Sense & Making-Sense Capabilities
Superior skills at peering into the ‘fog’ of uncertainty as the future unfolds enable the firm to see more clearly what to do, to act more decisively and to be better prepared than competitors. The greater the speed and the greater the uncertainties of change in the market-space the greater the advantage for the firm that succeeds in honing their skills to Sense and Make-Sense of what is unfolding. Our support two main themes:
Idea Fragments: More Dots – Better Dots. Many organisations struggle to have sufficient innovation and fail to spot weak but important signals about the changes in their market-spaces. Our support starts with guiding clients to gather (to harvest) fragments of ideas through a series of techniques and alternative frames of reference. As Steve Jobs remarked, “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards”. Idea-fragments are the ‘dots’, first they need to be collected and organised. The second part of our support is to facilitate cross-functional teams to interrogate the data-base of idea-fragments to see possible emerging patterns, risks and opportunities.
Idea Fragments: More Dots – Better Dots. Many organisations struggle to have sufficient innovation and fail to spot weak but important signals about the changes in their market-spaces. Our support starts with guiding clients to gather (to harvest) fragments of ideas through a series of techniques and alternative frames of reference. As Steve Jobs remarked, “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards”. Idea-fragments are the ‘dots’, first they need to be collected and organised. The second part of our support is to facilitate cross-functional teams to interrogate the data-base of idea-fragments to see possible emerging patterns, risks and opportunities.
- Please also refer to our EUREKA programmes for enhancing innovation capabilities.
- The Experimenters Mind-set In our work with, big and small, companies globally, those that out-perform (Thriving not only Surviving), continuously conduct probing experiments in the market. The best, split every ‘big idea’ into 3 or more specific tests which they conduct simultaneously, possibly in different markets. The goal is learn as quickly as possible, particularly from customer response. To be informed as soon as possible such that market or product moves can be made with greater confidence and precision. We support our clients to accelerate their business through experimentation with goal of speeding up learning, rather than an approach of piloting the favoured initiatives. As philosopher Emile (Alain) Chartier noted, “Nothing is more dangerous than an idea; when you have only one idea”.
Accelerating Outcomes AND Enhancing Capabilities.