Author Archive
Where does a Customer Find Value in your Organization?
Posted by: | CommentsHave you ever evaluated where your customer finds value within your company?
In Lean you try to find the one best path – the value stream map. In the marketing, we have created the marketing funnel. However, Organizations can no longer feed products to customers, as I described in the blog post, Kill the Sales and Marketing Funnel. Customers have the ability to access resources and information comparable to their suppliers and choose suppliers by their own definition of value and how that value should be created. Organizations must adapt to the networks our customer chooses to find value in the use of our products and services.
Verna Allee, M.A., is Co-founder and CEO of Value Networks LLC introduced me last year to Value Network Mapping through this Business901 podcast, What’s behind Collaboration and Value Networks? I have played with it, not mastering and have become more and more intrigued by the concept. Our world is increasingly more collaborative driving changes in the way decisions are made. Our organizations need to change to a more collaborative structure but the question is where do we begin?
From Value Networks and the true nature of collaboration by Verna Allee with Oliver Schwabe is a digital edition book located at http://www.valuenetworksandcollaboration.com.
Roles and interactions – providing focus for collaborative work
Role-based exchange networks are the natural way that people organize and collaborate to create value and achieve outcomes. In such a network every single person executes a chosen role. Through that role they provide value contributions to others and receive value in turn. Further, as long as people experience a sense of reciprocity and perceived value or accomplishment from the interactions – people will stay engaged.
The collaboration patterns that make things work have been pushed to the background through more than two decades of focusing on business process models. Now, with the growing use of social networking and collaborative technologies, the importance of those patterns is finally being recognized.
Indeed, people, and their very human exchanges and interactions are at the heart of value creation. People, not processes, are the active agents in organizations. Only people have the unique capacity to identify opportunities, innovate, and provide value.
Value streams typically only focuses only on the more formal deliverables. In sales and marketing it is not only the formal deliverable but the informal, which in value networks are called tangible and intangible.
Verna defines these deliverables:
When we model business activity we get into the very specific kinds of exchanges that are critical for success and we define two types of exchanges. We call them tangible or intangible.Tangibles are those things that are formal, contractual. If you don’t do these somebody’s going to want their money back. The things you must do, the value that must be delivered. We also are modeling all of those intangibles or informal exchanges that really build relationships and help things run smoothly. That is what is missing from process modeling.
Value network modeling is something that allows us to understand the pattern of different activities within organization or within the same basic value network structure. It’s a very, very different way of thinking about who delivers value. I like to use red and black checker after creating a map and stack them on the individual roles. I use black for tangible and red for intangible. This way you can have a better visual on what role the customer derives the most value from and what kind of value the customer is seeking.
Below is a transcription of the podcast I had with Verna and I recommend that you view her website for more information and to download a map outline to try it out.
Verna Allee book: The Future of Knowledge: Increasing Prosperity through Value Networks
Related Information:
Pair Problem Solving in the Workplace
Business Processes as Value Networks
The Role of PDCA in a Lean Sales and Marketing Cycle
The New Knowledge Management Game eBook
A Teaching Resource for Design Thinking
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Dr. Charles Burnette created an outline for teaching children Design Thinking. He freely shares this information on his website idesignthinking.com. He feels Design thinking is important to for children to learn. I happen to agree with him and his seven principles constitute the premise on which IDeSiGN is based.
I stands for intending
To intend you decide what you want or need to accomplish, focus on the circumstances involved and direct your thoughts and actions toward your goal.
D stands for Defining.
To define you identify and describe the elements of your project and the information and resources that will be useful in reaching your goal.
e stands for Exploring
To explore you relate the elements you have defined, imagine possibilities regarding them that are related to your goal and analyze which is the best idea or approach to develop further.
S stands for Suggesting
To suggest you propose the form your solution will take or the plan of action you will follow, and present, communicate and explain it so that others will understand your objectives.
i stands for Innovating
To innovate you implement your plan of action or concept, constantly improving your skill and results to produce or perform what you intended to do.
G stands for Goal getting
To reach your goal, you observe, judge and measure what has been accomplished and evaluate whether your intentions have been fulfilled, revising your activities until you achieve your goals.
N stands for kNowing
To know, you remember and reflect on your experience to learn from it, to integrate it into what you already know and to look for future applications of the knowledge you have gained.
Maybe it does not have the polish that an IDEAO project would have but I commend Dr. Burnette for his contribution.
Website: IDESIGN Seven Ways of Design Thinking – A Teaching Resource http://www.idesignthinking.com
Related Information:
Think and Design like a Storyteller
GE CMO sheds her view on Design Thinking
The Common Thread of Design Thinking, Service Design and Lean Marketing
A Service Design Thinking Primer
Sketching an important Leadership Tool
Posted by: | CommentsThere are few faster, cheaper and more effective communication tools than the pen and paper. It’s easy, you can use it anywhere and anytime and it is one of the most effective collaboration tools that exist. You can start with a grand idea and instantly transform to the smallest, most minute detail. It is a skill that I encourage everyone to become comfortable doing.
Sketching in Service Design by Ben Crothers is a brief run-through of various group-based and individual techniques for using the wonders of sketching in Service Design. The second half of the presentation covers hands-on drawing techniques to tackle common objects and other things often drawn in Service Design artifacts.
A few past blogs on this subject are Your First Prototype is with Pen and Paper and Spontaneous Marks help you think – Doodling.
Related Information:
Six Sigma Storyboards
Practical Approach to Innovation used by Disney
Storyboards give Insights to Space and Time
Storyboarding for Business
