Mind Mapping

Mind Maps are an excellent way of brainstorming, or note-taking when studying or reading something analytically. Because of their visual nature, they make it much easier to digest and recall information. They are also fantastic for enabling subjects to be viewed in different ways, from different angles and for new and insightful connections to be made.

Anyone with a creative streak will love mind maps, as they encourage the use of colour, pictures and the free-form flow of ideas. Free mind mapping apps are powerful tools to have on the iPad. Visio also has “brainstorming” templates that can be used to record ideas in this fashion.

Click to view larger image

For example, this very basic mind map was created using “SimpleMind+”. Far more engaging to record study notes using this method than creating simple lists of data!

 

 

Tips for Mind Mapping

• One central theme per map
• Branches equal singular idea threads
• Use words with impact; aim for short, strong phrases
• Use colour
• Add imagery if possible

Keeping KPIs relevant

“You can only manage what you can measure”, but if it doesn’t matter, why spend too much time and energy measuring it? KPIs that don’t relate to the goals of the business are like ingredients that don’t belong in the pot and muddle the taste of the dish.

Clearly outlining and understanding departmental goals is the first step in developing solid, meaningful KPIs. Knowing what is truly a measure of success means linking each metric to an organisational goal. Just like the theory that having too many goals makes it hard to focus, having too many KPIs also dilutes focus.

Tether KPIs very strongly to the organisation goals for each primary function of the business and look to industry and competitive benchmarks for guidance; if improving a process speed is your objective, what do other company’s success metrics look like?

A matrix that plots organisation goals, KPIs and benchmarks across the functions of the business (HR, Finance, Sales, Marketing, R&D, IT, Design, Administration, Operations etc) can help clarify what’s really important.

Once the business goals and objectives have been listed, research can be done into what sort of KPIs would best measure process improvements, and input/output activity directly relating to those objectives.

Review metrics regularly as to whether they still relate to company goals.  If a metric no longer matters, is there still a need to measuring it?

Intrapreneur; the creative Change Agent

Not everyone wants to start their own company. But creative, innovative change agents are everywhere, hungry and passionate about what they do, happy to wear multiple hats and dream big about their day jobs.
 
During a conversation I had recently about mentorship programs the term “Intrapreneur” was discussed. It’s not a new word, apparently the term Intrapreneur was first coined in 1982.  But I do love it, such an aspirational notion!

Meet the Intrapreneur...those self-educating, self-motivators who are willing to take risks, set goals and challenge their peers and superiors to think and act differently, for the good of a company that is not their own. 

Those inventors and departmental protagonists who think about solving problems or creating new revenue streams in the car on the way home, over dinner, in the shower.

During the course of their careers, these characters are from time to time asked “Why don’t you start something up on your own?” 

Mitigating risk and maintaining stability are both valid reasons why most don’t go it alone. And that’s okay, the world needs Intrapreneurs!

It’s worth investing some time into finding out more about this character profile, to either better understand yourself (if you are one) or better understand how to manage, grow and inspire them (if you have one working for you).

Are you an Intrapreneur? If you’re the business owner, do you have one working for you?

The Entourage

Today I read an article in StartupSmart about The Entourage; according to their website, Australia’s largest group of entrepreneurs and executives under 40.

“With an obsolete education system that was designed when the world was flat, we believe that people are better off learning from people with “been there, done that” experience in their chosen field.”

The Entourage are focused on providing opportunities for entrepreneurs and executives to network. They also appear to have a vision and mission that revolves around creating a better future.

“We believe that creative solutions to pressing problems will come from entrepreneurial endeavors. When you combine commerce with charity, you can begin to offer a hand up rather than a hand out. This is what is required if we are to overcome the challenges we face.”

If you’re a young entrepreneur you might want to check out their “Young Entrepreneurs’ Unconvention”. Sounds like it would be an eye-opener!

Anatomy of a Plan

The Third Wave; a book review

Every now and then you read a book that stays with you for while after you finish it.

"...It is ironic that we spend so much energy as a nation debating how to deal with refugees arriving illegally in leaky boats…migration laws cannot protect our jobs from keen workers who remain in their own countries..."

The Third Wave: Micro-globalism and the coming employment crisis in Australia is a compilation of Scott Linden Jones’ theories on the future of employment in a global community. 

Currently in Australia, with some of the highest living standards and wages in the global economy, big and small businesses alike are exploring ways to reduce labour costs. We have seen our manufacturing industry pummelled as business shifts operations to countries that allow them to reduce costs and maximise profits. Our leaders are well aware of this and are talking up policy around these issues.

Thanks to technology, the increasing ease of access to a large body of skilled and inexpensive offshore labour is an enticing proposition for any capitalist. The trend towards offshore labour is one far less heralded in the political debate as we head towards our election.  Government and educational institutions need to start paying more attention.
 
Jones writes of his predictions and the impact that the brave new world of “micro-globalism” is having on the Australian economy. It is a world of both huge threat and equally huge opportunity, but as a country we need to start being hyper-aware of the situation that is unfolding; switch gears and start preparing our young people for potentially a very different employment landscape in the not too distant future.

It is not all doom and gloom, although halfway through the book you’re beginning to wonder if Jones sees any light at the end of the tunnel. He makes some very insightful and humbling observations about our deservedness with respect to the current crop of political leaders, our expectations and feelings of entitlement as a nation and our comparative work ethic.

He also explores ethics themselves and the place they will have in an increasingly competitive business landscape. What power will ethics hold over simple and effective capitalism?
 
A must read for Australians seeking to understand the new global landscape of economics and anyone with a position of influence over the future of our young people.

Synergistic Business Modelling

The analysis and architecture of a business should drive a synergistic relationship between the three core pillars of the Business Model.

A basic Business Model is made up of three core pillars.

• Market model studies the market and strategies that outline success
• Products and services model centres on developing the company’s offering
• Operations model is concerned with delivering the offering

A cohesive business is one where the various units, functions and capabilities in each of these pillars are aligned with the overarching vision and strategy of the company.

A Business Architect will look at how they can engineer, or re-engineer the business to create better alignment. A Business Analyst will elicit from the business the reasons why such engineering may need to take place and what goals the business has; fundamental business problems and the future state a company aspires to.

Both disciplines – architecture and analysis – require an understanding of how each of the core pillars (Market Model, Products and Services Model and Operations Model) interact with one another.  Both disciplines drive the strategy for and the realisation of better business processes and capability development. 

Customer Experience meets the Buyer’s Cycle

Maximising the potential relationship with a customer – for both parties – involves aligning the company’s operation and procedures with their client’s buying cycle. If this alignment is focused on the customer’s needs it can create avid and loyal fans as well as successful and fulfilling sales cycles.

A sustainable relationship is one where both supplier and customer benefit from the partnership, sales are made ethically and the supplier looks for ways to continuously improve their processes and procedures with the customer’s needs in mind. 

In return, a customer with needs that are met is more likely to be an advocate, providing referrals and leads that assist in growing the supplier’s business.

Client Profiling

Client profiling can be a useful tool for evaluating who your clients are now and who you’d like them to be into the future. The resulting gap is essentially your target client. So how do you spot them?


Who is the perfect client? To understand that, it helps to profile your current clients.

Why are they your customer?  What is their attitude towards what you have to offer; is there little awareness of what you can do for their business, or does your relationship afford them a strategic and competitive advantage?

For IT Service Providers, an interesting exercise is to try and determine their Operational Maturity Level with regards to technology. It helps to introduce your service offering in line with their needs and ideas about how technology supports their business.

Consider OML as a scale – at one end sit immature processes; minimal monitoring, constant fire-fighting, aging infrastructure and frequent user complaints about systems. At the other end, mature processes; efficient resource allocation, innovation and improvement programmes, Service Level Agreements and an optimised relationship between business needs and the IT that supports them.

Where are they located? Have you established a methodology for attracting clients in locations that would suit you best? Is it largely irrelevant or could geographical concentrations of clients greatly assist scheduling your service delivery?

Who is the key decision maker? Are the majority of your current clients’ decisions made by the Owner or Director? Does the appointed General Manager call the shots? Is a C-Suite presiding over signing your purchase orders or is it that the Financial Controller happens to be the one pulling purse strings? Which of these decision makers is the best at facilitating your relationship?

What industry are they in? Do you already play to an existing vertical that you are strong in; perhaps you’re not even aware that you do! What's the average seat size of your client base? 

Profiling the existing client base helps to uncover trends and could provide insights into how to position yourself; which trade shows and networking events should you be prospecting, where do other like-minded businesses hang out?  How many seats constitutes a good client for your business?

How profitable are these companies to your business? How easy is it to deal with them and extract money out of them at bill paying time? Are there any traits common across industry verticals or OML, or do you find profitability and behaviour patterns to be random?

Client profiling does a few of things. Firstly, such an analysis of your current client base forces you to zoom out and look at the bigger picture of the market you are selling to. 

It also involves taking some time out to look at each client in more detail and perhaps uncover insights you hadn’t noticed about them before.  It requires an examination of the existing information you have about these clients and such an examination can highlight flaws or holes in your current system. Is the information you are looking at accurate? How can you validate this?

Once you have a clear picture of your existing client base – your current state – you can start setting some goals around what you’d like the future state of your client base to look like. How do you envisage your client profile in 3 – 5 years, what are the gaps you need to fill to get there?

Architecture Development Method

Study notes on Enterprise Architecture...
(From The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF))

TOGAF – a framework for long term strategic business planning that can be applied to the current state, future state and resulting gaps to map out what assets and capabilities an enterprise has and how they can be utilised to achieve optimised outcomes and differentiation.

The Architecture Development Method (ADM) is a set of phases that help to work through planning and architecture development at all levels of business; applying the method to the strategic or high level, abstract business plans will create a set of outputs that then create inputs for more detailed, segmented business planning. This creates unity in business planning; all departments or business segments are playing from the same song sheet.

The various phases of the Architecture Development Method include:

• PR – the preliminary phase, sets up framework and principles
• AV – Architecture vision and documentation phase; Statement of Architecture Work outlines the Scope, stakeholder expectations and validates the context with regards to business needs.
• BA – Business Architecture; current state, future state and gaps
• ISA – Information Systems Architecture; data and systems, current state, future state and gaps
• TA – Technology Architecture; infrastructure current state, future state and gaps
• O&S – Identify Opportunities and Solutions for implementing change
• MP – Migration and Planning; road mapping, cost analysis, risk assessment
• IG – Implementation Governance; projects should conform to the architecture plans
• ACM – Architecture Change Management; optimising phase, enabling changes in the business to be supported by the architecture
• AM – Architecture Management; requirements management, continuous throughout all the phases. Change should be validated by the requirements of the business.

ADM is a process for making iterations to business plans and architecture. During the entire process, as well as between phases and within phases, the scope, details and milestones are considered for

• Planning and Capabilities
• Development
• Transition
• Governance