Do you have to produce project summaries? This can be difficult if you’ve been engrossed in the project – your head is so full of details that you can’t see the wood for the trees, and it’s hard to write a succinct summary. One solution is to work with a colleague. Surprisingly, this can save you both time, if you reciprocate. It’s a proven technique: we know several insight teams that find it very effective.

There are three simple parts of the process:

• Talk about your project to your colleague (they might want to take notes).
• Get them to ask you what a reader might ask (e.g. what was the key question you wanted to answer; what answers did you get; what are the implications; etc.?)
• Ask them to write a top line summary of the project: they should be able to do this fairly quickly.

Producing a summary might take you, say, well over an hour by yourself (and you might have to check it and rewrite it later), but the two of you could probably complete it in half an hour or less. Go on – try it and see!

PEDANTIC PAULA

This is the fourth in a set of 'pen portraits' of different types of internal clients, and the issues you may need to address when working with them.

Pedantic Paula

Paula is a Brand Director, and takes a very keen interest in any figures and analyses: she loves looking at every little detail, and is suspicious of the numbers unless she has seen everything for herself. This can cause clashes with colleagues who are trying to take a broader view and don’t want to get bogged down in too much detail.

To get Paula on-side, you will need both patience and prediction. You need patience to allow extra time to meet her needs separately; and prediction to see in advance the areas that may cause her concern. Wherever possible, you could show her the detail before the results are presented. You can also try and forestall any awkward questions at the presentation itself, if these are likely to detract from the key messages that are due to be explained.

To find out more about how you can deal with Paula's insistence, click here.

Next edition - meet Driven Dave...  

ONE RULE FOR ALL? 

In any fairly large business, the directors and senior executives – and even sometimes the rest of the staff – receive special treatment from their own company: in other words, they enjoy a different level of service from that received by their customers. This can make it difficult for senior staff to stay in touch with the customers’ true needs and feelings. In effect, they are protected from the realities of what is really happening at the ‘sharp end’ of the business.

In some companies, directors avoid this problem by regularly spending time in the store or with staff who are in direct contact with customers. However, these cases tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

Insight teams can – and perhaps should – at least draw attention to this problem by making senior staff aware of the differences between the service they and their customers are receiving. At the very least, this can be a useful way of raising their awareness that they may not have a true perception of any potential issues.

If you would like to know more about this topic, please click here.

DEVELOPING SKILLS

Are you providing insight when it isn’t really needed? The urge towards ‘overkill’ can be very tempting, but don’t try and deliver a Rolls Royce when a pick-up truck is needed!

To find out if – and how much – insight is needed is a useful skill in itself. You need a good blend of common sense and a clear understanding of your customers’ needs. Try using the classic triangle of cost, time and quality to identify the elements that are most important to your internal client for each piece of work. You can then start to give more well-informed advice on methods, budgets, suppliers and levels of insight.

Different levels of insight will be required in different situations, so don’t waste time and resources by producing insight that isn’t actually needed. Similarly, when you’re writing reports, try not to waffle on interminably when a few key figures will suffice. 

To learn more about the different levels of insight, please click here.

 THE FIVE MEASURES OF VALUE

More and more insight personnel are realising the importance of putting financial values to the outcomes and results of their work (we covered some aspects of this subject in our first newsletter). However, actually doing this may still not be routine.

Here’s something that may help. Always look for ‘The five measures of value’:

Acquisition – how could these results help us to find and attract new customers?
Retention – how do they affect the retention of existing customers?
Cross-sell and up-sell – can we sell more products or a higher value product to increase the overall value that we get from existing customers?
Costs – do they show us ways in which we can save money?
Risk – how does what we’ve learnt help us to reduce risk to the business and decrease the likelihood of losing money?

Try pinning a prompt list on the back of your desk. And remember – there will be very few instances where your work doesn’t have an impact on at least one of these factors.

TIP OF THE MONTH

Tools of the Trade

If you want a very useful – and free – resource that covers a wide range of business issues in an entertaining and inspirational way, try visiting www.businessballs.com. This website is absolutely packed with useful details – including a wide range of marketing, management and training tools and resources.

The site includes:

• Explanations of all the main marketing and business models
• A wide array of HR resources
• Management and leadership theories and models
• Amusing and inspiring stories and quotes
• Team games, quizzes and exercises

To find out a few more details, just click here. We also would also like to hear about any helpful websites that you’ve discovered!

TRAINING

Our three training courses in February in March were a great success so we plan to run them again in the Autumn. If you are interested in going on any of them please do let us know and we will then send you the dates as soon as they are set.

Please Click here for more details

FEEDBACK

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Please email us at feedback@cisolutions.co.uk with any comments you have about its content, its style, or with requests for items that you would like to see.

If you have a difficult problem that you are having trouble solving - such as a Marketing Director who insists on ignoring unwelcome insights; or an issue that is challenging your team on the journey towards insight - please let us know. If we can make helpful suggestions we will, and if several people have a similar problem, we will write an article for 5-Minute Insights.

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