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Is It a Puzzle, Or Is It a Mystery? Three Tools For Solving Mysteries……

Explore the difference between puzzles and mysteries in problem-solving, and learn how to harness the wisdom of crowds for strategic decision-making. Discover the power of prediction markets, scenario planning, war games, and charrettes in navigating uncertainty. Uncover the keys to capturing diffuse knowledge and concentrating it on complex business challenges.

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Is It a Puzzle, Or Is It a Mystery? Three Tools For Solving Mysteries……

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  1. Is It a Puzzle, Or Is It a Mystery? Three Tools For Solving Mysteries…… with The Wisdom of Crowds St. Louis Product Management Group April 27, 2010 David E. Schnedler 314 983-0025 schnedlr@pacbell.net

  2. Puzzles and Mysteries? • To solve a puzzle we must find the missing pieces to the puzzle – we need the missing data… • But mysteries require judgments and the assessment of uncertainty, and the hard part is not that we have too little information but that we have too much. • Gregory Treverton

  3. Product Managers deal with both Puzzles and Mysteries every day • Puzzles • Pricing • Forecasting • Positioning • Mysteries • What will our users want three years from now? • How will our competitive landscape change in the 3-5 year time frame? • What new business opportunities are about to emerge? • What is our most nefarious competitor about to do to us?

  4. The Wisdom Of Crowds • “Groups are remarkably intelligent, and are smarter than the smartest people in them” • “A large group of diverse individuals will come up with better and more robust forecasts and make more intelligent decisions than even the most skilled decision maker.” • James Surowiecki

  5. Is The Competitive Landscape Best Analyzed By One Person, Or By Many? Michael Porter’s Five Forces

  6. Or This? Michael Porter’s Value Chain

  7. Or This? Cloud Computing

  8. Three Conditions For Collective Wisdom • Diversity • Independence • Size

  9. For Solving Puzzles Prediction Markets Are A Powerful Collective Intelligence Tool • Pricing • Scheduling • Sales Forecasting • Event probability • Environmental and Competitive Predictions • Risk and Uncertainty

  10. But How Can Diffuse Knowledge and Wisdom Be Captured and Concentrated Upon These Mysteries? The conundrum of middle management is that solving a mystery is not enough – the challenge is to do so in an emotionally engaging manner which demands implementation of an actionable solution.

  11. Scenario Planning: the future is shaped by a confluence of forces and trends… Although the future cannot be precisely foretold, these forces and their interplay can be understood…

  12. Scenario Planning • Choosing the core team • Defining the Objective and time frame • Brainstorming, consolidating and ranking forces and trends • Breakout teams with content experts • Development and elaboration of scenarios • For each scenario, identify the optimal strategy • Cross analyze the strategies • Identify next steps

  13. War Games • Defining the objective • Selecting the competitors • Designing the teams • Choosing the venue • Researching and preparing the briefing books • Designing the games • Embedding the facilitators • Judge Judy • Post Game Washup/next steps/actions/owners

  14. Charrettes • Researching and Writing the Business Case • Designing the teams • Choosing the venue • Running the event • Presenting and defending the work product • Analysis, integration and convergence

  15. Anonymous Voting Methodologies Can Subsequently Be Utilized To Assess The Results

  16. Four Factors For Success • Timing • Preparation • Venue • Participants • Diversity • Independent mindedness • Size

  17. Final Caveats • You will be surprised • You will have fun

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