Hands up if you love a methodology, a detailed framework or any form of diagram to help structure concepts, ideas and ways of seeing the world.

Anyone who has worked with me would have witnessed “the notepad” and the constant need to try and convert discussions into some form of visual concept.

Over the years the sketches have become less precise, as I have been paying more attention to what’s being said rather than drawing the sketch. It’s been more a case of scribbling some key words but at my core I’m a visual thinker who is triggered by what I hear.

Looking back through the many notebooks, there is a pattern of visuals that spring out from the many pages.

  • The four box grids
  • The Venn diagrams
  • The value trees
  • The customer journeys
  • The maturity models
  • The roadmap diagrams

All of them in someway pretty simple, pretty adaptable and come back to a set of basic questions. These questions I guess could be at the heart of listening, and wanting to get ready and crack on with recommending what next.

I guess I’m thinking :-

  • How can what I’m hearing be calibrated into some form of priority?. The simple 2×2 with variations of simple to complex vs low to high impact. Plotting what I’m hearing to consider what we could do next.
  • How can what I’m hearing be grouped into a set of overlapping domains and what could the intersection of the domains be? The simple Venn diagram which more and more is plotting the purpose/identity, experience and architecture domains into the infamous #EDGY model. Capturing the discussion in this way helps explore ideas, concepts in a more extensive way.
  • What difference could these ideas make to a businesses performance? What’s the potential impact high, medium and low on the value drivers of the business? The simple revenue, satisfaction, cost, risk and the new entrant sustainability. There is that need to the golden thread, the ROI, the business performance, the so what. And usually somewhere down the line a CFO will have to sign off the business case.
  • Where could this impact the customer journey? The simple customer journey map considering existing and potential customer journeys from awareness, to purchase, to onboarding to renewal. Is the discussion having any consequence for the customer and how does this help.
  • Does what I’m hearing highlight any form of maturity gap that needs to be closed? The simple maturity model from zero to hero or adhoc to optimised. Helping to recognise our current state and what our next target state could be, understanding the capability context.
  • And finally what may need to happen to move this forward? The simple roadmap. I could be plotting out discovery, design, develop, deploy phases or foundation, integration, migration, transformation phases or the simple steps of plan, do, check, act. After all how to move this discussion forward with action is what it’s all about

Rattling through these models as I listen and try and empathise, synthesise, ideate and test in the moment is a behavioural pattern of mine for sure. .

Conversations in meetings and workshops can go all over the place. It’s become a case of providing enough scribbles to cement the thoughts into my mind and allow me to come back to these simple models post any session to review, reflect and recommend.

Are you a scribbler? Are you listening and capturing ideas into models in your mind and onto paper? What are you go to simple models that you have on the go?