Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bernd Nurnberger on June 17, 2009 at 4:14pm

Great to hear you left an impression with the publishers. Had this in my mailbox today,

Today I want to tell you about creating your own 'technology. ' People tell me this is one of the most intriguing elements in my Special Report at http://www.WriteABookNow.com/indexmain.shtml

This is of particular interest to writers who want to write non-fiction. If that's not what you want, don't worry. Read on anyway. It could trigger a few interesting thoughts.

Just about every best-selling non-fiction author must distinguish himself, or herself, from every other writer in the field. They can't just write the same old stuff everyone else is writing. They must differentiate. Not only for their reader's benefit, but for the publisher as well.

If you go to a publisher and you say you've written a book on a specific topic, the first question will be 'what makes your book different from that of everyone else?' If you can't answer that, then you're not going to get to first base with that publisher, (or editor or agent).

In fact, that's the biggest complaint I hear from people who want to write non-fiction. They can't seem to make the agent or the editor aware that what they've got is very different from everything else now on the market.

Believe me, if you can't do that, your career as a non-fiction writer has ended before it has even begun.

This is in the mail from Steve Manning , who I believe is a capable bookwriting coach but operates his marketing on autopilot. He rightfully insists you send him small writing exercises to get you going creatively towards your own goals. But then, he did not reply to any of my 3 submissions, his autopilot just tries to sell his course. Guess what I do.


Now, on to chunking the 14th chunk.

Permalink Reply by John Sutherland on June 17, 2009 at 4:20pm

HI Alex


When we met we talked about how Ennova's practice is as much or more about implementation of business model innovation as it is about creating the ideas.

So there is lots for me to add here. (Potentially) From our perspective - prototyping and evaluation go hand in hand (chunks 14 and 13). That's because a prototype is simply a way to evaluate the viability of an idea.

Let me start with some simple definitions that we use.
Prototyping (testing pieces separately, e.g. bench testing a new technology)
Piloting (putting it all together into an offering with paying customers)
Operational Scaling (growing to full size)

Evaluations and prototypes are all about risk and reward management.
Risks
Risks have two important characteristics. The first is the estimation of what bad thing would occur. (E.g. we lose a lot of money) The second is the probability of it occurring. Both of these characteristics represent uncertainties.
First, so exactly how much will we lose if this thing doesn't work, or has a negative impact on our brand. What exactly is the cost to us? We don't know - we are uncertain. Second, how likely is this to happen. We don't know that either - we are uncertain.

Rewards
The same logic applies to rewards.

So when evaluating what we are really doing is assessing the UNCERTAINTIES attached to our risk/reward profile. AND as the business model idea gets more bold the level of uncertainties rise. That's what causes fear, and why most business model ideas are so tame. People get excited about the idea until they start to evaluate the Risks/rewards and they experience a whole lot of uncertainty. Businesses don't like uncertainty. They are built on managing and controlling everything to reduce uncertainties. So they are culturally bred to resist bold ideas which create lots of uncertainties. The typical reaction to high uncertainty is to take the BOLD idea and make it tame. How often have we seen that?

This is the biggest barrier (in our opinion) to your message of Let's do Bold Business Model Innovations. So to help you move this forward, here's the process we use to resolve that issue. Use whatever you'd like.

One. All change occurs in a project. So change the focus of project management from milestones and activities to uncertainty management. (We use a canvas (attached) to create the risk/reward profile and from that identify the critical uncertainties that flow from it.)

Two. Enable a team to take action (prototyping, experiments, pilots, etc.) on the uncertainties to turn them into known quantities. This reduces the risks and enhances the rewards at low cost (Experiments prototypes) allowing the organization to keep the Bold idea BOLD.

Three. Track the resultant costs and benefits along the way to assess whether to continue the project. (see Canvas again)

Four There are interesting structural components (how it's set up, funded and managed) that reduce the risks, but that for another day.

The key messages of chunks 13 and 14 to allow companies to Be BOLD without the risk.
1. Explicitly identify the uncertainties in both rewards and risks.
2. Change Project management over to Uncertainty management
3. Structure teams and actions to reduce the uncertainties (experiments, prototypes, etc.)
4. Track Costs Benefits to determine Whether to fail or continue.

If they do that, you can keep the idea bold and resist the temptation of dragging the new business model design back into a design closer to what already exists.

Manage the uncertainties and you can stay bold without the risk.

Two files for you to learn more are included:
A canvas and a description of the canvas.

I know you are on a track in writing the book with a flow in mind and what I've written here doesn't match with your flow.

I wrote it in the hope there are a couple of nuggets here for you.

John

Permalink Reply by shridhar lolla on June 17, 2009 at 7:02pm

John;

Very nice to see your advice on changing focus of project management from milestones and activities to uncertainity (management). And it works so well, especially, in concept and design work. Fundamentally, a Project is a probabilistic entity and often we try to be deterministic by focusing on milestones. Managing uncertainity is the way to manage project better. Sometime back I deed read "critical chain" and it gives a wholesome perspective on this.
shridhar lolla

Permalink Reply by Mike Lachapelle on June 22, 2009 at 1:23pm

Thank you John;

This was a most interesting post. It struck a very loud note of familiarity for me. I am currently working with a federal government department on changing their business model. At the point of decision, the older guard of the leadership pulled back from some very creative ideas generated by the collective, saying it's all been tried before and failed. I think they may be closing their eyes to a changing environment and denying the demands of their clients and the central agencies to change the way they work.

Also, thanks for the documents. I found them enlightening. I believe you are correct in looking at this topic as an extension of the current book; but it is a natural extension of the ideas. Perhaps the next book "Business Model Generation - from concept to implementation". However, I hope this line of discussion becomes a focus of the Hub. I would love to hear about the experience of others around the world, in various domains, on guiding the implementation of a new business model.

Permalink Reply by John Sutherland on July 2, 2009 at 5:09pm

Contact me if you'd like and I can share some experiences about how the implementation canvass reduces their stress levels. Once they twig into the idea of uncertainty management rather than Milestone management the stress is reduced.

Although Federal Gov't perhaps not so much.

John

Permalink Reply by Alan Smith on June 30, 2009 at 11:10pm

John this is awesome!

Permalink Reply by John Sutherland on June 17, 2009 at 4:44pm

Here are the files I mentioned.

John

Attachments:

• Implementation Profiler.pps, 2.4 MB
• Implementation Profile.pdf, 252 KB

Permalink Reply by Alex Osterwalder on July 2, 2009 at 2:51pm

John, with a bit delay my response: This is excellent. I very much appreciated your presentation on iPod vs. Sony. It beautifully illustrates the approach you developed.

I fully agree that a good business model idea alone is not sufficient for success. The organizational perspective you provide - particularly the push-backs - explain why many big organizations fail to innovate.

I am not quite sure what we will be able to integrate in the book. The implementation perspective is definitely for a (potential) next book. What I could very well imagine (partially depending on time pressure) is an extension of the evaluation of business models were your insights provide a lot of value.

Thanks for sharing! This is how I imagine the future of the Hub: a joint sharing of experience, insights and the conceptual tools that we each develop in our little corner.

Permalink Reply by John Sutherland on July 2, 2009 at 5:06pm

Thanks Alex

Wasn't expecting you to incorporate much of any of this. However if you want to pull out some key ideas go right ahead.

John

Permalink Reply by Bernd Nurnberger on June 17, 2009 at 4:47pm

Prototyping ... I like the concise introduction, it makes the usefulness of the modeling approach shine and robs a few illusions. Experimentation is key, and the prototypes become silent teachers.

On page 5, in order to inspire action, if it does not break the tone you want to give your creation, I would change the caption to active voice, e.g.

A rough business model canvas is
sketched out including only key
elements to describe the idea.

->

Sketch out a rough model canvas.
Include only key elements to
describe the idea.

- outline the idea
- include value proposition (usually)
- include main revenue streams

Design Attitude is very important, thank you for explaining one of the root causes of misunderstanding in co-developing teams. What one sees as a draft blueprint for a tool, the other takes as the tool (it works to some degree) and ends up producing tools instead of the intended final product.

p. 7 Title, I would spell out "protoype", even at giving up a few points of font size. Prototype is the core message of this chapter.

p. 9 is great. Where do I apply? Here the active voice is so clear, maybe as a contrast to p.5,? Then do not follow my suggestions.

Permalink Reply by Alex Osterwalder on July 2, 2009 at 2:54pm

Bernd, thanks for the detailed comments. We'll integrate them when reviewing the content!

Permalink Reply by Rod on June 18, 2009 at 1:17am

Hi Alex,
Congratulations to you and the team's effort for producing the 14th chunk. Of all chunks, I seem to have enjoyed chunk 14 the most; probably because it contains the core tenets of innovation, irrespective of the domain - what Rita Gunther McGrath would call "Discovery-driven Learning." Also, I very much like the idea of "scalable prototyping."

I believe that you and the team are on to creating a 'classic.'

Once again, congrats. And keep up the good work.

Rod.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page