is it a puzzle, or is it a mystery? three tools for solving mysteries…… with the wisdom of...

Is It a Puzzle, Or Is It a Mystery?

Three Tools For Solving Mysteries…… with The Wisdom of Crowds

David E. Schnedler

314 983-0025

schnedlr@pacbell.net

St. Louis Product Management GroupApril 27, 2010

Puzzles and Mysteries?

To solve a puzzle we must find the missing pieces to the puzzle – we need the missing data…

But mysteries require judgments and the assessment of uncertainty, and the hard part is not that we have too little information but that we have too much.

Gregory Treverton

Product Managers deal with both Puzzles and Mysteries every day

PuzzlesPricingForecastingPositioning

MysteriesWhat will our users want three years from now?How will our competitive landscape change in the 3-5 year time frame?What new business opportunities are about to emerge?What is our most nefarious competitor about to do to us?

The Wisdom Of Crowds

“Groups are remarkably intelligent, and are smarter than the smartest people in them”

“A large group of diverse individuals will come up with better and more robust forecasts and make more intelligent decisions than even the most skilled decision maker.”

James Surowiecki

Is The Competitive Landscape Best Analyzed By One Person, Or By Many?

Michael Porter’s Five Forces

Or This?

Michael Porter’s Value Chain

Or This?

CloudComputing

CloudComputing

Three Conditions For Collective Wisdom

Diversity

Independence

Size

For Solving Puzzles Prediction Markets Are A Powerful Collective Intelligence Tool

Pricing Scheduling Sales Forecasting Event probability Environmental and Competitive Predictions Risk and Uncertainty

But How Can Diffuse Knowledge and Wisdom Be Captured and Concentrated

Upon These Mysteries?

The conundrum of middle management is that solving a mystery is not enough – the challenge is to do so in an emotionally engaging manner which demands implementation of an actionable solution.

Three Mystery Busting Methodologies

Primary Consideration Choice Benefits

Beating the competition: War Games

•Best tool for promoting insightful knowledge of the competition•Excellent tool for anticipating competitive moves or countermoves• Excellent means for wind tunneling an action before it is taken •Suitable for both strategic and tactical decision making

Picking the right strategy: Charrettes

• Best tool for generating creative new strategies and for broadening thinking about strategic alternatives•Increases awareness of choice. •Increases awareness of the probabilistic nature of strategic choice, including expected outcomes, probabilities, risk profiles, and degrees of difficulty

Anticipating the future:

Scenario Planning

•Best tool for creative idea generation and new opportunity identification•Excellent for industries anticipating rapid or discontinuous change• Elevates external awareness•Promotes consideration of all facets of the business environment•Broadens thinking about opportunities and threats, and for breaking a status quo mindset•Excellent tool for explicitly identifying the underlying business plan assumptions

Scenario Planning: the future is shaped by a confluence of forces and trends…

Business Environment

TechnologyCompetition

Lgislation

Although the future cannot be precisely foretold, these forces and their interplay can be understood…

Scenario Planning

1. Choosing the core team2. Defining the Objective and time frame3. Brainstorming, consolidating and ranking forces and

trends4. Breakout teams with content experts5. Development and elaboration of scenarios6. For each scenario, identify the optimal strategy7. Cross analyze the strategies8. Identify next steps

War Games1. Defining the objective2. Selecting the competitors3. Designing the teams4. Choosing the venue5. Researching and preparing the briefing books6. Designing the games7. Embedding the facilitators8. Judge Judy9. Post Game Washup/next steps/actions/owners

Charrettes

1. Researching and Writing the Business Case

2. Designing the teams

3. Choosing the venue

4. Running the event

5. Presenting and defending the work product

6. Analysis, integration and convergence

Prediction Market Applications

War Games Predict the success of different competitor moves

CharrettesMeasure the relative attractiveness of alternative strategies

Scenario Planning

Predict the likelihood of external events and scenarios

Anonymous Voting Methodologies Can Subsequently Be Utilized To Assess The Results

Four Factors For Success

Timing Preparation Venue Participants

Diversity Independent mindednessSize

Final Caveats

You will be surprised

You will have fun