As an Insight team, you constantly need to find answers to different problems. But not all problems are the same! ‘The Thinker’s Toolkit’ by Morgan D. Jones breaks them down into four main categories:

Simplistic: Only one possible answer
Deterministic: Only one answer, but you will need to work it out
Random: Different answers are possible but all of the options can be identified
Indeterminate: Different answers are possible, but all of the possibilities can’t be identified            

Identifying the type of problem can help you to work out how to resolve it. A key aspect is knowing the degree to which judgement (rather that facts or data) is needed when providing an answer. Many business issues are indeterminate, and therefore some element of judgement is required. Sometimes we tend to leave this to the internal client, even though we are often better placed to make a good judgement.

To find out when you might need to exercise a little judgement, please click here.

TRADING PLACES 

When stakeholders go along to focus groups at viewing studios, they often find it hard to engage fully with the people they are watching. A little carefully considered role playing can make a world of difference to them.

Invite the stakeholders to arrive an hour before the focus group, and then ask them to pretend to take on another person’s identity – without telling them that the person they are role playing will actually be in the group that they will see later. When they subsequently see their real-life counterparts in the actual group, it makes it much easier for them to engage with them.

Because they can identify much more closely with the different characters, they can also start to identify with their problems and needs. In this way, an internal team can become much more focused on its customers. All it requires is a little extra effort and some careful pre-planning…

For more information on how to put this into practice, please click here.

GREEN GORDON

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

Green Gordon (Inexperienced - not environmental!)

Gordon is new and very bright (and he knows it!) However, he has virtually no business experience – it’s all theory. He’s nice but unrealistic and also ambitious. Because he knows a lot, he tends to overlook the fact that other people in the team have extensive knowledge and experience.

This can cause several problems:

• When he is involved in a project, he will ask for every detail that the theory dictates, and will suggest many different techniques.
• He doesn’t really understand the questions he needs to ask, nor the need to prioritise when working to a timescale.
• His demands are therefore often unworkable or at best impractical.

Gordon needs to be taken firmly in hand, and to be encouraged to involve others – perhaps by flattering him and offering to help him turn his ideas into practical methods. Help him to understand that there are other perspectives by involving him in real-life situations.

To learn more about how to guide Gordon along the right paths, click here.

Next edition - meet Incompetent Ingrid...  

DEVELOPING SKILLS

If your team is working together to try and resolve a problem, but you keep getting bogged down, why not try force field analysis? It can help you to brainstorm the issues and agree a common way forward. Here are the key steps:

Write your challenge at the top of a flip chart. On the right, summarise the ideal situation. Divide the page into sections by drawing a large ‘T’, with the stem splitting the page down the middle. On the left hand side, list the ‘driving forces’ that could move you towards the ideal situation. On the right hand side, list the restraining forces that prevent you from reaching it.

Prioritise these forces. Try and reduce the power of the restraining forces, and increase the power of the driving forces. Reducing or removing some barriers can sometimes help you to get a breakthrough, rather than just pushing the positive factors.                                                                                  

Review your progress. Discuss whether you think you have found a means of moving forward, and then you can hopefully agree a plan of action.

For more details of how to carry out a force field analysis, please click here.

A PERMANENT REMINDER

If your team wants to be truly effective, you need to ensure that any important, long-standing results are noticed and used. One way you can achieve this goal is to produce material that oozes quality and professionalism. Your customers are then more likely to view it as a useful reference tool, rather than just another disposable item!

There are several ways of ensuring that you supply lasting deliverables:

• Bound books, reports and folders
• Laminated sheets
• Intranet reference sections

When producing high quality items, think about:

• Which elements deserve to be preserved?
• What are the key messages you want to convey?
• Who are your target audience?
• How can you make sure that your messages are noticed?

Quality doesn’t always have to be expensive. With digital print techniques, bound reports or laminated documents can be a relatively low cost but effective way of making sure that your results get the attention they deserve!

To find out more, please click here.

QUESTION OF THE MONTH

A Subscribers' Message Board?

We warmly invite you to feed back your comments and ideas on specific topics in 5 Minute Insights. In the past, people have sent us comments or queries, or details of their own experiences that support (or even contradict) something we’ve written about. However, so far we haven’t had a mechanism for sharing these ideas with other subscribers.

One method would be a ‘Readers Comments’ section – but this would appear some time after the original articles. Another more viable option is a message board for subscribers. Each article would have a link that would enable you to post your own thoughts or questions. Or if it’s something you want to know more about, you could go to the topic and click a ‘Notify’ button so that you get an email whenever someone posts any comments on that subject.

But message boards are no use unless they are used! So please let us know:

• Would you use a message board?
• Would you sometimes like to share your thoughts on our articles?
• Would you like to hear other people’s views on a topic?

Just drop us an email at feedback@cisolutions.co.uk . If it’s something that lots of you would like, we’ll build it!

TRAINING

After the success of our first training courses we are pleased to announce the dates for the next set:

Wed 19th Sept 2007   -     Insight Management - From Vision to Reality
Thu 4th Oct 2007        -     Commercial Thinking
Thu 1st Nov 2007        -     How to Communicate For Maximum Impact

Please book now to be sure of a place.  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.

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