How can you use CPS to identify marketing strategy weaknesses?

CPS, or Critical Path Analysis, can help identify marketing strategy weaknesses by analyzing the sequential steps and dependencies within the marketing strategy. By mapping out key activities and their interdependencies, you can identify bottlenecks, delays, or areas where the strategy may lack efficiency or effectiveness. This analysis allows for targeted improvements to enhance the overall marketing strategy.

In my experience, early engagement with the customer is key to clarify the problem. Many times we have a solution in mind, and find reasons to move it forward and may embark on creating a solution that won’t satisfy the customer needs. Instead, I find helpful a deep dive with the customer to understand the needs and problem we want to solve. This can lead to a co-creation of a solution that also needs to continue evolving as everything else changes too.

Defining the business problem is perhaps the most underrated task of crafting an effective marketing strategy. For example, often businesses chase increased engagement on social media, when that engagement may not be correlated with increased sales, or another key KPI which the business should be focused on. In this sense, keeping the organization’s KPIs or key performance indicators as top of mind when defining the problem you’re looking to solve is essential.

I've found it helpful to take inspiration from seemingly disparate sources. For instance, what can Greek tragedy teach us about helping trauma survivors cope? How can mathematics improve aesthetics in landscape design? The more you open yourself up to new ideas and experiences, even if they're superficially unrelated, the more you can piece together a creative solution to your problem. Tunnel vision or myopia can be stifling to creativity!

Research shows that group brainstorms or white boarding sessions may actually not be the most effective way to generate new ideas. The core reason for this is that group sessions create a dynamic where the one with the loudest voice speaks the most. Those who have creative ideas but may lack confidence may not share in a large group setting. Next time your team is engaging in a brainstorming session, try each writing a brief 250 word memo in advance of the meeting, and swapping memos internally. Everyone should then present the creative ideas of another team member so the brainstorm becomes more about active listening, adopting a new frame of mind, and truly embracing new ideas.

Generative AI has the potential to play a huge role in this step of the CPS journey. Prior to the rise of Open AI and other AI wrappers, the time consuming nature of the prototyping process made it difficult for teams to both visualize potential solutions in an efficient way, but also prototype multiple solutions for consideration and feedback. Generative AI now makes the process of evaluation multiple scenarios much easier, and giving shape to multiple potential solutions that can be circulated for both internal and external customer feedback. From generating 3D models to quickly prototyping a new user experience on the web, AI can give quick and immediate visual meaning to the concepts generated in the brainstorm process.

Once the solution is determined, ideally with the inputs of customers and stakeholders, documenting the execution strategy in an adopted, easy to use project management template is essential. Affordable cloud softwares like Asana and Monday are light systems that provide the essential documentation around due date, task owner, dependent tasks, and associated documents with that task.

Ensure you bring diversity of perspectives to enrich the solutions. You can set up a board of advisors, or sounding board, to test your ideas before moving into a solution phase. Ideally, people that can bring a different perspective and may experience the solution in a different way than the regular customer. Don’t rush! Enjoy the process.