The 8 traits of The Wheel of Progress and other great business design tools

Business-related planning and design tools and canvases have become popular during the last decade. There are hundreds of tools available for download over the internet. So, one can easily be overwhelmed by choosing the right one.

Great business design tools, however, have specific characteristics. This special fabric ensures the tool is applicable in the real-world and achieves the desired impact. Investing in new tools and frameworks is not only an expensive proposition, it is central to the future success of an organization.

So, the question is what are the elements that make a business design tool great? The following write up is an attempt to describe the specific features and serves as an invitation to a discussion about this topic. The Wheel of Progress? is used for illustration purposes.

What is The Wheel of Progress?

The Wheel of Progress is a customer-centered innovation development tool based on the Jobs to Be Done theory - a concept advocated by innovation thought leaders - that integrates the crucial elements that help understand so called customer jobs.

What are the characteristics of a great business design tool?

#1 Rooted in a forward-thinking concept

Great business design tools are based on leading-edge thinking and focused on solving a big issue. The challenge The Wheel of Progress tries to tackle is the lack of meeting a significant market demand by new products. Irrelvance is the #1 reason why new products fail.

Solving problems of those dimensions require a radically new way of thinking not only about the solution but about the problem itself. This thinking needs to be based on a theory that is proven to be effective.

The Wheel of Progress is rooted in the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) theory, a broadly accepted explanation of why people pull new products into their lives. Jobs to Be Done has been put forward by Bob Moesta, one of the creators of the Jobs to Be Done theory, and popularized by Harvard Business School professor and innovation thought leader Clayton M. Christensen, the father of disruptive innovation.

There is a growing number of practitioners that have demonstrated that applying this theory makes a significant difference in the success of new products, marketing measures and other customer-related corporate functions. Numerous examples have shown that the JTBD mindset helps organizations achieve breakthrough successes.

Even if the theory is proven it still takes other means to make it applicable. The job of an excellent business design tool and the associated methods is to unlock the theory and make it applicable to a mass of users, not only to a few experts.

#2 Serving one purpose, effectively

For a business design tool, the right focus is crucial but not obvious. In the case of tools that strive to better understand customers, many tools are based on "best practice" models; models that focus on one or a few aspects, e.g. empathy, the customer journey, gains/pains, satisfaction, and personality types, just to name a few.

Although, those kinds of insights might be helpful, the question that matters most and needs to be addressed remains mostly unanswered by most approaches: why would people want to leave behind what they have and switch to a new solution?

Other tools are trying to handle too many questions at once, e.g. dealing with the "problem" and the solution in one work cycle. Many business tools integrate elements from different disciplines and thus blur the view on the issue at hand and make adjustments unnecessary hard. Some canvases are overburdened by details that are not critical to gain a solid understanding.

We believe in the value of separating problem and solution. A discrete phase that is dedicated to identifying customer needs has the best chance to create a clear picture and minimize biases towards a particular solution.

The Wheel of Progress, for example furthers the understanding of progressing as a cyclical activity. Consequently, The Wheel of Progress was designed to mimic a cycle. This form factor allows researchers to capture even overlaying progress cycles that can be parsed later.

The Wheel of Progress also supports getting an understanding of the human decision-making process. Customers make up their mind during the customer journey. It is morphing from the first thought up to the use of the new product. Understanding how decisions are made, how customers struggle, and how trade-offs are made provides great learning opportunities for how people act in the real world.

Deep insights into customer jobs create the foundation for the creation of outstanding value propositions. It helps to focus researchers on creating an understanding of how customer want to progress in life - both as consumers as well as members and leaders of an organization.

The Wheel of Progress is a single purpose canvas that aims at identifying and defining customer jobs so they become addressable by products, services, and brands. It helps to achieve a unified understanding of what drives customers to abandon what they have and pursue something new.

#3 "If it ain't fit on one page it is too complex"

Reducing complexity is one of the main jobs of a great business design tool. The tool should be based on a mental model that reduces the amount of information to be gathered and analyzed to as much as needed and as little as possible. Key is that the mental model contains the right elements to reflect the real-world as accurate as necessary.

Methods that require users to work with several models at once or with complex canvases have a huge downside: they are difficult to use. Another disadvantage is that relationships across the different models are difficult to recognize.

A good business tool is simple to use. At the same time, it does not preclude the user from dealing with all the crucial details. It provides structure and flexibility - something that sounds contradictory. We designed The Wheel of Progress according to the as little as possible and as much as necessary principle.

It provides guidance by containing a structure that allow to capture all essential data that characterize a customer job and provides visual features as reminders for data points or tasks to be completed. Yet, the details are captured by using notes (Stattys, similar to Post-its). One canvas can capture all the details of a customer interview. These details can be sorted and parsed and put on different canvases to create clarity. This way structure and guidance ensure that no important fact is neglected, and complexity is given room.

The Wheel of Progress integrates two proven models: the "timeline", a kind of customer journey chart, and the forces of progress chart that depicts the forces that promote and inhibit movement to a new solution as described by Chris Spiek & Bob Moesta. A third component, the "constraints" has been added to capture the critical elements of the limiting context under which a job needs to be performed.

Having all elements on one canvas provides the advantage to make it easy to recognize patterns and dependencies between the different aspects of a customer job.

#4 Supports a natural workflow

Analyzing and synthesizing data is a complex task. Evaluating customer interviews in particular is very demanding. Data from interviews or observations needs to be captured, analyzed and put into the right “bucket”. Then the data needs to be rolled up into a customer job description/definition.

This process is difficult as speech needs to be transferred into meaning and processed further. This is a complicated matter. The canvas needs to provide "safe" places to "park" the items and move them around or leave them in a spot when they are not clear, ensuring they are not lost.

The Wheel of Progress provides features that allow researchers to perform the “construction” of jobs in a two-step process: 1. capture and analyze and 2. sort and synthesize interview data. The four quadrants provide places to document the results of the analysis. The canvas further provides a space for documenting the summary in form of a Statement of Desired Progress.

#5 Is supported by learning tools

Many business design tools leave it up to the user to learn how to use them. This can take months even years to figure it out and lead to frustration and insufficient outcomes.

Interviewing customers effectively for example is challenging. Among other things, the key is to have the right process, to have the right attitude and to ask the right questions. To help interviewers learn to lead interviews effectively we are using proven tools, including the JTBD cards by Jonathan Briggs.

Analyzing interview data is no less challenging. There are lots of ambiguities to deal with, but clarity is of the essence for achieving great quality. A good business tool is supported by a refined learning process that helps users to ramp up quickly and provide a great learning experience.

For The Wheel of Progress we break the complex analysis process down into simple tasks. We provide instructions that help to learn step-by-step to use the tool, to create valuable and valid insights and get a sense of achievement. As the learner gets more experience, he/she moves up from a participant to become a process leader and moderator.

#6 Fosters collaboration

Working with abstract data is a highly intellectual task. Processing interviews in particular is highly challenging. The statements made during an interview are often full of inconsistencies, ambiguities and irrationalities. Yet, the assignment is to analyze and synthesize the data to make sense of it and find the higher-level customer job. This task is executed most effectively in a team setting. Different experiences, perspectives, and perceptions help to assess and rationalize the "data".

To facilitate this kind of group thinking, the tool needs to be available as a large format canvas to allow discussions in teams. The data should be color coded to easily recognize the attribution to a certain data type from a distance. An intuitive and clear structure as well as visual clues should provide a visual orientation.

#7 Allows a seamless data transfer to other frameworks

When working with a business design tools it is most useful to have an easy data transfer available to tools being used subsequently in the process. Using different frameworks and languages and thus being required to massage the data not only creates additional work, it also bears a lost in translation risk.

The Wheel of Progress is compatible with one of the most widely used business tools, the Value Proposition Canvas by Alexander Osterwalder. Not only does it leverages the same concepts, it uses the same terminology and evaluation metrics. These features allow the transfer of the customer job results to the next step - the creation of great value propositions - without much effort.

#8 Provides insights for other corporate functions

A good business design process should not be performed in an organizational silo. Nor should the outcome be kept in the silo. Rather, the outcomes should be used throughout the entire organization.

When consequently applied, customer jobs thinking is central to an organization's vision, mission and related activities. Customer jobs serve as an integrating element that unify and self-direct all functions. Thus, it is most useful to provide the corporate functions like engineering/dev, marketing, sales, service, etc. with customer job data that is pertinent to their role.

Corporate functions that need to know specific information can extract insights from The Wheel of Progress' quadrants and the constraints circle.

Conclusion

Choosing the right business design tool is a task of great importance as it has significant influence over the outcome of the planning process. Using an insufficient tool will most likely produce an insufficient outcome. Making short cuts or using great tools poorly will most likely lead to poor outcomes as well. Great tools used as intended have the best chance to produce the desired results. Knowing what criteria to apply when choosing the right business design tools therefore is of utmost importance.

Here are the questions you should ask when choosing a business design tool:

#1 Is it rooted in a forward-thinking concept?

#2 Does it serve one purpose, effectively?

#3 Does it fit on one page?

#4 Does it support a natural workflow?

#5 Is it supported by learning tools?

#6 Does it foster collaboration?

#7 Does it allow a seamless transfer to other frameworks?

#8 Does it provide insights for other corporate functions?

Building business design tools

Building a business design tools is a demanding task. It requires dedication, listening to different perspectives, reviews, iterations, tough trade-offs, and a practical test.

The Wheel of Progress strives to be a tool that makes the Jobs to Be Done theory applicable to a broad mass of practitioners without the need to spend a lot of time explaining the underlying theory. The ultimate goals however is to enable organizations to create value propositions that make a true difference in people’s lives.

For more details on The Wheel of Progress and its creators visit The Wheel of Progress web site or e-mail [email protected]

About the author

Eckhart Boehme is a product management & innovation consultant and a recognized Jobs to Be Done expert. During his 18+ year tenure at Microsoft Corporation, he managed and marketed learning products and helped the company to introduce the value proposition process. Eckhart served as the subject matter expert on the German version of Clayton Christensens‘ book ?Competing Against Luck“, trained hundreds of participants on the application of the theory and has led jobs to be done research projects. Eckhart and Peter Rochel co-developed the Wheel of Progress, a tool for creating innovations based on customer insights.

Remarks

In my research have not been able to discover any other articles on how to evaluate business design tools. Although there are many articles that talk about the tools themselves, I have not found one that goes deep into the evaluation criteria. The white paper on the evaluation of Tools to Support Strategic Thinking however mentions similar traits and raises the importance of an evaluation of tools.

Literature

[1] Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice, 2016, by Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, David S. Duncan

[2] Jobs to be Done Handbook, 2014, Chris Spiek, Bob Moesta

[3] Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want, 2014, by Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernada, Alan Smith, Trish Papadakos

Image credits

The Wheel of Progress charts by Eckhart Boehme and Peter Rochel

Photos and illustrations by Eckhart B?hme

Clayton Christensen quote by AZ Quotes https://www.azquotes.com/quote/749958

The Wheel of Progress image on tablet by Juergen Kroder