Who doesn’t know this scenario?
You spend weeks preparing a PowerPoint with a clear proposal for a project or decision to take. You align with all the experts, pour your heart into the proposal, and know that it is something that would be great for your team, the company, and the customers! And then everything culminates in a 30-45 minute meeting – you present and instead of getting to a decision – nothing – empty talk and some questions is all you get out of it. No one committed, no one seems to get it and you cannot believe it. All the effort for nothing!
You end up frustrated and have to re-work proposals, follow up and you think to yourself…
The good news is there is a better way!
Just follow the tactic that I call: “Spread and Pre-wire”.
The idea here is that you create a clear storyline with a compelling proposal. Then you identify and pre-wire all the key stakeholders and decision makers in a 1:1 setting, and get their feedback and concerns. Iterate your story (maybe have a second round of 1:1s) and then go for the pitch.
I use this tactic regularly as it works extremely well compared to any other approaches I tried in the past – let me explain to you how to use it:
Tactic Guide: Spread and pre-wire
The tactic consists of 6 key elements
- Story
- Key decision makers & influencers
- Idea resistance
- Pre-Wiring
- Iteration
- Decision and execution
I will run you through each element and use a real-world example to make it as plastic as possible.
1. Story
First, you need to work on your idea and the concept. You will not have to have all the answers but you will have to work on a compelling storyline, reasoning, and a high-level concept to transport your idea.
To formulate it in a structured way I like to use the “SCR Framework”. It stands for Situation, Complication, and Resolution.
Situation:
The Situation describes the problem that you would like to solve. It is the starting point and should provide a clear understanding of the issue. You must nail it and make it a compelling story as you will use this as your entry point for all discussions.
To write a good Situation description consider the following:
- The problem statement: Define clearly which problem needs to be solved.
- The stakeholders: Identify all the stakeholders relevant to or impacted by this problem. Individuals, groups, teams that are impacted and also could influence the solution
- Scope: What are the boundaries? You cannot solve the world – the more specific you are the more likely you will be successful
- Impact: What is the impact of the problem on the stakeholders? Does it cost a lot of money, cause a lot of work, stress, or escalations? The more specific you are here the better. In a corporate environment, I would always try to map it also to a financial metric as usually numbers are the most compelling argument to decision-makers in this environment.
As you can see there is already a step to identify stakeholders – I will still cover this point as an extra step as you need to identify the key decision makers and influencers and not necessarily the stakeholders impacted or causing the problem.
Complication:
In the complication section it is about analyzing and describing the cause of the problem. This is quite an important phase as a proposal should try to solve an issue – to do so you need to understand the root cause that led to the situation you describe.
In the complication section, you might realize that there are several “complications” related to the problem – this is ok and normal. I would still keep one section and simply put a weighting next to the complication in the sense of what has the biggest impact, urgency, and relevance to the overall situation.
To do this kind of analysis you can fall back on models like the SWOT analysis or Pareto chart. Personally, I prefer to analyze situations by considering the following:
- Think about factors that complicate or hinder the achievement of goals or the resolution of the situation.
- Research the situation and talk to the affected stakeholders (In my case most issues are somewhat also people and conflict of interest related, without really talking to anyone you will likely not get the right data)
- Ensure the information is current and accurate – always double-check this! I learned often that sometimes people are simply not aware of the latest changes – especially in a big organization.
- Think about potential internal and external challenges, uncertainties, or unexpected events as well as gaps, conflicts, or obstacles that may impede progress.
- Analyze the potential effects of complications on the stakeholders and the broader context
Now that you analyzed and identified the impacting complications you need to formulate them in a way they are easily understandable by:
- Introducing the complications by giving a brief context and background information
- Clearly articulating the challenges and their significance
- Writing in a clear, concise, and objective manner
- Backing up identified complications with data (evidence, statistics, examples…)
- Explaining how each complication impacts the achievement or resolution of the situation.
In the first round, this will not be perfect – you should continuously revise and refine the section. Once you start talking to the stakeholders you will very likely get additional information to consider and incorporate in the overall SCR.
Resolution:
In this section describe your proposal on how to resolve/fix the described situation and mitigate the complications. Describe clearly how to resolve the root cause that led to the overall problem. I also recommend mapping out the key factors that are required to be successful during the execution phase (required support from team XYZ, budget, time, etc).
This does not have to be an extensive report but in the section, you need to be able to clearly articulate the proposal so that the audience can understand it.
EXAMPLE:
Let’s look at a real-world example of an SCR. Keep in mind after writing and reading it – you should be able to tell a clear story.
Assumption & Setting: You are the lead of the Central Cloud Services team in your company and responsible for delivering 24×7 support for all critical customers.
“Situation:
The central Cloud Services team is currently facing a challenge with providing 24×7 support due to high fluctuation in the number of employees in India.
- The problem statement: The team struggles to maintain round-the-clock support due to the inconsistent availability of employees in India.
- The stakeholders: The central Cloud Services team, employees in India, and customers relying on 24×7 support.
- Scope: The central Cloud Services team’s ability to provide uninterrupted support.
- Impact: The team’s inability to offer 24×7 support leads to delays in issue resolution and customer dissatisfaction. The lack of a stable workforce in India hampers the team’s ability to meet service-level agreements. This decline in quality will impact customer renewal rates in the long term and incur revenue loss.
Complication:
The high fluctuation in the number of employees in India poses significant challenges to maintaining consistent 24×7 support.
- Identifying and training new employees: The constant turnover requires continuous recruitment and onboarding processes, which can be time-consuming and resource-intensive.
- Knowledge transfer: The frequent personnel changes make it difficult to retain institutional knowledge and ensure effective handover between shifts.
- Impact on team morale: The constant changes and the resulting workload shifts can lead to decreased morale and burnout among team members.
- Root cause for fluctuation: Surveys have shown that employees are happy in the team but due to the competitive market team members move on fast to other companies as this usually results in salary increases of 40 % and higher. Most operations experts prefer to transition into a non-24×7 environment after gaining sufficient expertise.
Resolution:
To address the challenge of high fluctuation in Indian employees and ensure consistent 24×7 support, we propose outsourcing certain support functions.
- Partnering with a reliable outsourcing provider: By collaborating with an established outsourcing provider, we can tap into their pool of skilled resources who are available to work in shifts, ensuring round-the-clock support coverage. This can implemented promptly and will offload current overloaded team members and reduce the risk of further churn.
- Knowledge sharing and documentation: Establishing robust documentation processes and implementing knowledge-sharing platforms will ensure smooth knowledge transfer between internal and outsourced team members.
- Monitoring performance and quality: Regular performance evaluations and quality checks will be conducted to ensure that the outsourcing provider meets the required service level agreements and maintains the expected quality of support.
Implementing this outsourcing solution will allow the central Cloud Services team to overcome the challenge of high fluctuation in employees, ensuring uninterrupted 24×7 support for our customers.”
Now that you have all the elements together for your story to tell, we start with identifying the key decision-makers & influencers that you should talk to.
2. Key decision makers & influencers
In any organization, team, or even on a family level some key people are responsible for most decisions.
To move any decision forward you need to get the support from the decision makers (a person that has the authorityto make decisions) and key decision influencers (usually experts or individuals that are highly trusted by the decision makers).
To identify them ask yourself:
- Who has the authority to decide on the topic?
- Who has the trust and expertise to consult the decision-maker on the topic?
- What did you observe in the past? Who is recognized as an expert or key individual for a specific topic?
Let’s take the example of the “Central Cloud Services Team” and work through how to identify the key stakeholders.
As I am the lead responsible for the team I can certainly make a lot of the decisions on the future strategy however, as it would mean a shift from internal employees to external employees I need to ask myself what approvals and which input I would need.
Based on the scenario I identify the following key people to talk to:
- The Chief operating officer – let’s call him Andreas – He decides on any spent for external parties
- My team lead – Ravi – in India who has to align with the external provider should we go down this path(never a good idea to just skip over your people)
- My boss – Maggie – and her office to clarify that with this we are still within budget and in alignment with the overall unit strategy
- Global procurement and partner management – Shane and Julie – as they would be responsible for negotiations and have potentially already a list of suitable providers.
Now that you have all the critical contacts it is almost time to execute on spreading the idea and getting feedback. However, before we jump into this keep the following in mind:
3. Idea resistance
People have a natural inclination to resist new ideas, concepts, or changes. So consider this:
- Accepting new ideas is hard for people
- Accepting ideas takes time
- People who contribute to ideas can more easily accept them
- Questions and letting people come to their own conclusions is extremely effective
What does this mean for your great ideas?
It means you should be smart about how you share your proposals.
Usually, you get the best results if people think the whole proposal is their idea or they have been actively contributing to it with their thoughts and opinions.
How can you implement this?
- Engagement and Involvement: By this I mean go in and say you would like to talk about a challenge you have and get their opinion and ideas. By doing so you make the other colleagues part of the solution and give them a piece of ownership. This has the benefit that you will get also a lot of useful feedback and some insights that you might have overlooked.
- Education and Awareness: During the discussion provide clear and compelling information as well as evidence about the benefits and rationale behind the new idea. Often you will have to highlight the positive outcomes and address potential concerns to increase acceptance. – Consider all concerns as valid – and don’t brush them off.
By the way, you are also prone to this resistance. Be aware and be open when you now get ideas from others – you might not be aware of mistakes in your thinking! Getting additional feedback and opinions is helpful to make your approach more solid.
4. Pre-wire
Let’s get ready to rumble!!!
Ok, maybe I am getting overly excited – however, this is one of the key parts of the strategy and how well you execute here often determines the success or failure of your endeavor.
You have the key contacts and your storyline ready – now set up 1 on 1 meetings with each individual.
My recommended structure is:
- 30 minutes per contact – ideally in person (fallback a video call)
- Try to have the first iteration of meetings within one week (prevents people from feeling left out and gets you all the input and feedback on time)
- Prepare the meeting with idea resistance in mind and prepare your talk track accordingly
Here is an example of a meeting invite that already sets the tone:
“Hi Andreas,
I face currently a challenge with my central Cloud Service team in India and would love to get your view and advice on this challenge. Would be great if we could meet so that I can run this past you.
Would next Tuesday at 9 in your office work?
Looking forward to talking to you!
Best regards,
Jonny”
5. Iteration
Once you had your first meetings you probably got a lot of feedback and ideas. I strongly recommend that you review them and that you update your SCR/proposal.
Updating the SCR can mean on all domains:
- Problem clarification and description
- Impact and root cause analysis
- Solution proposal and boundary conditions
Depending on how the initial meetings went it might be required to have a second or third round (sometimes also depending on the complexity of the problem you try to address).
The critical piece during the iteration phase is to show that you incorporate feedback and address concerns.
In my experience, you have usually everyone onboard after the second round and are ready for the next and final phase.
6. Decision Meeting & Execution
Once you feel confident you are well aligned with the key experts and decision makers it is time to set up a formal decision meeting.
For the meeting invite the key decision makers, experts as well as stakeholders that are required to be informed and the execution phase.
Prepare a slide deck or summary with the key facts and proposal as well as the next step once the decision is agreed.
Meeting structure:
The meeting structure that worked best for me is:
- Welcome
- 10-15 min – Review of the Situation and Complication
- 10-15 min – Introduction of the proposed solution
- 10-15 min – Decision round and agreeing on next steps and execution phase
Below is an example for such a meeting invite:
To: Andreas, Shane, Maggie, Ravi, Julie… Title: Decision Meeting – Path forward to mitigate Cloud Service Operation Risks
Mail:
“Dear Colleagues,
as most of you know we are currently facing some challenges with our cloud operations team in India. I have been able to talk to most of you in the past weeks and together I believe we found a good proposal forward.
With this meeting I would like to get to a formal go decision and agree on the next steps and potential governance setup.
Looking forward to see you in our call.
Best regards,
Jonny”
Conducting the meeting:
- When conducting the meeting re-iterate the problem statement. While doing so I recommend to thank everyone for the support in the last weeks and their feedback which has been incorporated.
- Once it is time to share the proposal you should address all the concerns and feedback that has been provided to you in the past weeks.
- After you share the proposal allow some time for a discussion. At this point there might be some final questions coming up – however, usually, the consensus is already there or you at least have an overwhelming majority agreeing with it.
- Call a vote and document the decision
- Discuss and agree on the next step
- Agree on the governance structure and how to keep everyone informed about the progress
Congratulations! You got your decision – now it is time to get to work!
I will not go into details on how to execute on the proposal as this would warrant a dedicated post but I would like to highlight some of the immediate key actions you should follow:
- Document the decision meeting and send out a formal mail to all stakeholders with the agreed proposal.
- Set up the required follow-up meetings and assign the tasks to the corresponding team members.
- I would always also recommend to setup regular spot checks on the progress to address potential issues that pop up during the execution
Now you know how to execute the tactic “Spread and Pre-Wire”.
If you have good tactics to get to decisions let me know about them in the comments or by email 🙂