Shipulski On Design

Archive for the ‘Winning The Right Game & Wide Lens’ Category

When I want to understand a large system, I make a map.  If the system is an ecosystem, I combine Wardley Maps by Simon Wardley with Wide Lens / Winning The Right Game by Ron Adner.  On Wardley maps, activities and actors are placed on the map, and related elements are connected. On the left are infant and underdeveloped elements, and on the right are fully developed / commodity elements.  It’s like an S-curve that’s been squished flat.

Wide Lens prompts you to consider co-innovation (who needs to innovate for you to be successful) and adoption (who needs to believe your idea is a good one).  Winning The Right Game makes you think through the sequence of attracting partners like a visual time-lapse of the ecosystem’s evolution.  This is a killer combination that demands you put the whole system on one page – all the players/partners, all the activities sorted by maturity, all the interactions, and the evolution of the partner network and maturity of the system elements.  This forces a common understanding of the ecosystem.  There’s no way out.  Did I say it must fit on one page?

When the large system is a technological system, I make a map.  I use the best TRIZ book (Innovation On Demand) by Victor Fey.  A functional analysis is performed on the system using noun-verb pairs that are strung together to represent how the system behaves.  If you want to drive people crazy, this is the process for you.  It requires precise words for each noun (element) and verb (action) pair, and the pairs must hang together in a way that represents the physical system.  There can be only one description of the system, and the fun and games don’t stop until the team converges on a single representation of the system. It’s all good fun until someone loses an eye.

When I want to understand a business/technology/product/service offering that has not been done before (think startup), I use Lean Canvas by Ash Maurya.  The Lean Canvas requires you to think through all elements of the system and forces you to put it on one page. (Do you see a theme here?) Value proposition, existing alternatives, channel to market, customer segments, metrics, revenue, costs, problems, and solutions – all of them on one page.

And then to blow people’s minds, I combine Wardley Maps, Wide Lens, Winning The Right Game, functional analysis of TRIZ, value in action, and Lean Canvas on one page.  And this is what it looks like.

Ash’s Lean Canvas is the backplane.  Ron’s Wide Lens supports 6 (Channel), forcing a broader look than a traditional channel view. Ron’s Winning The Right Game and Simon’s Wardley Map are smashed together to support 2 (Existing Alternatives/Problems).  A map is created for the existing system with system elements (infants on the left, retirees on the right) and partners/players, which are signified by color (red blob).  Then, a second map is created to define the improvements to be made (red circles with arrows toward a more mature state).  Victor’s Functional Analysis/System diagram defines the problematic system, and TRIZ tools, e.g., Separation Principles, are used to solve the problem.

When I want to understand a system (ecosystem or technological system), I make a map.  And when I want to make a good map, I put it on one page.  And when I want to create a new technological system that’s nested in a new business model that’s nested in a new ecosystem, I force myself to put the whole universe on one page.

Image credit – Giuseppe Zeta