Moving the Needle
How to Explore in the Core
Dividing your company into execution mode vs exploration mode, as recommended by the multi-named mythology of “ambidextrous organizations,” “dual operating systems,” or “dual innovation,” will prevent you from competing efficiently in the digital age. These are...
How to Succeed at Opportunity Discovery
Opportunity discovery is the practice of figuring out where a business can find new growth. It’s the phase that comes before customer discovery and before product idea. (You can actually start with either of those, but one should take a big step backward to learn more...
How to Properly Engage with Customers to Receive Meaningful Insights
One of the most under-appreciated aspects of the global economy’s Digital Transformation may be surprising at first blush: Customers have a lot more power now. While lax antitrust enforcement and the erosion of consumer protections might suggest otherwise, generally,...
Explore in the Core
It's cliche when people say, "Entrepreneurs are the risk-takers.” To the contrary, entrepreneurs actually seek to avoid risk. They are risk mitigators. They seek to reduce the uncertainty in a new venture. Those who do not reduce uncertainty are the risk takers. This...
Scaling Agile Through Cascading Missions
I had a conversation recently with a few industry professionals who were expressing concerns about the idea of scaling agile. Their objection was that not everybody can be agile nor needs to be. Their primary argument was that most people’s jobs are well-defined in...
Becoming a RAD Organization
The goal of the book Disruption Proof is to help leaders and founders of companies to create what I call RAD companies, which stands for being resilient, aware, and dynamic. RAD requires new behaviors and skills for all, while also establishing new systems, processes,...
Visibility Planning & Project Prioritization
In our last blog post we spoke about how the common understanding of Horizon Planning is broken. So, if the model is broken, how do we fix it? Visibility Planning Unlike Horizon Planning where projects are prioritized based on "level of innovation" and "time to ROI",...
The Current Horizon Planning Model is Broken
"What distinguishes the corporations that carry on growing is their ability to create [new] businesses. They can innovate in their core businesses and build new ones at the same time.” (Alchemy of Growth, 1999). About horizon planning The current model of horizon...
The 5 Jobs to Address Uncertainty
The increased complexity and endless disruptions of the modern world brought on by the transition to the digital age means uncertainty is everywhere. All across our businesses, we face new challenges, as what used to work no longer achieves desired outcomes. The self-awareness of admitting what we don’t know is the first step toward figuring out new best practices. Fundamentally, people must act differently in the face of uncertainty. Businesses need to adopt learning strategies in order to improve, adapt, or even reinvent their execution strategies.
Toward a New Horizon Model
The horizon model originally came from the book “The Alchemy of Growth” by Stephen Coley, Mehrdad Baghai, David White. The purpose for the model was to help businesses think about their need to develop new revenue sources over time.