How Visual Tools Assist Alliances

How Visual Tools Can Help Teams Create Clarity

Alliance and Ecosystem building is a complex undertaking. To move from idea to business involves taking into account a number of building blocks (e.g. partner types, governance models, commercial aspects, cultural interactions, and customer value). Not only do you need to consider these?building blocks, you also need to think about how they are related to each other. And as you learn from the market the nature of the building blocks changes and the relationships among them evolve.?

In undertaking such a complex task, how do teams from different companies ensure that they remain aligned? In creating constant alignment conversations are key. However, if all we do is talk to each other using words, we run the risk of creating less clarity and understanding.?(It also takes one hell of a lot of time!).

There are several reasons for this. First, our thoughts are fast and fragile. We can lose them very quickly as we try to communicate. Second, our voice and use of language is linear, which makes it difficult to communicate nonlinear concepts. Finally, the people listening to us add their own layer of interpretation. They may not hear what we intended to communicate.??

At Alliance Best Practice Ltd (ABP), we are well known for creating and using visual tools to help teams align. Indeed our alliance 'spider' diagram has been a staple and popular offering for the last 20 years (See Below). It helps two partnering teams to see each other's view of the alliance relationship. Both can quickly see areas of alignment and more importantly non alignment. But even though the tool is useful it is still a 'static' tool. It is not capable of dynamic modelling.

Enter the Transformation Accelerator (TA) tool from Tr3dent LLC the tool is specifically designed as an ecosystem modelling tool. However, tools like Transformation Accelerator were specifically designed?so that anyone can start to use them with a minimum amount of knowledge.?

We have learned over the years that teams that do not use visual tools spend time going around in circles, talking around the point, going down rabbit holes and arguing with each other. Even when they think they agree, without a visual aid to help them, each team member can have?their own ideas about what the teams have agreed on.?

I believe that coaching alliance teams without using the right visual tools makes the job much harder which in turn takes more time and oftentimes produces a less than satisfactory solution. While there is always space for reflection and conversation, when you want to create alignment and clarity, visual tools are the best thing to use.??

If you would like us to show you how to create a single diagram vision for your alliances or ecosystems please contact us at either [email protected] or [email protected]