Data Pulses storytelling

Keep colleagues engaged: be curious & challenging

Keep Your Colleagues Engaged…

Be Curious and Challenging

Leadership Tip of the week #76

Leaders play a significant role in helping colleagues understand why their jobs matter, but it’s not just about connecting their work to a larger purpose. ( ref :

You can also do it by demonstrating curiosity: Explore, ask questions, and engage people on their ideas about the future.

Make clear that there is a wide range of possibilities for how work gets done and that you want your employees to try new things. At the same time, keep them focused on meeting goals and making progress.

Remain ambitious in the face of both failure and success, and push your people to continually accomplish more.

You want colleagues to feel a sense of progress, reinvention, and growth, which results in a more meaningful and positive work experience.

Adapted from “How to Make Work More Meaningful for Your Team,” by Lewis Garrad and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Loose Lips cost Lives

strava military

I use Strava to map my runs & cycle rides but a recent article caught my attention on the importance of keeping your data private vs public.

Last November, Strava released a global user-activity heat map showing the running and cycling routes of people wearing fitness trackers. Some of those people work for the military & intelligence agencies.

Their data, which they neglected to opt out of sharing, reveals their daily routines and the contours of previously secret bases for anyone with a Strava account who might be looking. “A modern equivalent of the World War II-era warning that ‘loose lips sink ships,’ writes Jeremy Hsu, “May be ‘FFS don’t share your Fitbit data on duty.’”

So far, the breach hasn’t hurt anyone, and militaries and intelligence services will update their facilities (and personnel training policies) to render this particular vulnerability moot. But the unexpected risks of modern geolocation technology remain. “These digital footprints that echo the real-life steps underscore a greater challenge to governments and ordinary citizens alike,” Hsu writes. “Each person’s connection to online services and personal devices makes it increasingly difficult to keep secrets.”

Read the full article here

https://www.wired.com/story/strava-heat-map-military-bases-fitness-trackers-privacy/

The story behind your Metrics

The Story behind your metrics

data pulse #36

Lines out the door. An email list that is growing at breakneck speed. Likes on Facebook. More users, subscribers or members all adding to the value of your platform. These are the stuff entrepreneurial dreams are made of.

Measuring growth and how it happens feels important. But ‘more’ isn’t the only metric of a good business, and it’s not the only thing that defines success.

Be clear on what your commercial & customer end goals are and then measure what will deliver that end goal. Focus on few things that really matter and don’t let the list get too long.

There is usually a way to find data that supports a worldview and nobody is immune to using data to confirm previously held assumptions. Qualitative data measures the things that align with the values we care about, those we want our employees to embrace and our customers to sense. When we measure in this way we take into account the story behind the data. The number of meals sent back to the kitchen, staff retention, customer referrals and on and on.

Questions that will set you on the path to measuring what matters

How do you track how business is doing? Make a list of everything you measure.
Which numbers do you want to go up? Why?
Which numbers need to go down? Why?
Why are each of these particular metrics important? Create a rationale for each one.
What story do the numbers tell you about how your customers and colleagues feel?
What story do you want them to tell?

It’s tempting to want to scale, that’s what businesses do after all. As you grow it’s equally important to understand what metrics are sacred and why they matter.

Building Delegations Skills

What Can You Delegate Today?

Leadership Tip of the Week #75

adapted from Harvard Business review

Many of us know the benefits of delegation: It helps teams share the workload so that managers focus on the work only they can do.

But in reality, you (like most managers) probably hoard tasks and become a bottleneck.

To fix that, start with baby steps.

Ask yourself regularly, even daily: “What can I, and only I, do?”

If a certain task could be done by someone else, maybe it should be. Try to delegate small tasks that add up to something bigger, or projects that are relatively simple. Also consider time-sensitive work that competes with your other priorities.

If you’re still struggling to delegate, try this: For two weeks, make a list of tasks that you might delegate, writing them down as you think of them. This exercise will get you one step closer to handing off the work you need to.

Adapted from “How to Decide Which Tasks to Delegate,” by Jenny Blake

Data driven Easyjet flys easy

Data Pulse # 434

Removing Friction in the customer journey to make it easier is critical for future success, and is important as a way of telling your Brand story , particularly if you are called EasyJet. Digital transformation can accelerate this change if applied with a clear focus on the commercial goals combined with deep understanding of the customer journey .

Carolyn McColl at Easyjet made great strides at using digital technology to transform the organisation making it easier for their customers to travel, simpler for their colleagues and cheaper for the organisation. They started with a clear understanding of the commercial goal: More customers flying more often on Easyjet, and developed a series of customer propositions that made it easier to fly driven around the key hardware that most travellers provide themselves: The Smartphone.

Easyjet app developed with key functionality

easyjet2 (2)

1) Book Flight

2) My Flights Booked

3) My Flights Tracked

4) Mobile Check-in and Mobile Boarding Passes.

5) Option to book HireCare & Hotel.

All personalised through MyEasyjet traveller registration , that uses customer data held, (including passport, address credit card details ) geolocation of all data, previous flights searched and taken to make it easier for booking.

I have just headed off skiing flying Easyjet:

The email alerts prior to travelled felt timely & relevant: adding personal information, and checking.
The mobile boarding pass removes friction in finding a printer to print a boarding pass and then not losing the boarding pass as you travel through the airport .
The Flight Status monitor is an easy way of seeing ahead of leaving for the airport if flights are delayed or reassurance.

Easier Self Serve Baggage Drop.

Easyjet now have self serve baggage drop in Manchester as well as Gatwick , which makes it easier and quicker to drop off baggage rather than queuing

What Friction Points Next?

TO AND FROM THE AIRPORT

I would appreciate Easyjet helping me get to the airport and then to my onwards destination. It would be easy to partner / connect with Google or Citymapper to provide live travel options on drive times, Trains/ buses to catch, or even a link to Uber to get a ride to and from the airport.

WALK THROUGH AIRPORT STRESS FREE.

I would really appreciate being walked through the airport with digital alerts that help me understand which gate to go to , the time to gate, and alerts on how busy it is at anyone time. This technology is available and has been piloted in London City Airport by Dan Byles and the team at PlanetIT. So watch out for a digital concierge helping you through the airport and ensuring you have enough time and and not be rushed.

Eat, Drink and Shop at your pace.

I’ll even be able to order ahead and have my Starbucks coffee and porridge waiting for me as I arrive through security !

I am a demanding customer but I am really just like everyone else just more vocal.

Good Luck to Johan Lundgren , new CEO easyjet in accelerating the use of data even further to make easyjet even easier.

Don’t Solve Your Team’s Problems for Them

Leadership Tip of the week

adapted from HBR

If your team is constantly bringing issues to you rather than addressing them on their own, you aren’t doing your job as a manager.

So only let problems get escalated to you thoughtfully and occasionally.

To make sure you’re not stepping in when you shouldn’t, ask yourself several questions. For example, don’t ask “How do we solve the problem?” until you’ve paused and considered “Who should own this problem?”

Balance the need to resolve the issue with consideration for how your actions will influence future behavior.

In your desire to help your team, you might be tempted to do more than you should.

If others are struggling to solve problems they should rightfully own, always ask “What is the least I can do?” Find the lowest level of initiative for yourself, while requiring your team member to act in ways they are capable of.

Adapted from “When to Solve Your Team’s Problems, and When to Let Them Sort It Out,” by Joseph Grenny

H2 ensure Analytics drives commercial success?

digital masters

There are three simple steps to ensure Customer Analytics drive commercial success in an organisation

Strive for excellence in customer analytics matters (vs merely good average).
Establish a culture that values fact-based decision making and analytics
Secure senior management involvement in customer analytics.

Strive for excellence in customer analytics matters (as opposed to a merely good average).

More than 85 percent of companies that report extensive use of customer analytics (in terms of IT, analytics, and its execution) claim their company achieves a significant value contribution from customer analytics. This compares with around 20 percent for low users of the function, and some 30 percent of moderate users—suggesting that companies start to reap substantial benefit from customer analytics only when they achieve excellence, i.e., when their function can be considered state of the art. Just moving from a low to a medium level of maturity will merely generate limited success

This has particularly important implications for managers and their decisions on what needs to be invested in their organisation’s customer analytics to be competitive in the future. They need to determine the performance gap between their current customer analytics and state-of-the-art customer analytics in their industry, and to ensure that their additional spending on customer analytics stands a fair chance of bridging this gap. Otherwise the additional spending will—despite the best of intentions—turn out to have been a sunk investment right from the outset (because it will not pay off eventually).

Establish a culture that values fact-based decision making and analytics.

It’s vital that the culture that is not focused purely on IT and analytics topics, but approaches customer analytics holistically. Although investments in IT and skilled employees are important, these investments alone will not deliver value. Leadership that expects fact-based decisions and an organization that can quickly translate those decisions into action are qualities more likely to lead to success than companies focused exclusively on IT.

a) the execution and organizational aspects of customer analytics (such as a culture of fact-based decision making, analytics valued by the front line, management attitude and expectations) correlate most with the value contribution of customer analytics . This suggests that it is the culture and organizational setup that moves the needle even though IT and analytics expertise are obviously necessary to create value from customer analytics.

b) Having pragmatic and actionable foundations with the right cultural mind-set in place within the organization is more important than the perfect solution. Within execution and organization, for instance, fact-based decision making and management expectations are more important than the speed at which these insights are put into action. Within analytics, the focus is on delivering the right actionable insights, and less on the fast development of new models. Looking at IT, a similar pattern emerges: a pragmatic 360° data mart that builds the foundation for customer analytics is more important than the complete (automated) linkage of all IT systems.

A key success factor is therefore to examine customer analytics holistically, including IT, analytics, and execution/organizational setup, and to pragmatically improve on all dimensions.

Secure senior management involvement in customer analytics. High-performing companies are led by data-savvy C-level executives who understand the importance of and involve themselves in customer analytics. Companies where senior management is not involved extensively, only 28 percent report a significant value contribution of customer analytics, versus 69 percent of companies with senior management involvement in customer analytics that say that customer analytics drives value

Specifically, looking at the level of management that should be involved, it becomes clear that what drives the value contribution is top management/board involvement. If the company has established a role within the top management team (TMT), such as via a chief commercial officer, more than half of the respondents (53 percent) stated that customer analytics contributes significantly to value creation. If only senior management is involved but not the TMT, this drops to just 29 percent, close to the value of no senior management involvement at all (20 percent).

In summary: three factors to drive Analytical Success:

Strive for excellence in customer analytics matters (vs merely good average).
Establish a culture that values fact-based decision making and analytics
Secure senior management involvement in customer analytics.

Celebrate small wins , when changing company culture

chicos-600

Leadership Tip of the week

adapted from Harvard Business review

Celebrate small wins to change company culture

If you’re trying to implement a new culture in your organisation, colleagues are more likely to buy in if they see that the change is already sticking.

Demonstrate small wins early on and showcase examples of how the new culture will help the company achieve its goals.

Here’s an example. Before the pharmaceutical company Dr. Reddy’s rolled out the company’s new mission, “Good health can’t wait,” leaders redesigned the product packaging to be more user-friendly and recast its sales reps as knowledge hubs for physicians.

When the cultural shift was introduced, leaders could point to projects already under way to show how it was succeeding.

Celebrating the first small steps toward a new vision helps your employees understand what the new culture should accomplish — and gives them models to follow when making their own contributions to the shift.

Adapted from “Changing Company Culture Requires a Movement, Not a Mandate,” by Bryan Walker and Sarah A. Soule

H2 Accelerate growth using data

data-driven-marketing-4

Accelerating growth through data is challenging and requires commitment and alignment from around all the organisation to be successful, but there are 7 steps that make the journey more successful

Identify the commercial & customer Goals in next 18m-36m
Build a clear vision of a radically different data-driven customer experience, working across digital & bricks & mortar and align across the organisation.
Remove Silos of data use creating a single version of the truth, with a data strategy linked to business goals e.g. Unified View of customer data, GDPR ready and tools developed to meet commercial goals.
Breakdown the institutional fear of data & digital at all levels through training & doing: it’s a tool that anyone can use to do what you have been doing better
Use Data Analytics to Map & Prioritise customer journeys & personalised experiences across human & digital touchpoints and align organisation capability to deliver for customer.
Identify & Build the capabilities (Process, Tools People) that will be required to transform process design from efficiency focused (cheaper) to customer focused (better simpler cheaper) , specifically putting in place an analytics capability to enable data-driven, personalised journeys
Foster stronger bonds between technical and different business people. This is a two-way process to ensure the technical teams understand the commercial imperatives, and customer solutions you would like to build, and the business teams learn to trust the expertise of technical IT teams. It will also allow you to improve data quality through showing the business impact.

Using Data & Advanced Customer Analytics to put the customer at the heart of an organisation is a transformation that future looking organisations need to start implementing now.

Transformation to ensure data is part of the DNA of an organisation takes time and a holistic approach.

Best way to diffuse an Argument is to Listen

The Best Way to Defuse an Argument Is to Listen

Leadership Tip of the week

Adapted from HBR

Few things feel worse than getting yelled at by a colleague or a partner.

When a colleague criticises you, your first instinct is likely to be self-defense: You want to point out all the ways they’re wrong and you’re right.

But even calmly contradicting the substance of your colleague’s argument may make things worse.

Instead of rushing to justify your points, start by validating your colleague’s feelings and restating their views. For example, you could try, “I hear you. You don’t see your team’s input in what I just presented.” Showing that you’re listening and genuinely trying to understand your colleague’s perspective gives them less reason to holler.

Although it might feel counter-intuitive, demonstrating support for an angry colleague — without necessarily agreeing with their points — is one of the best ways to deescalate a conflict.

it works at home as well….. Ask Verity

Adapted from “How to De-Escalate an Argument with a Coworker,” by Liane Davey

7 steps to data-driven customer obsession

seven steps

As we break for Christmas I have just had a great morning with DataIQ Leaders discussing how data can transform CX.

I led a discussion with a group of Analytical leaders with seven simple steps on the road to build advanced Customer Analytics. It’s challenging and requires commitment and alignment from around all the organisation to be successful

Identify the commercial & customer Goals in next 18m-36m
Build a clear vision of a radically different data-driven customer experience, working across digital & bricks & mortar and align across the organisation.
Remove Silos of data use creating a single version of the truth, with a data strategy linked to business goals e.g. Unified View of customer data, GDPR ready and tools developed to meet commercial goals.
Breakdown the institutional fear of data & digital at all levels through training & doing: it’s a tool that anyone can use to do what you have been doing better
Use Data Analytics to Map & Prioritise customer journeys & personalised experiences across human & digital touchpoints and align organisation capability to deliver for customer.
Identify & Build the capabilities (Process, Tools People) that will be required to transform process design from efficiency focused (cheaper) to customer focused (better simpler cheaper) , specifically putting in place an analytics capability to enable data-driven, personalised journeys
Foster stronger bonds between technical and different business people. This is a two-way process to ensure the technical teams understand the commercial imperatives, and customer solutions you would like to build, and the business teams learn to trust the expertise of technical IT teams. It will also allow you to improve data quality through showing the business impact.

Using Data & Advanced Customer Analytics to put the customer at the heart of an organisation is a transformation that future looking organisations need to start implementing now.

Deck the halls with sprigs of Holly

Christmas Trees make a happier workplace

Leadership tip of the week adapted from HBR

Have you ever responded to an overwhelming moment at work by closing your eyes and imagining yourself lying on a beach or strolling through a pine forest path?

You may be onto something.

Research shows that exposure to green spaces reduces stress and boosts general health. One study found that greener office environments increased employee productivity by 15%.

Fortunately, there are easy ways to incorporate some nature into your day:

Hold walking meetings outside.
Use outdoor spaces for your lunch breaks.
Open blinds to let in natural light.
Green Plants in the office
Real Christmas Trees and “decking the hall with holly” at Christmas

These small investments in a more natural work environment pay off in terms of increased happiness, relaxation, and even stronger connections to your colleagues.

Adapted from “Why You Should Tell Your Team to Take a Break and Go Outside,” by Emma Seppala and Johann Berlin

xmas tree

Don’t be a Grinch this Christmas

data pulse #33

Don’t be a Grinch this Christmas , Customer data needs to be lovingly tended and developed.

It’s tempting to think of customer data as the new oil , freely flowing and always available.Combined with advanced analytics, it offers the promise of creating strategic advance. By perfectly profiling an individual customer, marketing can be truly personalized, improving a customer’s experience, and eliminating waste.

But customer data isn’t a natural resource. It’s generated by people. And as our connectivity increases, so does our awareness of the data being collected and the erosion of our privacy.

With customers increasingly seeking more control over the data they share and with whom, access to customer data will become increasingly valuable, a source of competitive advantage, and a privilege to be earned. Brands will need to demonstrate to customers that they can be trusted with their data.

There are a number of practical steps that should be taken now:

Make sure you are using the data you already have to improve the customer experience, so it’s clear to customers what value they are receiving in return. This may seem obvious, yet I’m still struck by how infrequently the data I’ve shared is used to improve my experience. My inbox, for example, is still full of mass rather than personalized emails. Why not let customers feel the benefit of their data?
1. Mothercare have a personal email programme linked to explaining what you need to do and how they can help you through weeks of pregnancy & in the first few weeks after your baby is born.
2. Asda emails are linked to promotions in your favourite store on things we think you would like to buy based on previous shopping.
3. Starbucks use location data to prompt offers on the phone when you are near a starbucks
Give your customers more control over their data. Let them opt-in, for example, rather than have to opt-out, and be very clear what they are opting into. Be upfront about your cookie policy, and its implications. And give customers options over such questions as frequency and method of contact. Why not work with customers to figure out ways that you can turn data they could generate into something of value to them? Nike has done this to great effect, helping customers generate data to help with their own fitness, and in the process deepening their connection with the brand.
Only collect the data that’s essential to deliver the benefit to customers, rather than everything you can. And be clear about what data you need to collect, the reason why you need it, and what benefit they will get in return.

While data security is certainly a complex technical and legal challenge, it’s underpinned by a question of brand mind set.

If customer data is viewed internally as a commodity, then it’s something to be extracted from customers and traded…and customers will be wary, as behaviours will give the brand away.

But if access to customer data is viewed internally as a privilege, where we don’t own a customers data it’s their data we are only curating it and looking after it to improve our customers experience then it’s something precious that has to be protected…and the resulting behaviours will inspire more trust among customers.

Lose a battle to win the War

Leadership tip of the week

adapted from from Harvard Business Review

Lose a Battle to win the War

You Don’t Always Have to “Win” a Negotiation to Get What You Want

The Brexit Negotiations led by our ” Brexit Bulldog” will go on right up to the last minute of 11am March 29th 2019. and there is much to learn from the most important negotiation in our recent history.

Negotiators generally believe that acting dominantly will give them an edge at the negotiating table, but research has found that acting deferentially has its advantages too.

In negotiations with many moving parts, the best outcomes result from one person behaving deferentially and the other behaving dominantly.

When both parties are focused on “winning” the issue through dominance, they’re more likely to reach an impasse. But when one side is deferential, the dynamic becomes more comfortable and the negotiators are better able to parse complex issues.

Being deferential doesn’t mean becoming submissive or sacrificing your goals, though – it means using a subtle, respectful conversational approach to get what you need. And both sides being deferential doesn’t help either.

So if your negotiating partner is taking an aggressive stance, try adopting a deferential style – or vice versa. You may find that doing so helps both sides achieve higher-quality deals.

Adapted from “When You Shouldn’t Try to Dominate a Negotiation,” by Scott Wiltermuth.

Segmentation is a tool to grow customer numbers

data pulse #37

Delivering the most relevant, inspirational messaging and experiences through advanced segmentation and targeting is a key advanced use of data. Segmentation itself is relatively straight forward, we all do it all the time. The skill for CMO lies in bridging the technical teams and the business imperatives to develop segmentation that delivers on commercial objectives

Netflix is an organisation that uses data in three of the advanced states. Netflix micro-tagging of vast content archives allowed creation of nearly 77,000 film segments, rich data, views, searches , times, pauses and more is used to build behavioural profiles and predictive algorithms give uniquely targeted recommendations.

The segmentation techniques are not dissimilar to the segmentations that Tesco, Sainsbury’s , Coop and Asda built for segmenting customers. Both cluster users based on attributing product features to films / products and then clustering film watched/ products bought using analytics.

The difference is the Volume, Velocity and Veracity of data used.

Coop Food apply 7 segments to members annually,

Netflix create 77,000 segments on daily basis, continually refining which segment members are in so better able to predict your best next film.

More complex isn’t always better, as organisations need to WALK before they can RUN, and align people and processes before they build more complexity. Asda is now using customer segmentations and tools and processes for building ranges and promotional plans, and continually building and refining, as well as segmenting customer communication to improve the Customer Experience

Customer focus, data-driven to deliver commercial imperatives.

Building more sophisticated segmentations will develop but add value if they are aligned to deliver commercial objectives, so creating strategic and operational capabilities

Create a Road Map to Make Your Work Feel More Purposeful

Leadership Tip of the Week

adapted from Harvard Business Review

Create a Road Map to Make Your Work Feel More Purposeful

It’s too easy to allow entire days to pass by in a blur, without being able to articulate what you’ve actually done.

One of the most effective tactics for staying focused and productive is to bring purpose to each moment of your work.

Start by understanding and articulating how your daily work connects to your personal goals and the goals of the organization. Then use that information to create a road map in which you identify which tasks are critical and which can wait. Make time estimates for each task, plotting out your work so that you know what you should be focusing on and when.

Finally, name your distractions — and understand the root cause of them — so that you can catch yourself and return your attention to those tasks on your priority list. Knowing what you’re doing and why can give your job a fuller sense of purpose.

Adapted from “Stop Mindlessly Going Through Your Work Day,” by Leah Weiss

Agile Marketing Explained

scrum vs sprint

WHAT AGILE MARKETING IS AND WHAT IT ISN’T

If you’ve been halfway tapped into the marketing zeitgeist lately, you’ve seen this phrase: Agile marketing.

Everybody’s talking about it as the “next thing in marketing.” It even has its own manifesto. Despite all this hooplah, however, you shouldn’t feel too bad if you can’t quite put your finger on what Agile marketing is.

Take a look at the Agile marketing groups on sites like LinkedIn, and it becomes clear that more than a few people are a tad confused about it. Is it simply restructuring your marketing and in-house creative teams and their processes to be more nimble? Sort of. Does it just mean streamlining your process and jettisoning any baggage that slows your team down? Kind of.

To give you a nice, clean 20,000-foot explanation of it, Agile is a work management methodology that has been dominating IT work management for the last several years. It has been known to increase teams’ flexibility and ability to react to demand while improving productivity. Now that it’s proven itself effective, the marketing folks have taken notice.

Agile-driven creative teams have reported that their creativity has experienced a major boost once freed from the endless development cycles that can happen in traditional marketing work management. Creative teams have seen their productivity explode by 400 percent and with less fuss. Marketing teams can test and iterate on campaigns faster.

If you’re like most marketers looking for ways to get creative and campaigns on time and with less fuss, here is a quick crash course on Agile and how you can use it to make your marketing and creative teams as creative and effective as they deserve to be…

What Agile Marketing is not

Some less-informed marketers will talk about agile marketing (with a lower-case ‘a’) as simply a mindset or philosophy. Their comments focus on streamlining processes or looking for ways to make your team more nimble and faster to react to opportunities. And it’s easy to see where these ideas come from, since they are basically just going off the adjective ‘agile.’ Not coincidentally, these things are some of the biggest benefits of using Agile (with a capital ‘A’) in marketing.

Unfortunately, this confusion can lead to lots of talk on the subject without the power to actually make those benefits a reality. It’s only when you understand what Agile marketing really is that you start to make progress.

What Agile Marketing is

Simply put, Agile marketing is the application of a specific work methodology (Agile) to the way marketing projects and non-project work is executed.

Where most creative teams produce projects sequentially from step A to step Z, also known as a waterfall methodology, Agile marketing seeks to put your team’s resources into creating a minimum viable product as quickly as possible. It’s also built not to plod along on a single project for weeks, but to accommodate all of your most important tasks—from multiple projects and even ad hoc requests that can be completed in a short timeline.

To accomplish this, Agile requires that all work be broken down into “stories,” which can be chunks of larger projects or small ad hoc requests. Each story tells your team, in a nutshell, what needs to be created. With that information, your team assigns to the story the number of hours they think it will take them to complete the story. Your team divides their time up into periods of time called sprints, which are a week or two weeks. Naturally, every sprint has a set number of hours which will be filled by stories and is intended to be a period of focused creativity that allows ample time for creative team members to explore a number of approaches to a story before moving forward. Again, the stories are chosen for a sprint based on their priority, and the creative team goes to work. Stories are placed on a public burndown chart, where team members and stakeholders alike can see them move from ‘incomplete’ to ‘approval’ to ‘complete’.

As you can see, Agile is quite different from the traditional workflow most creative teams are used to, but the benefits are undeniable. Agile eliminates the bottlenecks and wasted time in found in conventional methodologies and empowers creative teams to collaborate more, and make on-the-fly decisions about a project’s direction, task order, or priority. Hence the name Agile.

This increased productivity and quality, of course, have a direct impact on the companies that use Agile. In fact, studies show that Agile firms grow revenues up to 37% faster and increase profits as much as 30% more than their non-Agile counterparts.

When Pitching an Idea, Think like a Salesman

Leadership Tip of the Week

from Harvard Business Review

When Pitching an Idea,Think Like a Salesman

The next time you have to pitch an idea or project to get stakeholder buy-in, take a tip from your sales colleagues and learn as much as you can about your “customer.”

Long before you make your proposal, gather information that will help you sell your idea.

Have a conversation with the stakeholder you’re trying to win over, and ask empathetic questions:

What problems do they need to solve?
What do they need to accomplish?
Do they have a personal goal, such as advancing in the organization?

Once you’ve figured out your customer’s motivations, you can tailor your proposal to suit their needs.

As a great “salesperson,” you should take a genuine interest in the stakeholder’s problems. Your pitch should describe how your idea or service will solve them.

Adapted from “How to Improve Your Sales Skills, Even If You’re Not a Salesperson,” by Rebecca Knight

7-11 crawl walk run

7-11 digital transformation using agile crawl- walk-run methodology to develop relevant data driven CX

Data Pulse #711

7-11 seized an opportunity to use the existing technology that most of its shoppers already had in their hands as they entered the store, and it did it from a standing start using AGILE methodology like a baby learning to CRAWL, WALK, RUN

7-11 can now push real-time, rules-driven offers to customers through the 7-11 app.

The decision was made to launch a mobile app in efforts to deliver what the customer wants, when they want it, where they want it. Offers take account of rich data about the customer, both live and historic:

Real-time transactional: current basket, comms received, channel, geofencing

Real-time contextual: location, location temperature, time of day.

Historic modelling: transaction data, profile data, modelling scores.

Insights gained from feedback to offers over time is incorporated into business rules in a process of continuous refinement.

So, for example, on a cold morning, 7-Eleven might push hot drinks offers. At midday, some customers might receive offers for packaged lunches while others receive promotions on fresh foods. In the evening, lifestyle insights might be used to determine that some customers might be tempted by pizza and a DVD rental.

7-11 2

Be Kind to Yourself When You’re Feeling Stressed Out

Leadership Tip of the week adapted from Harvard Business Review

Be Kind to Yourself When You’re Feeling Stressed Out

Burnout is a serious problem at work.

It can make you feel emotionally exhausted, cause cynicism, and hinder your job performance.

If you notice these signs of extreme stress, resist the urge to beat yourself up — that will only make the situation worse. Instead, have some empathy for yourself and what you’re going through.

Start by considering how you might be creating unnecessary stress: For example, are you setting unrealistic expectations for yourself? Remember that we all have only a certain number of hours in the day.

When you feel overly stressed, acknowledge it and recognize that others would feel similarly in the same situation.

Being kind to yourself, instead of laying on the self-criticism, can shift your mindset from feeling threatened to being self-compassionate, strengthening your resiliency and making you more likely to bounce back from a stressful time.

The battle to grow customers is not BAU.

customers 14

Data & Digital is transforming customer expectations

The battle for customers is not business-as-usual, with data & digital transforming customer expectations for personalisation, technology adoption moving fast & traditional loyalty structures changing. Creating a Customer Obsessed Organisation that puts the customer at the heart of the business and designing the human and digital customer experience are top priorities to win in the age of the Digital Customer.

Organisations grow if they have more customers visiting more often, meeting more needs of existing customers and attracting new customers: Use of Data & Digital is an opportunity to get closer to customers and do what good organisations do now better & faster.

There are several opportunities for Data & Digital to allow organisations to get closer to their customers and grow faster, and lots of learnings from other organisations that can be applied in a fast follower position.

Transformational understanding of the business to make it customer focused: better, simpler and cheaper for customers, colleagues and the organisation itself
Delivering a Friction Free Customer Experience
Delivering the most relevant, inspirational messaging and customer experiences through advanced segmentation and targeting

The road to travel on the journey to making your organisation more customer focused in a digital world is challenging and one that requires alignment and commitment from the CEO, CCO and across different departments.

Identify the commercial & customer Goals in next 18m-36m
Build a clear vision of a radically different data-driven customer digital future state, working across digital & bricks & mortar and align across the organisation.
Remove Silos of data use creating a single version of the truth, with a data strategy linked to business goals e.g. Unified View of customer data, GDPR ready and tools developed to meet commercial goals.
Breakdown the institutional fear of data & digital at all levels through training & doing: it’s a tool that anyone can use to do what you have been doing better
Use Data Analytics to Map & Prioritise customer journeys & personalised experiences across human & digital touchpoints and align organisation capability to deliver for customer.
Identify & Build the capabilities (Process, Tools People) that will be required to transform process design from efficiency focused (cheaper) to customer focused (better simpler cheaper) , specifically putting in place an analytics capability to enable data-driven, personalised journeys
Foster stronger bonds between technical and different business people. This is a two-way process to ensure the technical teams understand the commercial imperatives, and customer solutions you would like to build, and the business teams learn to trust the expertise of technical IT teams. It will also allow you to improve data quality through showing the business impact.

Using Data and Digital to put the customer at the heart of an organisation is a transformation that future looking organisations need to start implementing now.

Daydreaming (With a Purpose) Can Recharge Your Mind

Leadership tip of the week adapted from Harvard Business Review

Daydreaming (With a Purpose) Can Recharge Your Mind

Resisting distractions seems like an intuitive way to be more productive, yet research shows that excessive focus exhausts your brain.

To tap into your “default mode network” — an unfocused state in which your brain activates old memories, enhances self-awareness, and imagines creative solutions — use positive constructive daydreaming.

I begin a low-key activity, like cycling or gardening , and allow my mind to wander.

But don’t simply slip into a daydream or rehash old worries. Instead, imagine something playful, like running through the woods.

Hold the wishful image in your mind while continuing the low-key activity. In this unfocused state, your mind will recharge, connect ideas, and even find long-lost memories.

The associations your mind makes during positive constructive daydreaming should enhance your sense of self, making you a more confident leader.

So when I’m out on the Pennine hills cycling with Alastair & Mark , or digging my garden I’m really working hard recharging my mind.

Adapted from “Your Brain Can Only Take So Much Focus,” by Srini Pillay

Be a better you, rather than worse them

Be Be a better you

This week you answered a customer query and solved her problem. You responded to every email, tweaked your resume and made your case well in the last meeting. You ticked off the things on your to-do list, had a look at your numbers and made solid plans for the weeks ahead. And that’s exactly what your competitors did too.

We spend a lot of our time doing the busy work of trying to gain an advantage in an attempt to compete and win. It turns out that the most sustainable path to significance is to do the things that the competition would never dream of doing—the things that only you would do.

You don’t need to compete when you know who you are.

what applies for corporate brands, also applies for our personal brand

Be a better you rather than a worse them.

New Leaders : Listen and Learn before rushing to implement a vision

New Leaders, Learn About the Company Before Implementing Your Vision

A new CEO or senior executive has a 50% chance of leaving the organization within 18 months.

Some experts attribute this failure rate to leaders proposing and implementing a new vision too soon. Yes, leaders should know where they plan to take the company, but it’s important for them to understand the organization first.

If you’re new to your senior role, take time to learn about the working environment. Listen to your colleagues and customers and find out if some of your ideas have already been tried.

If people ask about your strategic vision, don’t be afraid to say, “This is my opportunity to listen and learn. Ask me again in three months.”

Studying the landscape before rolling out your big ideas can prevent you from repeating the mistakes of your predecessors — and wasting resources on plans that won’t work.

Adapted from “The Biggest Mistakes New Executives Make,” by Sabina Nawaz

What could we have done better?

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Whether things go right or wrong, we instinctively understand there’s always room for improvement.

And yet, remarkably, we rarely stop to ask ourselves exactly how we could have done better.

Instead, we beat ourselves up about our failures—playing the disappointment over and over in our head. Or we self-congratulate without taking the chance to build on our success.

Success and failure are opportunities for growth in equal measure. We should make the most of them. Decide what one thing you could you have done better, then go ahead and do it the next time