There are lots of stories around about businesses that have failed, for whatever reasons, to change quickly enough for the now more fluid business environment. Change now means more than just monitoring the trends of your micro and macro environment, or performing regular analyses on the needs and wants of your consumers. It means agility. Interestingly, Groupon, that seemed to have been blessed with the perfect model at the perfect point in time, reported an unexpected loss due to a lack of new customers buying in. Underestimating the importance of customer-facing business development meant that taking their eye off one glass ball caused a crack in their business model.

A related story also caught my eye about Zebras, and the reasons as to why they’re covered in stark stripes that expose them to predators in their contrasting environment. Scientists have pondered on many theories, including the possibility that the appearance of the stripes makes the Zebra unattractive to disease-carrying flies. The point of the story is that whatever the reasons, the Zebra had to change massively to avoid the threat that they sensed was most crucial in their survival. It may have had to change rapidly in other areas to balance this, such as developing a better running speed, or an acknowledgement that it was safer to graze in a pack rather than alone.

Change, good or bad, always must be for the best. Within organisations, people are resistant to badly managed change, not change itself. An important thing to remember in this crazy mixed up world.

I loved using Ishikawa or “Fishbone” diagrams (named after Kaoru Ishikawa who became one of the guru’s of modern management in the 1960s after he pioneered the use of them in quality management processes in the Kawasaki shipyards). It was like peeling an onion, carefully taking each layer of a problem and figuring out what had caused the problems we were seeing at the time so that we understood the cause. Once we understood the cause we could decide what our next course of action was; was it something we could fix and move on, or had something changed meaning that our landscape had altered and our course of action needed to change?

Beautifully simple.

Has this thinking gone out of fashion?

Take Eastman Kodak, so sad to see a company with such heritage file for bankruptcy. A company with the innovative intelligence to invent the first digital camera but lacking the business intelligence to understand the effect of that innovation in the market and how to use it to change its own destiny. Too scared to embrace the fact that this new technology would cannibalise its already successful business, it went for the alternative… made ill thought through decisions, didn’t look at the ongoing effect in the market, didn’t change, just died.

Do we like to react and respond more than we like to understand the real problems and what we can do to solve them?

IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS!

So, draw one cartoon like fishbone with a big head (see picture at the end of the post).

Take one problem and put the word WHY in front of it e.g. Why are sales of film declining?

Make this question the head of the fish. This is the effect or the consequence of an action.

Brainstorm all the reasons why that problem is happening e.g. all the reasons why the sales of film could be declining and attach them to the bones (branches) coming off the head of the fish. You can group reasons together if you have lots are that relating to the same thing e.g. new technology…

For each branch of the fishbone, dig deeper into what is happening and ask WHY again, creating spurs off each branch until you feel you understand what is happening.

Take time to take this in and decide on your course of action.

Let me know how it goes.

It’s like a computer game. First, you have to get through the amount of people who say that you’re not in ‘their area’ when they’re 3 miles down the road, before battling with the ‘I can come to you today, I’ll call you’ people who when you ask ‘but will you come today?’ they put the phone down, to the people who want your card details before they’ve even seen the problem- it has been a maze of hassle from start to finish.

Along with the very public news of Fred Goodwin (who didn’t really win good) being stripped of his honour, the week has told a tale of trust, what that means to people, and how the break-down of it can be severely detrimental to more than just one party. When one person (who had said they were going to fix my dishwasher in that day and then called back three hours later to try and get out of it) was surprised I cancelled, they had ignored the fundamental lesson that comes with trust- it has to be earned!

Trust is at the core of every relationship, and has to be protected in order for the relationship to thrive. The biggest damage that has been done to major brands and corporations has been down to a breach of trust, or a lack of consideration when making big promises as to whether they can actually deliver those to their consumers. People actually make a good living repairing a breach of trust in corporate governance. So whether it’s a white good repair, a friendship, or a hostile takeover, sticking to the fundamental rule of mutual trust will keep it from going down the drain (no pun intended).

This is what the politicians wanted us to do isn’t it, be brave, be ballsy, put the country back on its feet.

This is of course a lesson in do what I say not what I do.

Take the debate over the benefits cap, a proposal that affects a reported 67,000 people out of the 60′ish million that live in the UK and would save £290m out of a £192b work and pensions budget (figures reported in BBC News). The debate itself has rattled on for days (that on its own costing a fair bit) and now the prospect that it might go regional, the cost of administration to support that will erode even more of that saving.

This wouldn’t get past the Project Board in big business today, it would get sent back with a REJECTED, reason? No game changing ambition and poor ROI. The debate on the matter would either end or the team proposing would work on it to show that a real difference could be made…

They might take the total £192b work and pensions budget and say “there will be no benefits system going forward”. The concept behind this would be that all people on benefits today become employees of the Company for Work and Pensions tomorrow. Suddenly everyone has a job. The admin that today is put behind assessing, giving and taking away benefits would be moved to assessing and giving people work. There would be no sick pay but a bonus for those who turn into work everyday. If you don’t show, or don’t work, there is no money. These jobs would not be classed as public sector jobs, they will be part of a growing number of entrepreneurial companies funded by us the taxpayer. The opportunities would be as diverse as the community of employees within it.

The ROI here is uncapped and the future proofing benefits that support ongoing positive outcomes of a country with zero unemployment…priceless.

OK, I might be dreaming now but I wish I wasn’t.

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I didn’t want to write something negative about a cause I believe in and think that others should too. This led to a wider conversation with the lovely Katy Cory who agreed and added “this is the problem with movements that we want and need to believe because the headlines of what they are they for and what they do are so important but generally they don’t deliver, for example the United Nations (UN)”. We wouldn’t want to ‘out’ the UN as not having the muscle to deliver what it needs to because we know the world is better because of the concept of the UN but is this right? Do we expect less or are our expectations too high, after all it was Mandela who said “After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb”.

That conversation has haunted me all afternoon. My disappointment with the ANC is firmly with its political transition where its leaders are failing the people who really need them while they indulge in the power struggles and greed that plights politics all over the world. The movement that that freed people from the Apartheid regime was amazing and resulted in a change that should always be believed in, they seem to have lost their way and I hope this anniversary puts a spotlight on that.

We were so quick to judge an organisation like the UN for its lack of tangible delivery but the truth is some things need to happen and they don’t always have a hard output that can be measured, does that mean they have failed, disappointed us or worse don’t give us a reason to believe?

When I though about this in the workplace I realised it had been 3 years since we had worked on an enabling project, a project that will help get a tangible result, but not directly, it provides the infrastructure or the glue that brings a number of people, concepts and processes together to get the result. Enabling Projects need a reason to believe that goes beyond a hard deliverable, something that you know should happen because so many things will be better because of it, the greater good…sadly this kind of thinking doesn’t resonate in these economic times but it should.

So, when you are reviewing what projects you are supporting in 2012, think about what you need to deliver in terms of output and how many of these deliverables could be brought home if you linked them together through an enabling project – the glue, infrastructure, sanctions that could provide the greater good that makes it all happen. Spare a thought for those organisations like the UN without which the world would be a worse place (Major Achievements of the UN).

“The absence of structure and routine in a young life can have a devastating impact. Without the right support, directionless teenagers can become lost young adults – unconfident, under-qualified and unemployed.” – Martina Milburn, chief executive of The Prince’s Trust

The report found that 27% of young people aged 16-25 claimed not to have grown up with a set bed time (versus 39% of those that achieved less than 5 A*-C grades). The results are doubled for those who did not have regular meal times (14% against 30%).

Martina Milburn, chief executive of The Prince’s Trust, says:

“The absence of structure and routine in a young life can have a devastating impact. Without the right support, directionless teenagers can become lost young adults – unconfident, under-qualified and unemployed.”

I have worked on a few PLM implementations and believe that a similar principle generally applies to people of all ages. Implementing a coherent structure to your new product development process can add benefit in helping the people in your organisation to create better quality products that appeal to your consumers. However, this does not necessarily mean that the process has to be routine.

In fact, the idea of routine seems to terrify a vast number of people. As everybody is pushed to deliver more and faster, creating unnecessary steps in the process only serves to frustrate people and make them disillusioned.

The secret is to provide clear direction and a consistent structure so that everybody understands what they are expected to deliver. But to remember that they are not children and that they have the knowledge and ability to create their own way to deliver it.

At Cheeky Monkey, we use the Virtual Project to do this. It gives the project team the opportunity to play out the project in advance, so that they can define what they are going to deliver and how they are going to do it. Getting the group together in this way means they can share their knowledge and define their approach without creating unnecessary step that slow down the process or create frustration.

Nick Clegg today announced that 8 cities outside London are to be given new financial powers to borrow and spend. They will be given a single pot of money to spend at their own discretion rather than having to apply for capital against individual schemes as they do today.

This was a welcome announcement as Work Foundation think thank released a report on Wednesday which stated that Cities outside of London and the South East risk being “left behind” by the government’s pre-existing growth strategy, while enterprise development zones are “outdated” The feeling was that the previous government acted as parents deciding what local agendas should be without really understanding the impact of their decisions.

I think Nick Clegg’s announcement would be a welcome change in the way many businesses operate. We deal with a number of Global businesses who face the same issue, the people authorising the budgets don’t understand the impact of their decisions.

Lizzie Crowley, the report’s author and a researcher at the Work Foundation, said. “Many cities outside London have a huge amount of economic potential, but they need the freedom to build on their own strengths, and to develop a unique appeal to businesses.”

We support many organisations in building their change agendas and often build business cases for programmes of work to help form their budgets for the new Financial year. The challenge is often that the amount of money that is allocated to new initiatives is already fixed and mirrors last years budget. If this is the case surely rather than spending resource and money on building an investment appraisal that will be irrelevant for decision making purposes it would make sense to allocate one pot of money and ensure there are processes in place to sense check the spend with the business as and when it becomes relevant? This way the people who understand and will be impacted by the change get to decide what the right projects are to do at the right time rather than it being a decision made from an ivory tower?

Maybe businesses need to loosen the reigns and move away from justification dictated by a budgeting model and give the freedom to their employees to make the right investment decisions which will ultimately support delivery of the business strategy?

This is nothing to do with the ‘real message of Christmas’ or anything like that. Instead, it’s down to an article by Angela Raini on the BBC last week.

She is a technology journalist who does not feel the need to be the early adopter, ahead of the pack constantly replacing and updating her gadgets. Instead, she is much happier to stick with what she has until has completely outgrown its use or it cannot be repaired any longer.

“If this sounds like wartime Britain – make do and mend and all that – that’s because, in a way it is. Fixing things and recycling in some places is a necessity, not a choice. In the developing world you can see it everywhere.”

After reading the article, I have to admit that I started to feel a little bit greedy. Much of the stuff that was on my list was there to replace something that I have already. Not even things that need much fixing, just things that I wanted a shinier version of.

When did all this happen? I’m not that old but I can remember a time when you wouldn’t lightly scrap something and replace it without seeing if it could be repaired first. Once, we waited a whole week while our VHS player was at the repair shop! Admittedly, it was hardly the blitz but still …

This desire to rip out and replace things in need of repair is not exclusive to individuals. Many organisations have their own list of things that they want and are running initiatives to replace what they already. Don’t get me wrong, looking at ways to improve is definitely a good thing but some approaches can be more drastic than they need to be.

I was speaking to somebody the other day who had been challenged with coming up with a replacement for one of their company processes. After getting everybody in her team together to start from scratch and writing up the work, she found the documentation for the original, only to find that it was virtually the same as her new version.

As austerity hits, more people are looking for ways to save money by repairing their essentials; resoling shoes, mending clothes, etc. How are you looking for ways to ‘make do and mend’ the things that are important to your business?

PLM may sound simple, the art is all about science and magic. Ensuring that you understand what is happening in the world, in terms of the environment (where the stuff to make everything comes from = science), knowing as much as you can about the people who could buy it and what they need and want (even if they don’t know it yet = science) and putting something together that talks to you and me in such a way that we want it (magic).

This article focus on the start of any PLM journey WHO, WHAT, WHY…How could Reebok sell trainers for $1?

So, what is this really about?

• Generating employee loyalty?
• Creating and innovating projects in poor and developing areas of the world?
• A chance for people to feel good again?
• Corporations doing good, really? Just think about what Coke did years ago. They went to the far flung places in the world and sold their product at a price point that area could afford. Where ever I went with my backpack in the world I could share a coke with a local it was awesome and created world domination because of brand loyalty, people have grown up with that brand – it’s a fundamental part of their lives and has kept Coke at number 1 – creating brand loyalty is what this is all about isn’t it?
• Even if it is it’s a slap on the back all round because economically this is what developing areas need. Source the materials locally so the people involved in that get money to invest in looking for better materials, get the local workforce to make them, so they have money to buy them (and educate their families which will lead to lots of other ideas) – it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sustainable PLM is still finding its feet in industry and I think this is a great example of just what can and needs to be done by companies who want to future proof what they do and how they do it. They say it’s a social project which is interesting and I assume a nice PR angle. Social is just one aspect of work that is being addressed adidas are creating projects that address the future needs of doing business, finding new markets and ultimately new consumers.

Interestingly the article focuses on the price point and how they are having to go back to basics to figure out how to make this work and what the price point is, it may not be a $1…this is fantastic and a exercise every business should be doing right now. Forget the term recession, our world has changed and we need to know how to work within the new rules.

How are you looking forward to see who your future customers are and how you are going to reach them no matter how unrealistic that may sound? May be everyone should start a $1 project…

One of the trainers is a DJ so we’ve been swapping notes and I was really excited when he handed me a mix that he’d made.

Over the years, I’ve made quite a few compilations of my own; often for friends and occasionally in an attempt to impress a girl.  So I know how difficult it can be to make one that really hits the mark.

It’s a very fine line between making something that somebody else would like and creating something self-indulgent that leaves the person receiving it baffled.   Unless you really know somebody well, that noise that you love could be enough to send somebody hurtling towards the off button.

As I’ve been preparing the training material, I have faced the same challenge.

I’m a detail person so my natural instinct is to dive in and work out how things work and what it’s doing.  This can be a great approach for some people of a similar mind set but in some cases I have been met with blanks faces from others who couldn’t care what’s going on in the background.  They just want to know which buttons they needs to press and what difference it is going to make.

The truth is that you can’t just shy away from bit that will turn people off. In these cases, you just have to keep on moving with the belief that what you are doing is right.

Getting the material right means striking a balance between the two and that means thinking about your audience and how they are going to take that information.

The problem is that there are often some things that you know that your audience will not like.  This is not because either of you are doing something wrong; it’s down to the inevitable fact that adding structure means that some of the ways of working have to change and some of the shortcuts that people have grown accustomed to have to go.

The truth is that you can’t just shy away from bit that will turn people off.  In these cases, you just have to keep on moving with the belief that what you are doing is right.  The important bit is that you keep on listening while you do it.