From Chaos to Concept

CH 1MAKE IT USEFUL

“There is nothing worse than a crisp image of a fuzzy concept.”

—Ansel Adams

What Are We Trying to Do and How Will We Know If We Did It?

Being able to clearly articulate what a team is expected to do and what the desired outcomes are is the first step on the road to success. That sounds obvious, but I've been in countless kick-off meetings where neither of those two questions could be answered by the project stakeholders. The leadership teams had some vague statements to share about the high-level direction such as “Improve the UX” or “We want to be the Apple of our industry,” but nothing that is specifically actionable.

This isn't just my observation. According to an article published in the MIT Sloan Management Review, “Only one-quarter of the managers surveyed could list three of the company's five strategic priorities. Even worse, one-third of the leaders charged with implementing the company's strategy could not list even one.” (sloanreview.mit.edu/article/no-one-knows-your-strategy-not-even-your-top-leaders)

If you try to shoot the flock you won't hit anything. You need to pick a goose and target it specifically. The same thing is true in business. The first thing you need to do to succeed is to identify and document your goal.

In contrast, one customer of mine came to me with a very specific goal. They knew from their analytics that customers who bought specific products had higher average order values (AOV). Their goal was to increase the number ...