Are you currently confronted with intricate business challenges related to your organisation’s growth, revenue generation, product development, team management, or operational systems?
Allow us to introduce the innovative and revolutionary Decision Sprint – a rapid and highly effective approach to resolving complex business problems. This transformative method empowers you to generate a vast array of ideas, facilitates clearer decision making processes, and ultimately leads to the delivery of significantly superior outcomes.
The Decision Sprint is a versatile problem solving tool that efficiently addresses challenges in a short time, typically under two hours. It is also flexible, as it can be conducted remotely or in-person, making it accessible to businesses worldwide.
To illustrate how this process helps businesses overcome challenges, let’s explore how an e-commerce company used it to address declining sales.
Assemble a Team
Solving complex problems requires synthesising varied expertise and perspectives. The process begins by forming a small, cross functional team of 4-6 people from different roles, levels, and backgrounds within the organisation.
A Decider with authority over the challenge is also appointed. As an engaged participant, the Decider makes final decisions, fostering ownership and accountability.
Finally, a skilled Facilitator guides the team discussions, ensuring a structured, productive environment focused on the problem. Their neutral perspective prevents groupthink while maximising participants’ contributions.
The e-commerce business assembled a team made up of 4 members. The team included members from marketing, sales, customer service, and operations. The CEO acted as the Decider, and an external Facilitator was appointed.
Set a Long-term Goal
Solving business problems effectively requires aligning short-term actions with long-term organisational objectives. The team begins by establishing a clear and ambitious long-term goal. This correlates directly with the challenge at hand and aligns with the organisation’s objectives. This goal, typically spanning one to two years, serves as the North Star. It guides the decision-making process towards solving the business problem. By grounding problem solving in an ambitious but achievable long-term objective, the team prevents getting trapped in tactical, short sighted actions. The goal ensures strategic continuity, promoting sustainable solutions that solve immediate challenges while advancing the company’s future competitiveness.
The e-commerce business set a goal ‘to increase annual online sales revenue by 20% within the next two years’. Providing a clear direction for initiatives aimed at reversing declining sales trends.
Identify the Critical Problem
With the long-term goal providing strategic context, the team delves into analysing the current situation. They begin by identifying all the problems that stand in the way of achieving the long-term goal. Through a process of prioritisation, the team then narrows down on the critical problem contributing to the challenge. By thoroughly analysing then distilling the complexities into a concise problem statement, the team eliminates potential distractions. This critical problem definition shapes the team’s focus for ideation and solution-finding in the subsequent steps.
The e-commerce team tackled several issues: price competition, an outdated catalog, a laggy website, and impersonal marketing. They pinpointed the lack of personalized customer engagement as the biggest hurdle. Data analysis and customer feedback revealed generic marketing efforts that failed to connect with individual preferences. Addressing this was crucial to improving customer loyalty, increasing conversion rates, and ultimately reversing the downward sales trend.
The team defined the critical problem as follows. Our e-commerce platform fails to deliver personalised experiences that build customer loyalty and drive conversions. This lack of personalisation is evident in our generic marketing efforts, which don’t resonate with individual customer needs and preferences’.
Generate Solutions
With the critical problem clearly framed, the team engages in a creative brainstorming session to generate potential solutions. To spur innovative thinking, the Facilitator guides the group in reframing the issue as an open-ended opportunity statement. This positive phrasing switches the team’s mindset from a narrow problem perspective to an open-minded exploration of possibilities. Building off one another’s ideas, the diverse group is able to co-create a wide range of solution concepts, from unique to tried-and-true. Subsequently, they narrow down and select a set of solutions that they believe can effectively address the critical problem. Including individuals from different departments and levels within the business leads to a diversity of ideas and insights. This results in a wider range of solutions better suited to the problem at hand.
The e-commerce team reframed the critical problem into a challenge. ‘How might we create a more engaging and personalised e-commerce experience that fosters customer loyalty and increases conversion rates?‘ Using this as a basis for their brainstorm, the team was able to generate a host of possible solutions.
Evaluate Solutions
With numerous potential solutions generated, the next step is evaluating which ideas have the highest potential impact and feasibility for addressing the critical problem. To promote objectivity, the team scorecard evaluates each solution against specific criteria. This helps to identify the most impactful and feasible ideas in an objective manner. Through this structured evaluation process, the team builds consensus around the most promising 2-3 solutions that comprehensively solve the critical problem in a viable manner. This rational prioritisation ensures resources are allocated to the highest-value initiatives.
After evaluating potential solutions, the e-commerce team decided to prioritise two initiatives. There was consensus that these had the greatest potential for improving customer engagement and driving sales growth.
Implementing a customer segmentation strategy: This would allow them to tailor messaging and product recommendations to specific customer needs and interests.
Launching a targeted email marketing campaign: This would leverage the segmentation data to deliver personalised emails that resonate with each customer group, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates.
Create an Action Plan
The team creates a detailed prioritised action plan for implementing the chosen solutions to solve the business problem. The action plan includes identifying specific tasks, assigning responsibilities, setting key results and establishing deadlines. By outlining the necessary actions and assigning accountability, the team ensures a smooth execution of the chosen solutions.
By the end of the workshop, the team will have a specific, actionable, and manageable plan. This will enable swift and decisive action to be taken in solving the business problem.
Our e-commerce team developed a detailed action plan for implementing the chosen solutions. Tasks included analysing customer data to identify segments, designing personalised email templates, integrating email marketing software with the e-commerce platform, and monitoring campaign performance metrics. The action plan outlined responsibilities, specific timelines, resource allocations, and key results to track progress towards achieving the long-term goal.
Six months after implementing the new customer engagement initiatives, the e-commerce business saw an increase of just over 15% in sales. This positive momentum placed them firmly on track to achieve their long-term goal.
The Power of the Decision Sprint
⏵ Faster Problem-Solving: Cut through the noise and arrive at effective solutions within hours, not days or weeks.
⏵ Enhanced Decision-Making: The structured approach ensures all relevant factors are considered, leading to more informed and confident choices.
⏵ Actionable Outcomes: Walk away with a concrete plan to implement your solutions and achieve measurable results.
⏵ Increased Innovation: The diverse team composition fosters creative thinking and the generation of novel solutions.
⏵ Remote-Friendly: Decision Sprints can be conducted effectively in both in-person and remote settings.
Ready to take action in solving business problems?
The Decision Sprint is a powerful problem solving technique that businesses can use to tackle a range of business challenges. Including increasing sales, reducing costs, streamlining operations, managing human resources, and developing new products and services, to name a few.
We recently applied this problem solving technique to address a client’s challenge of low employee engagement in the workplace. Read how a Decision Sprint was able to help them, here!
If your business is grappling with a significant challenge, don’t let it hold you back any longer. Contact us to schedule a free 30-minute consultation and discover how a Decision Sprint can propel your business forward.
With our fully remote services, we can assist you anywhere in the world. Let’s work together to unlock solutions tailored to your unique needs and goals.
FAQ’s
What is a Decision Sprint?
A Decision Sprint is a structured, rapid problem-solving method that facilitates clearer decision-making and innovative solutions within a short timeframe.
How does a Decision Sprint differ from traditional meetings?
A Decision Sprint is more efficient, focusing on generating and evaluating solutions within hours. It is also adaptable to both remote and in-person settings.
What makes a Decision Sprint effective?
Decision Sprints are effective due to their structure, diverse teams, and focus on actionable results, leading to better-informed decisions.
Can Decision Sprints be applied to any type of business problem?
Yes, Decision Sprints are adaptable and tackle various business challenges, from growth to efficiency.
How long does a Decision Sprint typically take?
A Decision Sprint is usually completed in under two hours, making it an ideal choice for businesses seeking rapid solutions.