Getting Ready to Use Data

From the new Spark whitepaper, Getting to the “Good Stuff”: Evidence-Based Decision Making for Associations, written with Peter Houstle:

What are the things you need to do to get ready to use your data?

  • Address your data quality issues.
  • Measure what matters, not just what’s easy to measure.
  • Find your internal data sources.
  • Consider external data sources you might want to add.
  • Choose a tool to help you visualize your data.

Want to learn more about each of these? Download your free copy at http://bit.ly/1jwXcDX.

Big Data = Big Opportunity

From the new Spark whitepaper, Getting to the “Good Stuff”: Evidence-Based Decision Making for Associations, written with Peter Houstle:

Ultimately, Big Data supports innovation and allows us to do predictive marketing.

Why is that? With Big Data:

  • More data is easily available to relevant stakeholders
  • Accurate data helps you experiment in an organized way
  • Detailed data allows you to segment and target offers appropriately
  • Continuous data about the performance of your existing offerings provides insight so you can create new and better offerings

Want more? Download your free copy at http://bit.ly/1jwXcDX.

Evidence-Based Decision Making for Associations

I’m excited to share the launch of the fifth whitepaper in the ongoing Spark whitepaper series, Getting to the “Good Stuff”: Evidence-Based Decision Making for Associations

Co-authored with Peter Houstle (Mariner Management), the whitepaper tackles the question: how can associations use data to start asking meaningful, mission-driven questions and to inform our decision-making processes around them?

Big Data presents a tremendous opportunity for associations, but in order to realize its potential, there are some things you need to know and do. First, your data needs to be reasonably clean and complete. Then you need to look for patterns, and data visualization tools can help with that. Then you need think about the questions those patterns raise and create hypotheses to answer those questions. Then you test your hypotheses, hopefully find strong correlation (since proving cause and effect is rare), and make decisions accordingly. In the course of our research, we did discover a secret sauce to decision making success, but I’ll share more about that later this week.

Speaking of, I’ll be blogging about the contents of the whitepaper all week, but in the meantime, pick up your free copy at http://bit.ly/1jwXcDX, no divulging of information about yourself required.

Don’t forget to check out the other FREE Spark whitepapers, too:

Strategy, Risk, and Implementation

Final day of whitepaper release week!

From the new Spark whitepaper, Risk: The Missing Link Connecting Strategy to Implementation, co-authored with Jamie Notter (JamieNotter.com) and Leslie White (Croydon Consulting):

Having…conversations around risk and opportunity is not necessarily easy, but it’s becoming increasingly important in today’s complex, mutable, fast-paced environment. You need people at all levels of your association who can analyze and make key decisions that are in line with your strategic direction, and that means they need the skills and tools to quickly get beneath the surface conclusions that create conflicts in order to resolve them, decide, and act.

You do that by:

  • Asking better questions
  • Bringing assumptions to the surface
  • Agreeing to disagree
  • Focusing on the decision

You can find out more about how to do that by downloading the free whitepaper at http://bit.ly/MJ5oo8.

Additionally, Jamie, Leslie, and I offer training for senior teams to help you develop the skills to make better decisions faster. You can find out more on the Spark Services | Training page.

 

Risk, Strategy, Conflict, and Consensus

Whitepaper release week continues!

From the new Spark whitepaper, Risk: The Missing Link Connecting Strategy to Implementation, co-authored with Jamie Notter (JamieNotter.com) and Leslie White (Croydon Consulting):

Strategy and risk are about choosing to do certain things and, sometimes more importantly, not to do certain things. Conversations about these choices are difficult because your organization naturally has a range of overlapping concerns and interests, typically represented by specific groups of people, maybe a department or a membership segment. When you have different groups representing different interests, it often leads to conflict. And most organizations don’t handle their conflict well.

Get the full whitepaper (for free, no personal information required) at http://bit.ly/MJ5oo8.

How Does Risk Relate to Strategy?

From the new Spark whitepaper, Risk: The Missing Link Connecting Strategy to Implementation, co-authored with Jamie Notter (JamieNotter.com) and Leslie White (Croydon Consulting):

Risk management is an intrinsic part of strategic thinking. When considering a strategy, you must first determine whether that strategy aligns with your risk appetite…The biggest challenge associations face in establishing a culture of strategic risk management is to get people comfortable thinking and talking about what could go wrong—or right—on the way to realizing your excellent new ideas. The key is to match your risk exposure to your risk appetite, while not undervaluing potential lost opportunity.

Like what you read? Want more? Download your free copy at http://bit.ly/MJ5oo8.

Why Does Risk Matter?

From the new Spark whitepaper, Risk: The Missing Link Connecting Strategy to Implementation, written with Jamie Notter and Leslie White:

The risk management process involves the continuous identification, assessment, prioritization, and selection of risk management techniques; implementation; and monitoring of outcomes.

But what if the board and senior team members don’t all agree on what the risk is, how likely it is, or what impact it might have? What if the decision-makers don’t have the same appetite for risk? What if they don’t accord the potential opportunity the same level of importance? Risk management sounds straightforward in theory, but the effective practice of risk management requires broadening your awareness about uncertainty and risk and integrating this risk awareness directly into your strategic decision- making. You need to define your risk strategy.

Want more? Download your free copy at http://bit.ly/MJ5oo8.

Risk: The Missing Link Connecting Strategy to Implementation

I’m excited to share the launch of the fourth whitepaper in the ongoing Spark whitepaper series, Risk: The Missing Link Connecting Strategy to Implementation.

Co-authored with Jamie Notter (JamieNotter.com) and Leslie White, CPCU, ARM, CIC, CRM, (Croydon Consulting), the whitepaper tackles the question: why do senior teams have so much trouble with strategic decision-making?

Our answer is that a major contributing factor is that they are unable to have good conversations about risk, risk management, risk appetite, and how that all relates to opportunity and opportunity cost, because they avoid conflict and have a mistaken understanding of what constitutes consensus. The whitepaper shares both theory and techniques to help senior teams have better conversations, make more informed choices about risk and opportunity, and ultimately, be more effective in forming and implementing their strategies as a result.

I’ll be blogging about the contents of the whitepaper all week, but in the meantime, pick up your free copy at http://bit.ly/MJ5oo8, no divulging of information about yourself required.

And don’t forget to check out the other Spark whitepapers:

Don’t Forget the Debrief!

Sometimes I think the most useful service I perform as a consultant has nothing to do with conducting stakeholder interviews or running focus groups or digging through background materials or doing secondary research or creating kick-ass strategies or even more kick-ass campaigns or teaching staff what’s involved in conducting a campaign so they can go forth and fish themselves, rather than just eating the fish sandwich I handed them.

Not that all that stuff isn’t great, of course, but I think maybe the most helpful thing I do for clients is get them to sit down for an hour or two after we finish whatever the main focus of the engagement was, discuss what we learned, talk about what we’d do differently the next time, and document the whole thing. In order to do this, we also have to actually figure out what happened. We go through questions like:

  • In concrete and specific terms, how did we do against what we wanted to do? Did we achieve the revenue (or number of attendees or number of new members or renewal percentage etc….) we were aiming at? Why or why not?
  • What went well? How can we tweak it to make it go even better next time?
  • What didn’t go well? Why? Should we try to fix it next time, and if so, how, or should we just write it off as an experiment that didn’t work?
  • Is there anything we wanted to do we didn’t get to or couldn’t make happen, and what did we learn that would get us there next time?

It’s hard, I know. When there’s a lot going on and not quite as many people as you wish you had to get it all done, it’s tempting to finish a project and just move on the next thing on the “To Do” list.

The problem with that is that we want our associations to be learning organisms. But if you never take the time to assess what happened and capture and share what you learned, your association will never get smarter as an organization – you’ll never get to the point where you’re increasing organizational capacity.

 

 

Getting the Most Out of Your Consulting Partnerships

So you’re thinking about hiring a consultant. How can you make sure the resources you’re investing in the relationship are well-spent?

First question to ask yourself: should you be hiring a consultant at all?

  • If you need the expertise all the time, and it’s a key skill of your members, use volunteers.
  • If you need the expertise all the time, and it’s something that is a staff core competency, hire or train for it.
  • If you need the expertise all the time, and it’s not something you consider a staff core competency, outsource.
  • If you only need the expertise periodically, that’s the time to look for a consultant. Other key indicators? You need a neutral/objective third party, and/or you need some fresh ideas. Consultants get to see a lot of different associations and get exposed to lots of ways of doing things.

Once you’ve made the decision that you need a consultant, remember that it’s a relationship, not a transaction, so you want to treat it as such.

What does that mean?

As I’ve  written before, don’t be afraid to talk to a few consultants before you start gathering proposals. Our expertise will help you get a better idea of what you need. And the more we know, the better job we’ll do of putting together a project plan, outline, schedule, and budget that will actually accomplish what you’re after.

Also, don’t be shy about sharing your ballpark budget information. We’re not asking so we can make sure to spend every single dime you have available. Knowing where you’re thinking of playing helps us scale our proposals appropriately. For instance, most projects involve research, which can mean anything from an hour on Google to flying around the country to conduct one-on-one interviews face to face with all your key stakeholders, and a nearly infinite number of options in between. As you might expect, those have very different price tags attached.

The association world is blessed with many excellent consultants, most of whom have years of direct association experience as well. You will be able to find several people (at a minimum) who will do good work for you, no matter what you’re looking for. Of course you’ll consider price, but you should also be choosing based on cultural fit (in line with the most current advice in hiring staff).

Once you’ve made your choice and you’re working together, be honest with your consultant: tell us what you’re really thinking. We’re like priests or therapists, 100% dedicated to helping you solve your problems, but you have to be honest with us about what they are in order for us to be able to do our best work for you.

Don’t be afraid to ask us questions and challenge us. Consultants – or at least good ones – don’t just want you to passively accept everything we offer. You have good ideas and experience, too, and the best solutions will come out of the alchemy created by mixing our best with your best.

Be open to new ideas and suggestions, which ideally, is what you’re going to hear. Don’t just hire us to provide political cover. We can do that, but most of us hate it, and when you do, you’re missing out on the best of what we can offer.

Finally, just like in a restaurant, if you aren’t happy with something, speak up so we can fix it while it still matters.

Association consultants and execs who’ve worked with consultants: what other advice would you add?