It’s that time of year. The summer sun is beating down harder than ever. The grass is fading from green to brown, and no amount of watering seems to be enough. School supply lists hit your Inbox as Back to School sales fill your mailbox.
Yep, it’s almost Strategic Planning & Budgeting season.
You’ve been through this before, so you know what a strategy is (a set of choices and actions to get you closer to your long-term goals). You know why you need one (set common goals, create shared understanding and responsibility, align key stakeholders, inform priorities and decisions, enable your team to be proactive).
But do you know how to create a strategy that gets used?
No, I’m not talking about a process (though that is important). I’m talking about the experience you create and the expectations you maintain for your team as you develop the strategy.
Earlier this week, a client and I talked about this. We were preparing for a strategic planning offsite, one that we vowed would be different from previous strategic planning efforts that were somewhat successful (a new idea was launched and has since become an essential part of the organization) but left the team with lingering frustration about the process and skepticism about this one.
As we shared our thoughts and I scribbled notes, themes emerged. The next day after the themes were presented to the nearly 50 people in attendance, the head of the group raised his hand. “You’ve just described the I Love Lucy approach to strategy.”
Now, I love a good pop culture reference, especially one that requires a bit of history. But I did not get this one. As I scrunched my face in confusion, he explained, “It’s Ay yi yi yi yi!”
And thus, the I Love Lucy approach to strategy was born.
If you want to create a successful strategy, one that gets you closer to your long-term goals despite an uncertain and changing environment, how you create it must be:
Inclusive: Use the IKEA effect to your advantage and give everyone in your organization a voice. Different voices bring different perspectives to the process and help you avoid groupthink. Research from BCG indicates that “organizations that engage a broad group of internal and external stakeholders in their strategy development efforts yield better results than organizations that leave strategy in the hands of a small, central team.”
Illuminating: In the same way, it’s easy to ignore the softball-sized dust bunny under the bed until your mom comes to visit, it’s easy to ignore the parts of the business that aren’t broke but aren’t in an ideal state until strategic planning season. Your process needs to shine a light on all the nooks and crannies of your business, revealing all the opportunities and flaws to be addressed.
Innovative: You would never write a strategic plan that makes your business worse, but are you writing one that makes it better? In most cases, and often for very sensible reasons tied to incentives and metrics, teams write strategic plans for steady and safe growth. But there’s no such thing in unsteady and uncertain times. If you’re not thinking about what’s possible, you’re not planning to achieve your long-term objectives.
Internalized: A common entertainment trope is a villain who monologues for so long that the hero can escape. So you know who else monologues? Managers talking about strategy. And yes, everyone is looking to escape. Don’t be the villain, be the hero and create a strategy everyone can remember and repeat.
Implemented: The most useful strategic plan I ever saw was in a binder being used to straighten a wobbly table. It was useful, but not in the way its creators intended. If no one acts on your strategy, you just made a great table leveler.
Bonus Recommendations
For best results, I also recommend chocolate during the process and Vitameatavegamin after (or during but outside of work hours)
What are your recommendations for a good strategy development experience, a successful strategy, or an I Love Lucy marathon? Let me know in the comments below.
What if a tool had the power to delight your customers, cut your costs, increase your bottom line, and maybe double your stock price? You’d use it, right?
That’s precisely the power and impact of Service Design and service blueprints. Yet very few people, especially in the US, know, understand, or use them. Including me.
Thankfully, Leala Abbott, a strategist and researcher at the intersection of experience, innovation, and digital transformation and a lecturer at Parsons School of Design, clued me in.
What is Service Design?
RB: Hi, Leala, thanks for taking the time to talk with me today.
LA: My pleasure! I’m excited about this topic. I’ve managed teams with service designers, and I’ve always been impressed by the magical way they brought together experience strategy, UX, and operations.
RB: I felt the same way after you explained it to me. Before we get too geeked up about the topic, let’s go back to the beginning and define “service.”
LA:Service is something that helps someone accomplish a goal. As a result, every business needs service design because every business is in the service industry.
RB: I’ll be honest, I got a little agitated when I read that because that’s how I define “solution.” But then I saw your illustration explaining that service design moves us from seeing and problem-solving isolated moments to seeing an integrated process. And that’s when it clicked.
LA: That illustration is from Lou Downe’s talk Design in Government Impact for All . Service Design helps us identify what customers want and how to deliver those services effectively by bringing together all the pieces within the organization. It moves us away from fragmented experiences created by different departments and teams within the same company to an integrated process that enables customers to achieve their goals.
Why You Need It
RB: It seems so obvious when you say it. Yet so often, the innovation team spends all their time focused on the customer only to develop the perfect solution that, when they toss it over the wall for colleagues to make, they’re told it’s not possible, and everything stops. Why aren’t we always considering both sides?
LA: One reason, I think, is people don’t want to add one more person to the team. Over the past two decades, the number of individuals required to build something has grown exponentially. It used to be that one person could build your whole website, but now you need user experience designers, researchers, product managers, and more. I think it’s just overwhelming for people to add another individual to the mix. We believe we have all the tools to fix the problem, so we don’t want to add another voice, even if that voice explains the huge disconnect between everything built and their operational failures.
RB: Speaking of operational failures, one of the most surprising things about Service Design is that it almost always results in cost savings. That’s not something most people think about when they hear “design.”
LA: The significant impact on the bottom line is one of the most persuasive aspects of service design. It shifts the focus from pretty pictures to the actual cost implications. Bringing in the operational side of the business is crucial. Building a great customer journey and experience is important, but it’s also important to tie it back to lost revenue and increased cost to serve
Proof It Works
LA: One of the most compelling cases I recently read was about Autodesk’s transition to SaaS, they brought in a service design company called Future Proof. Autodesk wanted to transition from a software licensing model to a software-as-a-service model. It’s a significant transition not just in terms of the business model and pricing but also in how it affects customers.
If you’re a customer of Autodesk, you used to pay a one-time fee for your software, but now you are paying based on users and services. Budgeting becomes messy. The costs are no longer simple and predictable. Plus, it raises lots of questions about the transition, cost predictability, control over access, managing subscriptions, and flexibility. Notice that these issues are about people managing their money and increasing costs. These are the areas where service design can truly help.
Future Proof conducted customer interviews, analyzed each stage of the customer journey, looked at pricing models and renewal protocols, and performed usability studies. When they audited support ticket data for the top five common customer issues, they realized that if Autodesk didn’t change their model, the cost of running software for every customer would increase by 40%, and profit margins would decrease by 15% to 20%.
Autodesk made the change, revenue increased significantly, and their stock price doubled. Service design allows for this kind of analysis and consideration of operational costs.
How to Learn More
RB: Wow, not many things can deliver better service, happier customers, and doubling a stock price. Solid proof that companies, and innovation teams in particular, need to get smart on service design. We’ve talked a lot about the What and Why of Service Design. How can people learn more about the How?
Several years ago, my now-husband and I were in London. It was his first time in the city but my 4th or 5th so, naturally, I talked a big game about how well I knew the city and how I would be, with the help of our handy tourist map, our tour guide.
Things were going fine until I took the wrong road leading away from Buckingham Palace. I thought we were heading straight to Parliament. We were not.
After a walk that lasted far longer than it should have, he nervously asked,” We’re lost, aren’t we?”
With wounded pride and astounding stubbornness, I declared, “We’re not lost. I know exactly where we are. It’s just not where we want to be.”
Maps are incredibly useful. Until they’re not.
Innovation literature has more maps than a Rick Steves’ guidebook, and most are quite useful. If they’re used at the right time for the right purposes in the right way by the right people (which is a lot of rights that have to be right).
Here are three of my favorites – 2 classics and a new one that blew my mind
Stakeholder Map:
Avoid getting blind-sided, buttering up the wrong people, or ignoring potential champions
What it is: A visual representation of the people, roles, and groups who (1) are involved in and affected by a challenge or system and (2) have the power to affect or are likely to be affected by the proposed solution. Stakeholders can be internal and/or external to the organization
Why you need one: To prioritize where and how you spend your time understanding, influencing, communicating, collaborating, persuading, and selling
When to create it: At the very beginning of a project and then updating as you learn more
Brainstorm who your internal AND external stakeholders are
Prioritize them using an Influence x Interest two-by-two matrix
Engage and communicate based on their place in the chart
Journey Map
Spot opportunities to create radical value through incremental innovations
What it is: A visual representation of what your customer/consumer/user does, thinks, and feels as they move from awareness of a need/want/JTBD to loyalty to a solution. Journey maps should dig deep into moments where customers currently interact with your organization and highlight opportunities where interaction can and should occur
Why you need one: To identify opportunities for innovation by surfacing customer current pain points between your customer and your business (or competitors if your business isn’t there and can/should be)
When to create it:
Create the basic structure (start and end point) or a hypothesized journey before primary research.
During research, work with individual stakeholders to develop their maps using (and adapting) your initial structure.
At the end of research and before ideation, synthesize insights into the smallest possible number of maps to use as inspiration for solution brainstorming
How to use it: IDEO offers simple instructions and tips based on practical use:
Brainstorm who your internal AND external stakeholders are
Prioritize them using an Influence x Interest two-by-two matrix
Engage and communicate based on their place in the chart
Service Map
Make journey maps actionable (and see how your innovation affects your operations)
What it is: A visual representation of the people, touchpoints, processes, and technology required/desired both frontstage (what customers see) and backstage (what happens behind the scenes). Similar to process documentation with a special focus on the customer
Why you need one: Doing something new (i.e., innovating) often requires changes to internal operations, organizations, and processes, but these changes are often ignored or unexplored until late in the process, potentially slowing or stopping the development and launch of a new solution.
When to create it: Draft a baseline current state once you have 50% confidence in the general area or type of solution to be created (e.g., we want to improve the use of digital tools in classrooms, so let’s create a service map for our current digital offerings and operations). Then continually revise and update it as the solution/service develops.
