pschyographic and social data), it could be Behavioral (response rates, likes, dislikes, activity, purchase rates etc etc. and finally Attitudinal (loyalty, satisfaction,  behavioral affinities etc.)
7) Tools that can close the loop on feedback and refine complex information in each of the mentioned areas in point #6 in simplistic manner (specially visually) help communicate and further your Organization better.

Thoughts,

Sam Kurien

Integrative Thinking

For a last few months I have been baffled with the idea of a integrative thinking before I realized that "hey there are entire theories written on it" (nothing new under the sun).  What is integrative thinking? Before I get into it, let me give you insights with what my observations have been so far in management thinking process. Growing up in the east with a western form of education, my primary management shaping & education was about moving from point A to C in a logical progression. If it was moving people from less desired state A to desired state C, you create chaos isolate the wrongs and move in linear fashion towards C. However in the eastern context where I lived the thinking was primarily circular in nature. Where the idea of getting to C may not be a exact linear process but may also have relational and time components that are not always strictly adhered to. Then there is the Jewish paradoxical way of thinking where except for the absolute truth all other ideas are held in the perfect tension of diametrically opposite ideas. They rest in the middle and the solution always lies not in either or but an entirely fresh mindset of ideas or solution that emerge out of that kind of paradoxical thinking. Now these observations are not new, but revelation-ary to me as I think about the paradoxical integrative thinking process.

Integrative thinking may not be a Jewish idea but certainly practiced by many of their scholars, philosophers and scientists for thousands of years. It is very much permeated in their culture, education and lifestyle.  A wikepedia entry or possible definition about integrative thinking states:

"Integrative Thinking is a field in Applied Mind Science which was originated by Graham Douglas in 1986. He describes Integrative Thinking as the process of integrating intuition, reason and imagination in a human mind with a view to developing a holistic continuum of strategy, tactics, action, review and evaluation for addressing a problem in any field. A problem may be defined as the difference between what one has and what one wants. Integrative Thinking as described may be learned by applying the SOARA (Satisfying, Optimum, Achievable Results Ahead) Process of Integrative Thinking devised by Graham Douglas to any problem with which the learner is dealing.The SOARA Process of Integrative Thinking employs a comprehensive and easily remembered set of triggers of internal and external knowledge. This facilitates the making of connections between what may have been regarded as unrelated parts of a problem."

Roger Smith's definition who is also credited for this theory writes: "...integrative thinking is the ability to constructively face the tensions of opposing models and instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generating a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new model that contains elements of the individual models, but it is superior to each." 

It seems in linear method of thinking our impulse is to determine what is right, less risky and by a process of linear reasoning and rationale - eliminating the wrong. This often discredits us as we don't necessarily have time or the necessary comfort zone of dealing with opposing models. Successful leaders often don't use linear or circular thinking. This leads me to reflect of past observations in successful leaders like Jack Welch, Steve Jobs or Bob Young who seem to have made decisions not using linear or circular thinking but clearly paradoxical integrative thinking which brought them immense success in the marketplace. They have developed this unique ability to hold opposing tensions and come up with an entirely different approach that doesn't neatly fit in the either or category. It seems integrative thinkers keep in mind relevant factors don't necessarily focus on obvious ones. Integrative thinkers also love looking at multi-directional touch points and non-linear relationships between variables compared to linear thinkers who are naturally bound to think about the logical interaction of variables.

For me the most obvious ways integrative thinkers are different from linear or circular thinkers are they see the whole and see how scale-able the solution can be in balancing how an innovative solution can itself resolve opposing tensions.

In future posts I may delve into finding real world examples to process this through till then....

My thoughts,

Sam Kurien.