Diary of a Business Designer

Dina Goebel
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Diary of a Business Designer

In these changing times, you know your business needs a fresh approach to its strategy. Dina Goebel shares 40 years of business design experiences and tips on how to future-proof your business for long-term success. She shares up-front experiences on what works, and doesn't work, rather than just dwelling on theories. Visit her website: diaryofabusinessdesigner.com to download resources and ask questions.

  1. 2022/11/13

    What is a discovery-led strategy?

    We all read about great ideas that never get traction. Sadly, many individuals, start-ups and corporates have expensive lessons however in some cases, you can work your way out of the sunk cost problem by converting your approach into ‘discovery-led strategy’ forward. Support Diary of a Business Designer Key takeaways The trap of significant losses can be reduced with some methodical testing and planning. What tools do you use when: Desiring to move into unknown territory, how does one develop a robust planning methodology?With such an unpredictable future, how do organisations allow themselves to be bold enough to pivot quickly?Or when faced with disruptive competition or declining markets, how do you let go of the past and explore a new future?And when asked to lead innovation, the usual corporate demand is for a definitive business case to follow .. an impossible ask, how do you respond?Or if you have built it, and they didn’t come .. where can you move next? We don’t talk about DISCOVERY-LED STRATEGY enough. How do you salvage a sunk cost of a solution built which is looking for a problem? All the words of wisdom are to avoid this error in the first place, yet still it happens .. what do you do next? Firstly, a bit more definition, a discovery-led strategy: It is not a one-off project, nor a sprint, or consulting piece, not the ‘product-market fit framework’ used by capital investors, nor the ‘Lean canvas customer discovery’ used by startups. It is a ‘solution looking for a problem’, a strategy whose sole purpose is to find a market for the solution. A strategy to stay fluid and follow the money for future developments. It is an open-ended process, of try, test, fail, until a niche or crevice is discovered and prised into. As you can see, a very difficult stance for most business managers to accept. The key ingredient for discovery-led strategies .. is to maintain a firm and structured approach in the process .. including and not limited to: Assumptions testingMethodical process towards testingSetting test and exploration goalsMilestones, deadlines, timelinesTriggers / sensitivitiesMeasures of successDecision making criteria Yet many organisations and startup entrepreneurs still jump to conclusions, the old fashion way of believing the individual knows best. The difficulty comes in the self-discipline of the process. In my 20+ organisations career, I have landed in many businesses with dire strategic problems, this tends to be my career journey. I this podcast I provide 5 examples where I have used Discovery-led Strategy Examples 1&2: were startups who invested in building a solution based on the entrepreneurs’ terrific ideals. Both built their solution and both struggled to connect it to the problem, overtime traction and revenue generation were non-existent. Examples 3&4: two different organisations, both well established, and their multi-$m revenue relied primarily on fixed term funding for the provision of healthcare services into a define audience base on behalf of their primary funder. Both over time, with increased competition, changing regulation, shifting consumer expectations and lethargy to innovate and evolve, had reached a critical end-of-life point and near immediacy of lost funding due to declining value propositions. Example 5: was a the classic corporate idea which built a white elephant .. ie a solution with no evidence of market need, it gained no traction and was retired to the sunk cost write-off garage to gather dust. Hopefully this gives you the energy to speak up about Discovery-led strategies. As long as the obstacles are not overwhelming from the...

    16 分钟

  2. 2022/11/07

    Measuring impact challenges

    Measuring impact or impact evaluation is a complicated and frail science. Having worked several years in healthcare, a lesson learned is to bring impact measures far closer and into your realm of control. In this way you save, time, budget and resources building your own evidence for impact, rather than chasing measures that are far from reach. Support Diary of a Business Designer Key takeaways I have worked on a lot of projects that have promised impact to improve health and wellbeing of the population, to create change through innovation. All of them promise so much and I have yet to see a successful, measurable impact outcome. The difficulty is setting an impact goal when the outcome is out of your control. Health is influenced by many programs and conditions which makes it difficult to attribute change to any single one program, yet funders and purchases of programs or interventions want to see evidence of impact even though it’s an unrealistic measure to attain. For example: a six-lesson swimming program to teach basic skills in the event of an emergency (which was evidence based and world class acknowledged). Had an impact assessment which showed nil to negligible skills gained result. Why? Because the average attendance was just one lesson .. it was impossible to yield a successful result! This is a frailties of impact evaluation - when you look at the program in isolation of the performance of the product or program across its entire customer/user journey. Impact managers are typically appointed to well-meaning social businesses without a real-world cause and effect correlation, or means to measure and demonstrate how it's really going to impact social problems. Over the years, I've refined a program called an Evaluation Framework. One thing I learned is that if you create a framework of measuring, that measures the real time program and product performance in terms of: how many people; what they think about the program; and how well the program and business is surviving and thriving as a commercial outcome. Then you have a viable way for businesses to measure impact by measuring the areas in their control. By aligning with existing secondary research to make statements about benefits gained, there is no need to wait for longitudinal research or random control trials. My recommendation, if you're going to do impact monitoring and you're going to spend money on it, start at the beginning of the relationship journey … don't start at the end. Links Shared Value Project - Shared value is a framework designed to create business solutions to social and environmental problems. Put differently, it’s a means to deliver on your purpose, profitably.  Measuring Outcomes: STRENGTHENING NONPROFITS Theory of Change.org – to be honest, I haven’t found a good book yet, what do you suggest?Timestamps: [00:46] Impact in Healthcare [02:09] Example 1 – swimming lessons for survival [04:46] Example 2 – adult education for social...

    12 分钟

  3. 2022/10/28

    The modern SWOT, or not?

    To SWOT or not - that is the question. Some consider it out dated and over simplified, I like to use a modernised quantitative version to inform my business strategies and plans. Listen on to learn how a SWOT can improve your business model and plans. Support Diary of a Business Designer What is a SWOT: SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is a framework used to evaluate a company's competitive position and to develop strategic planning. SWOT analysis assesses internal and external factors, as well as current and future potential. Strengths - Strengths describe what an organization excels at and what separates it from the competition: a strong brand, loyal customer base, a strong balance sheet, unique technology, and so on. Weaknesses - Weaknesses stop an organization from performing at its optimum level. They are areas where the business needs to improve to remain competitive: a weak brand, higher-than-average turnover, high levels of debt, an inadequate supply chain, or lack of capital. Opportunities - Opportunities refer to favorable external factors that could give an organization a competitive advantage. For example, change sin tariffs may speed up entering a new export market, increasing sales and market share. Threats - Threats refer to factors that have the potential to harm an organization. Common threats include things like rising costs for materials, increasing competition, tight labor supply.Disadvantages include: Many organizations spend half their time looking internally at strengths and weaknesses. Disruptive organizations stay focused on learning outside of the You have to be willing to walk away from some customers in order to run toward the future. The modern SWOT A modern approach to the SWOT using a Gap Analysis to see the gap between expectations. By establishing this SWOT as a survey, organisations can have more specific assessment in critical quadrants of the business model Business model SWOT The SWOT analysis help you explore the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your business model and visualize on a canvas where business model canvas needs to improve. To analyse the company's business model against the 9 building blocks of the Business Model Canvas  we use a list of analytical questions (derived from OSTERWALDER and PIGNEUR 2010) that you should reflect on in order to determine exactly what areas of your business model need adaptations and where you should focus strategic or planning gaps. It also has the benefit that progress on achieving those objectives can be similarly measured using the same SWOT approach comparatively 2-3 years later. The numeric SWOT The use of conventional SWOT analysis is based on the qualitative analysis and has no means of determining the importance of each SWOT factor. Turning your SWOT into a numeric representation provides a useful outcome by using the traditional brainstorming approach first and then to prioritise gaps providing a numeric value. Overall, it does helps organisations learn about themselves as well as competitors and can be used as the foundation for developmental strategies. Recommended...

    11 分钟

  4. 2022/10/16

    Who is the customer?

    Want to streamline your business efforts and grow faster at the same time? Then focus your business design on your key customer target straight away. Be bold, slice off the others … here are my examples where multiple customer segments nearly sunk these businesses. Support Diary of a Business Designer Key takeaways You can read all about segmentation and how to focus on specific customers in most marketing, business model, lean canvas, and design thinking books. The bottom-line premise is: Different groups have different needs, different problemsThey use different mediums and channels to purchaseThey have differing buyer behavior's, demographics, and personasDiffering common interests, social drivers, criteria, experience expectations and so on Whatever the need for your desperation to find more customers, it cant be said more than 100 times by all market gurus out there … Focus on one customer, one type, one category, delight a person of one, and create the perfect the experience for that one until you get it right And if that doesn’t work, let go and move onto the next customer type, or maybe you got desperate for a good reason .. and something else needs to seriously change. WASTE ONE: … what happens when you chase all customers and delight none. WASTE TWO: …when you mix up the value proposition. In two companies, a start-up and a scale-up I worked with .. they both struggled with spreading the message widely across multiple audience groups. The first example was a scale-up. They were trying to meet the needs of current investors, the Board, advocacy groups, end-users, HR professionals, c-suite, two different industry targets, health professionals and provide public health information. Fast forward 2 years, the target audience has been re-focused into 3 purposeful groups: potential funders, health professional advisors and for impact advocacy. From 12 to 3, revenue began to lift, and profitability and stress levels improved. Frenetic desperation versus a focused measured path. The second example, a start-up. Over time, the desire to gain investment began to move the focus of the target audience away from the end-user customer and their experience, towards investor demographics and needs. The business was forgetting to delight the end-user audience of one and over several years end-user repeat business began to falter. Fast forward two years, we creating two separate distinct audiences, with separate websites and messaging .. and the result was yielding far better outcomes. In summary .. carve out a primary focus audience, once that one succeeds, then move onto the next. Good reads on Amazon The Startup Owner's Manual - Steve Blank, the guru of customer development! Value Proposition Design – Strategyzer Timestamps: [00:49] What is segmentation?[01:29] The desperation factor[02:41] Waste 1 – Chasing all customers[04:01] Waste 2 – Mixed propositions[06:02] Example 1 – a scale-up[07:46] Example 2 – a start-up[09:26] Be bold

    10 分钟

  5. 2022/10/08

    Business Advisors – pros and cons

    I have observed how business advisors have both enhanced and destroyed several business models, especially during the scaleup phase. If you are an entrepreneur or small business CEO, take heed .. there are lessons learned on building a solid business advisory network to help grow your business. Support Diary of a Business Designer Key takeaways Why business advisors A business advisor is anyone who can help you solve business problems, lend an ear or shoulder, or bridge a gap in your knowledge and skills. When challenges seem insurmountable in your business, or you are stuck for growth, ideas or specific skills .. then see an advisor to help you achieve: have specific goals you can't meetare dealing with an issue you don’t know how to solveneed specialist support. Business owners Visionary entrepreneurs have that constant desire to change things for the better, but may be more idealistic than realistic, meaning they may not be the best person to run or grow a business. Beyond problem-solving alone, most businesses are also looking for ways to ensure their practices are up to scratch, challenge their way of thinking, and accelerate their strategy, and as a business evolves, the range of challenges it’s likely to face can expand exponentially. Growth of the business. Expansion into new markets.Organisational change and transformation.Handling a major crisis or critical incident.Navigating a business sale, exit or acquisition.Tackling a specific business problem. Advisory Board Centre model notes that until businesses are generating $4m+ in revenue, they are unlikely to utilise Advisory Boards, or might have some occasional project-related advisors to stimulate business long the way. https://www.advisoryboardcentre.com/ Smaller businesses generally seek advice informally.Incubator and accelerator programs aim for higher quality engagement of advisors in their programs.Established businesses are more likely to engage an advisory board during periods of change or growth. Advisory can go terribly wrong Friends and family can be inexperienced or too agreeableBoards from the same industry and same skills, can be too agreeable and have common blind-spots Advisory can go incredibly well with diversity Good reads Business Model ME: How I developed my own business modelBusiness Model You: A One-Page Method For Reinventing Your CareerIDEOU – Designing a Business  Timestamps: [00:47] Why have a business advisor[03:12] Small business needs[04:34] When advisory goes terribly wrong[05:17] Example 1 – unprofitable model[06:19] Example 2 – lack of diversity[06:59] Example 3 – medical advisory boards[07:39] When advisory goes well

    9 分钟

  6. 2022/10/01

    Using the Three Horizons framework for business strategy

    The three horizons framework has remained an enduring means to inform business strategy and build long term sustainability. In this episode I share my experiences where I used the three horizons to create business growth, identify innovation and pivot organisations. How have you used this framework?

    11 分钟

  7. 2022/09/25

    How a customer journey map made $70m

    Have you ever wondered what customer journeys maps are, and how you can use them to grow your business? For me, they show how a person moves from one step to the next for some goal or outcome to be achieved. In this episode I describe how one customer journey map created a new $70m revenue business within 18 months.

    12 分钟

  8. 2022/09/17

    Challenging the status quo

    Have you ever started a new job and went to listen to someone’s pride product or sat in on a management meeting and thought .. oh no this is a nightmare, its cringeworthy, fallen behind and just terrible! Yet everyone else is nodding like its the emperor’s new clothes, that everything is fine and alright because the boss has deemed it so, or its always worked this way? So how do you change the status quo? Let me share my 5 tips to being the change agent no matter what level you work at in any organisation.Support Diary of a Business Designer Key takeaways 1.      Listen, learn – don’t shoot off at the mouth Do product discoveryDo operations discovery 2.      Find the coalition of the willing, the decision makes and the obstaclesEmperor’s new clothes …. a story by Hans Christian Andersen where only fools could not see the emperor’s new clothes - the emperor indeed walked around naked, and everyone (including himself) agreed they could see them. This was a situation in which people are afraid to criticize something because everyone else seems to think it is good or important. Through discovery, you find a coalition of the willing. Hence you realise that others were silently agreeing with your same observations and did not know how to break the status quo. 3.      Fact base conversations is not emotional statements, outbursts of proclamations nor negative commentaryasking permission to review further, to participate in suggestionscollect facts, metrics, measures, examplesbring others on the journeytransparency, and open offer to participateopen interviews with willing, unwilling and obstaclesavoid assumptions You do get a backlog of what a better solution might be, the magnitude of change, and an idea of how willing participation is. 4.      Change by incremental areas of control (bottom up) "Sphere of influence, sphere of control." Popularised by Stephen Covey, this concept explores three spheres: ... Human beings can choose where they focus their energy and attention. The Zone of control (or span of control) includes all those things in a system that we can change on our own. The Sphere of influence includes activities that we can impact to some degree but can't exercise full control over. Weigh up the odds, from your backlog of what can be changed What are the risks or where will you fail? 5.      Pick your battles People would be well-advised to select a specific issue of importance to focus on, rather than trying to deal with too many things at once Carefully determine who was in and out. Leave those battles for another day Recommended Books:The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen R, Covey)Strategic Storytelling: How to Create Persuasive Business Presentations (McKinsey, Dave) Moments of Impact: How to Design Strategic Conversations That Accelerate Change (Ertel, Chris; Solomon, Lisa Kay) Timestamps:...

    13 分钟
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In these changing times, you know your business needs a fresh approach to its strategy. Dina Goebel shares 40 years of business design experiences and tips on how to future-proof your business for long-term success. She shares up-front experiences on what works, and doesn't work, rather than just dwelling on theories. Visit her website: diaryofabusinessdesigner.com to download resources and ask questions.

信息

  • 创作者
    Dina Goebel
  • 活跃年份
    2022年
  • 单集
    14
  • 分级
    儿童适宜
  • 版权
    © Copyright 2024 Dina Goebel
  • 节目网站
    Diary of a Business Designer

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