Get your ideas across by presenting them the right way
Your ability to present ideas in a precise, articulate and convincing manner makes a huge difference to your listener. Strategy consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain or BCG have perfected this art. Here are the key takeaways I use for my presentations.
Tell a story
Craft your presentation like a story. The Freytag’s Pyramid is a model used in many classical stories and you can use it to build your story presentation.
Situation: Clearly explain the problem and the situation faced, why this problem matters and the potential consequence of the situation is not addressed. Show the tension.
Analysis: Synthesis your key finding from the research phase, the new insights that you learned from the work you did. Explain where the insight came from. Explain why those insights are surprising and valuable. Show the tension on the insights, they hint that something can done about the situation.
Recommendation: In the light of the insights you just mentioned, propose your recommendations. How are your recommendations addressing this situation? Propose what you think the company could do. Make sure that there is no ambiguity in your message, and be as specific as you can. Provide an example of how this recommendation could work with the specific use case.
Impact: Impact of the recommendation: here take a deeper dive into your recommendation: what are the strengths and weaknesses, what is a possible implementation plan? What other benefits are expected?
Conclusion: Summarize the key points of the presentation and reiterate the importance of implementing a solution to the business problem.
Design slides for clarity and impact
As for the slide to support your arguments, you can use the following principles:
Titles are the takeaway: The title of the slide should be the key insight or takeaway and the slide area should prove the point. Detail the slide leveraging the Pyramid Principle.
C’est parce qu’on a pivoté pour trouver notre growth engine. Et la c’est le Product Market Fit !
…vous pouvez répéter ?
Bienvenue dans l’univers Lean Startup, où l’on parle autant anglais que français… ou plutôt franglais. Sigles, anglicismes, abréviations : comment s’y retrouver ?
Le Lean Startup c’est quoi ? Le “Lean Startup” est une approche entrepreneuriale de création de produit ou service. Elle repose sur l’apprentissage du marché, l’expérimentation scientifique et le design itératif.
En se basant sur les réussites et des échecs des startups, Eric Ries a réuni et codifié plusieurs bonnes pratiques qui constituent aujourd’hui la méthodologie de base de conception des startups dans son livre “The Lean startup”. En quelques mots, il s’agit de constamment adapter et ajuster son produit le plus rapidement possible en fonction des retours des utilisateurs.
Ou en jargon : Il faut pivoter sur la value proposition de son business model avec ses early adopters pour avoir de la traction et atteindre la customer validation avant de construire son MVP.
C’est clair ? Non !
Bon, voici le décodeur.
Bootstrap : Démarrage de startup sur des fonds propres, limités, sans faire appel à des investisseurs extérieurs. Cela permet de trouver des solutions créatives pour réaliser son idée. Avoir très peu de moyens oblige à faire des choix et amène a se focaliser sur ce qui est le plus important pour le client.
Business Model : Un business model décrit comment une entreprise crée, délivre et capture la valeur pour ces clients. Une fois son business model posé, la startup cherche à le valider ou à l’invalider. Des expérimentations courtes permettent de tester indépendamment les différents éléments de son business model. Si les expérimentations invalident une partie du business model, il faut alors se poser la question du pivot.
Pivot : Pivoter c’est changer un élément de son business model sans changer de vision. Par exemple, cela peut-être changer sa cible, son canal de distribution ou sa solution sans changer les autres éléments de son business model. Un pivot est un changement de stratégie sans changement de vision.
Early Adopter : Ici, ce sont les personnes les plus promptes à utiliser votre produit ou votre service. Ce sont eux qui expriment le besoin ou le problème vous allez résoudre de la façon la plus forte. Les early adopters constituent votre première cible.
MVP : Le terme le plus répandu du Lean Startup mais aussi le plus confus. Le Minimum Viable Product est une expérience faites avec des clients. Cette expérience sert a vérifier si l’on arrive à bien répondre au besoin du client, et cela grâce a une version réduite de la solution que l’on envisage de construire.
Traction : Taux de croissance de l’entreprise, acquisition de nouveaux utilisateurs ou clients. C’est un indicateur clé au démarrage pour de nombreuses startups en B2C. La traction vient de son Growth Engine ou moteur de croissance.
Growth Engine : Le moteur de croissance est la stratégie mises en oeuvre pour faire croître le nombre de clients. Il y a trois stratégies principale:
En payant pour l’acquisition de nouveaux clients, par exemple une campagne marketing. C’est moteur de croissance de beaucoup de site de e-commerce par exemple, ou ils doivent constamment chercher de nouveaux clients à travers des campagne marketing.
En étant viral, c’est quand l’utilisation du produit par les clients actuels incite d’autres personnes a utiliser le produit. Par exemple les réseaux sociaux ou les personnes s’inscrivent parce qu’elles y sont invitées par leurs amis.
En améliorant la rétention : en s’assurant que les clients restent sur le moyen-long terme. Par exemple, les services d’abonnement téléphone ou autre.
Product-Market Fit : La rencontre et accord parfait entre un produit et son marché : la startup fait des ventes répétées. Lorsqu’il y product market fit, la startup peut passer à la phase de croissance, qui est telle qu’elle n’arrive pas a répondre à la demande. C’est aussi à partir de ce moment que d’autres startups en général copient leur concept.
Value Proposition : La proposition de valeur est la formulation la plus simple et la plus compréhensible qui permette de décrire de manière précise et actionnable ce que vous offrez à vos clients. Par exemple, celle d’Uber est “The Smartest Way to Get Around”. Elle doit être claire pour vos futur clients.
Lean Canvas : Tableau synthétisant les différents éléments de son business model. Il permet de poser sur papier ses hypothèses et de s’en servir comme base de travail pour identifier les éléments à tester.
Customer Validation : Avant même d’avoir construit un produit, il est essentiel de comprendre et valider sa cible client et ses besoins. Steve Blank l’a théorisé dans ce qui s’appelle le customer development. La phase de validation consiste à valider la demande. (ex : crowdfunding)
Bonus : Maintenant que vous connaissez le jargon, voici un petit jeu a imprimer et dégainer lors votre prochaine réunion startup ! C’est le bullshit bingo Lean Startup.
Chaque fois qu’un mot est prononcé, cocher la case correspondante. Lorsqu’une ligne ou une colonne est complète, crier “bullshit”. Bravo ! Vous avez gagné !
J’espère que cette lecture vous a été utile si ce n’est divertissante ! Et dites moi si vous avez gagné au Bingo !
Pour apprendre à innover comme les startups, contactez-moi chez Tango.
This is what I learned using the Culture Map tool with a corporate team.
First a bit of context: I have been following Dave Gray’s and Alexander Osterwalder’s work for the past years and got really excited when Alex presented the Culture Map back in 2015 at the Lean Startup Conference in San Francisco.
Since then I’d been looking for an opportunity to use the tool. I recently met Dave Gray who gave me a 30mins run down on how he uses the Culture Map. I complemented my research with Best Practices: How To Use The Culture Map and was ready to go!
Sitting down with the team, we took about 2.5 hours together to map out their culture. After explaining the tool and what to expect from it, the participants had about 10 mins to fill out the map individually. We then had a conversation about different inputs each person had and aimed at creating a collective Culture Map. Here are my takeaways.
The Culture Map created and framed the conversation
For me, this is the main benefit of the tool. The topics discussed would not be talked about or analysed as a team otherwise. For instance, the team highlighted the freedom they have in their work hours and the tools they can use. Asking why does the team have such freedom (the enabler) and what this freedom allowed them to achieve (the outcomes) gave them a better understanding of what’s going on.
Behaviours have positive and negative outcomes
When talking about the outcome of a specific behaviour, we found for each positive outcome, there was also a negative outcome. For instance the team could move fast and make some decisions on their own. The downside of this was that it created a disconnected with to the rest of the business that couldn’t behave that way. Bringing this to light now allows the team to see it and think whether to continue with or adjust the behaviour. It becomes now a conscious decision.
Identify behaviours as things We do…
The best practices suggest to start by mapping out behaviours. This worked well for us. To help define team behaviours, I found it useful to start the phrase with We + some verb. “We release code before it’s perfect”. “We have lunch together as a team”. For each behaviour, each team member had a story to tell. This supported the collective understanding of the team culture.
Don’t include the boss?
This is more of a question then a takeaway. The session worked well as the team talked openly and exposed how they work in a non-judgemental way. I imagine the exercise might not run smoothly for some teams if the boss is around. It can prevent a frank and honest conversation, leading to an unremarkable result.
As a bonus we used the Culture Map to map the “want to have” culture. Here again, fundamental conversation emerged, questioning the purpose and ambitions of the team.
So was it worth the 2.5 hours? Absolutely. The tool is great to frame the conservation and bring the invisible to light. Do you know how your team behaves? Why do they behave the way they do, does this have a positive or negative impact?
If you want to learn more about how to think and innovate like a startup, contact me on Tango.
Sometimes startups come to me with this problem: we have created this great service, how can we get our first customers.
Those startups quite often need to put a hold on product development and focus customer development.
What they don’t actually know is:
– are they addressing a real, existing problem or a burning need ?
– does their service or product actually solve the problem – to the eyes of their target customers (or to their wallets should I say).
Answering those questions with genuine insight from real people is what customer development is.
Here is how to do it. It look and sound easy can be very tricky as it’s goes against a lot of expected cultural and social behaviours.
Find 10 potential customers from the target group and understand if the problem you are solving is a big pain or they dont really care.
For each customer understand where they stand:
Did they have the problem ?
Did they know they have the problem ?
Did they look for a solution ?
Did they hack a solution ?
Did they pay for a solution ?
Achtung! Don’t ask them those questions. Have a conversation – not an interview – about the problem you are trying to solve and understand how they are solving it today. At the end, categorize them into the buckets above.
Once this is clear, the question is, how do I find those 10 potential customers ?
Be creative, try different methods. Which ever method works best can later become one of you marketing / communication channel. Drop the one that dont work. If you can’t find those first 10 customers, how are going to find 100s of them ?
If your product solves the problem, the people that you identified as paying for a solution (the last bucket) are your potential customers. You can start selling it to them.
As as part of Marketing lectures I am giving to the students about crisis communication, I have gather a set of real life examples that illustrates the best practices to follow. This is the first post a series where I share those examples and best practices.
January 2010, an article in the New York Times advances that H&M destroys its unsold clothes in order to prevent steal and deterioration of the brand image.
Quickly, a link to the article is published to the 1,4 million fans of the H&M Facebook page.
The story is picked and amplified by the Huffington Post. H&M response: What they did was post a message on Facebook (followed by two similar ones) on the same day and the day after followed by a press release.
One of H&M’s missions is to take responsibilities as regards the way our methods affect people and the environment. Our policy is to give damaged and used clothes to humanitarian organizations. We investigate why our 34th avenue store throw out unsold clothes. The US head office donates every year thousands of clothes through the NGO Gifts in Kid International.
In 2009, two Domino’s Pizza employees published this video.
Domino’s Pizza responded with this video from Patrick Doyle, president of Domino’s USA.
January 2010, an article in the 
In 2009, two Domino’s Pizza employees published this video.