The Innovative Lean Enterprise

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Chapter 8

Ranking Offerings

In the last chapter we looked at various alterations of visual management.

We learned how to alter the strategy icon to provide more depth of informa-

tion. Later, we learned about a few popular business theories and applied

the concept of visual management to them. In this chapter, we will maxi-

mize value and minimize waste by introducing techniques to rank and pri-

oritize offerings generated from our idea generation process.

After going through the techniques in the chapter for idea generation,

you should have a variety of possible idea choices. The question is, how can

you quickly decipher through a large list of ideas or at least arrange them so

they make sense? This will be the main focus for this chapter. Eliminating

weak alternatives early that do not have the potential to create value for

the customer and company is a function of Lean. Once this chapter is fully

understood, you will have the background necessary to bring your strategy

together in visual form. In Chapter 10, I will again run through the rank-

ing process using a detailed example. This will facilitate learning and will

complement the strategy transformation process that will also be illustrated

in detail.

The strategy icon will serve us in this chapter. I will utilize each quadrant

of the icon on an individual basis. From each quadrant, each symbol will

represent one of four offering dimensions. As previously discussed, the first

is value, value in the form of customer benefits; the second is opportunity;

the third is barriers to imitation; and the fourth is the cost position of the

offering. These offering dimensions will first be considered individually, and

then combined with user-defined weights for overall ranking. The intrigu-

ing part is that this ranking system will allow the reader to customize the