Part 8 (1/2)
Two combination frameworks appear often enough in problem- solving pictures that we're going to look at them in detail over the coming pages.
CHAPTER 8.
SHOWING AND THE VISUAL THINKING MBA.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Start Your Pens After we've identified our problem, selected the appropriate showing framework, and further focused our ideas using the SQVID, the next step is to put pen to paper (or napkin or whiteboard) and start drawing. There are two ways we can look at what we're about to do. If we're a Black Pen person, it's going to be the easiest thing in the world; if we're a Red Pen person, it's going to be impossible, and there's no way we'll produce anything worth showing anybody. Both views are wrong. Drawing our picture is going to be harder than expected for the artistically gifted among us (because we'll be forcing our brains into potentially unfamiliar a.n.a.lytic processes); and it's going to be easier than expected for the ”I'm not visual” crowd (because we'll be taking unexpected advantage of a.n.a.lytic capabilities we use all the time). The important thing to keep in mind at this point is that we already know what to do. We looked well, we saw clearly, we imagined confidently-we've even got our starting framework selected.
Here's how this is going to work: Since each framework requires a different way of approaching a drawing, we're going to run through an example or two of each. That is plenty enough to cover everything we've talked about in the book so far, but nowhere near enough to cover every problem we might face in the world. But that's the real beauty of visual thinking. It doesn't take many pictures to see how just a few frameworks and rules make any problem easy to picture.
The Visual Thinking MBA: Putting It All to Work In business school, MBA students and executives rely on case studies to put into practice the theories of finance, operations, marketing, and management that they've learned in the cla.s.sroom. Whether based on actual companies facing historically accurate business challenges or hypothetical situations featuring fictional businesses, the case studies are the backbone of MBA programs because they make abstract ideas ”real.” In part III, we're going to take the same approach. By walking through a detailed case study, we're going to make the tools and rules of visual thinking come alive.
Using a fict.i.tious software company in crisis as a backdrop, we're going to put everything we've discussed into play: the visual thinking process, the SQVID, the <6><6> model, and the codex. To really show how effective visual thinking can be in understanding a complex business problem, we're going to use these tools to create pictures covering everything we would see in a business school seminar. Starting with customer research, we'll then move through marketing and product development, financial a.n.a.lysis, project planning, and finally strategic decision making. In short, there's going to be a lot to look at.
As with any rigorous case study, there are two ways to approach this: either as a top-level scan or as a detailed deep dive. To help readers who want to make a quick scan, this case study is broken into six chapters, one showcasing each of the six visual frameworks. If you're mainly interested in the frameworks themselves, read just the first two or three summary pages of each chapter-you'll still get a great sense of the overall business story.
If you're interested in following the entire line of reasoning in detail, start from the beginning. As you work your way through, you'll notice that each picture is created step by step over a series of frames-almost like a stop-action animation-to help you see exactly how each is composed. Either way-scan or deep dive-this is where solving business problems with pictures becomes real.
The Case Study Scenario Imagine that we work for an accounting software company called Super Accounting Exchange Incorporated, or SAX Inc. SAX has been designing and selling specialized accounting software for use by large organizations since 1996, and although SAX isn't a very big company, our flags.h.i.+p product has been an industry benchmark for nearly a decade. In our niche industry there are presently five main compet.i.tors, all with their own approaches to the business and all with their own strengths and weaknesses. The five are: SAX Inc. (That's us) SMSoft Inc.
Peridocs Incorporated Univerce LLC MoneyFree So here's the problem: For the past two years our sales have gone flat while sales at the other companies have continued to rise. Our latest product release a year ago introduced many new features, making our software the most feature-rich available, but our customers' reception has been lukewarm. Our sales reps complain that they're having an increasingly hard time selling our expensive software, given the rise of ”open-source freeware” over the past year. Such freeware-typically created by loosely affiliated developers unenc.u.mbered by the overhead costs and shareholder demands seen in a bigger business like ours-is making increasing inroads into the technology industry everywhere. So far no open-source freeware comes close to our feature set, but that won't last forever. We don't know exactly what we need to do before we lose significant market share, but we know we have to do something. So let's move on to chapter 9 and start at the beginning, with our customers.
Starting with a basic who problem at SAX Inc., we're going to run through all six frameworks, creating several pictures that take us from defining the problem to arriving at a solution.
A NOTE ON THE PICTURES WE'LL BE CREATING
Before we get started, it's worth revisiting an earlier comment about the images in this book. Everything we're about to create is intended to be drawn by hand: on a whiteboard, on a yellow pad, on the back of a napkin, on whatever drawing surface you might have in front of you. In the introduction I said that Daphne's strategy chart was the first and last picture in the book to be created on a computer, and that remains true. While computers are insanely wonderful tools for countless applications, I can't think of anything that they add to visual thinking at this level-while I can think of several things they take away. In fact, because using a computer seems to mask a number of our basic cognitive tasks-especially the unexpected ideas that emerge when we put pen to paper-relying on computers at this stage is more likely to undermine our visual thinking abilities than to advance them.
On the plus side, it's also true that computers make the composition and finis.h.i.+ng of the more advanced pictures infinitely easier than anything we can do by hand, are essential for creating accurate quant.i.tative images, and are irreplaceable presentation and communication tools. Those points are all not trivial. That's why appendix C is included: It addresses which software I find most useful for further developing each framework, and introduces a few simple software tricks that will be helpful if you decide to go the entirely digital (and I don't mean fingers) route.
But for now, let's stay with pens and napkins: It's good practice for the next time we meet someone interesting at an airport bar.
CHAPTER 9.
WHO ARE OUR CUSTOMERS?.
PICTURES THAT SOLVE A WHO/WHAT PROBLEM.
The Customer Crisis We all agree: We don't know our customers as well as we should anymore, and in order to figure out which customers to go out and talk to, we need to create a portrait of who we think they are. Let's pick large client company and use what we know about it to create a sample baseline customer profile. We know that our baseline will contain a lot of information, that we'll want to be able to look at it from many different angles, and that we'll share it inside and outside our company, so it makes sense to create a picture.
We already know how to pick the right framework: Look it up on the Visual Thinking Codex. In this case our problem is about people (who our customers are), so the codex tells us to start with a portrait, or qualitative representation.
Recall that the first way of seeing was who and what, meaning that we saw objects that we recognized because of distinct visual qualities: their components, shape, proportion, size, color, texture, etc. To show to others what we saw, we create a portrait (or qualitative representation) that represents the most evident of those qualities, emphasizing especially those that made our object visually distinct from others. While portraits don't show how many of something there are, where they are, or when and how they interact-all of which are addressed by the other specific frameworks-they do provide the starting point by helping us identify and keep track of who is who and what is what.
Portraits: General Rules of Thumb Think simple. The goal isn't to be Rembrandt. In fact, an overly elaborate or cute picture inevitably draws too much attention to itself and distracts from the essence of the idea to be conveyed. The simpler, the better: Think visually telegraphing an idea rather than painting the whole picture .
Illuminate lists. The purpose of creating a business portrait is to trigger the unexpected qualitative ideas that emerge when the hands and the mind's eye work together. Visually representing someone or something (regardless of actual likeness or detail) always triggers insights that writing a list alone cannot achieve.
Visually describe. When time is limited (and in business, time is always limited), pictures always make for better comparisons than verbal descriptions. Comparative portraits can be as simple as a series of smiley faces. Adding even that thin a visual aspect brings objects to life and makes them memorable.
Renderings, profiles, plans, elevations, diagrams: There are lots of kinds of portraits, but all show the same things-the recognizable qualities that differentiate objects.
Creating even the simplest of portraits engages the mind's eye.
Even the sparest of portraits make comparisons come alive.
With these ideas in mind, let's go back to our customer portrait. With our framework selected, we then look across the SQVID, answering its five questions as we go.
Simple or elaborate? Given that this is our first effort at visually portraying our customers, we'd be better off with something simple. Qualitative or quant.i.tative? For now, this is just a portrait, not a numeric representation, so by default it will be qualitative. Vision or execution? As a baseline, we're not yet talking about where we'd like to go or how to get there, so that question doesn't matter for this picture; let's skip it. Individual or comparison? Since we'll be looking across the whole range of customers, this will be a comparison. Change or as is? Since we're hoping to see the baseline, our picture will be as is for now, although depending on what we find, we may want to show change at some point. Summing up, this is a pretty simple starting framework-a simple, qualitative portrait of a few customer types, something like this: ???. Now we're finally ready to draw.
What to start with? Before thinking too hard, it's helpful to know that although the first mark on the napkin is the most difficult to make, it is also among the least important. We'll be adding to it, altering it, and possibly erasing it entirely. It's more important that we get something down on paper than worry too much about what it is. A good way to start any picture is to draw a circle and give it a name. Since we've already agreed that we don't know our customers as well as we should, let's start with something we do know-us.
Let's start with a simple circle and then give it a name.
Since a portrait is intended to help us identify one object from another, let's add something visual to make ”us” more distinctly us-our building, for example.
Remember this is a portrait, so let's add our building to make us more recognizable.
Does seeing ourselves portrayed this way trigger any ideas about how to show our sample client? How about we add them in the same way?
We add in our client and already we've got a good picture going.
Even this spare picture starts to show us something about the relations.h.i.+p between us and our client, and helps our mind's eye begin imagining ways to create a portrait of our customers.
So if we're going to be showing people, why don't we again start with our own? That won't tell us anything about our customers, but drawing us (who we know so well) will get us in the right frame of mind for thinking about them.