Rediscover Killer Questions

Disruptive Answers to Killer Questions

In 2017, I wrote about the freedom of transformative radical thinking that is ‘Kaikaku’ (A lean approach to radical innovation) and mentioned how @Paul Sloane’s book ‘The Innovative Leader’ (2007) wrote about exploring new radical answers using killer questions such as …

“If asked to kill your own company and start from scratch, what (if anything) of the old company would you bring with you, leave behind or change in your new company?”

In early 2018, I wrote again about the 'Kill the Company' process and its value in capturing a representation of what an organisation could do to evolve itself. Earlier in 2012, @Lisa Bodell of FutureThink wrote an insightful book by the same name 'Kill the Company'.

In 2018, I brought the sum total of what I had learned into a single visual workshop tool as an A2 poster. During workshops, I hang this poster on the wall and invite participants to add their sticky note suggestions and ask that each note be explained to the group as to the rationale driving the suggestion.

This process helps to facilitate an open cross-company group consensus-building discussion, winning buy-in as the discussion progresses not unlike that of the 'Planning Poker' technic utilised by Agile/Scrum teams. Fast forward to 2019 and little had changed barring some helpful graphic design suggestions offered by @Amy Hasenyager

Step 0 - The Inputs

Step 0 is a step that needs to run in advance of 'Kill the Company'. It becomes a 'Simple Objective' born of a 'Killer Question' such as:

"We're killing the company, the only thing you can take with you is all the knowledge, expertise and lessons you have learnt, what are you going to do next?". 

Once a 'Simple Objective' is identified, the group consensus will begin to smarten up the 'Simple Objective' if possible using exploratory value stream questions such as:

"What is the minimum output needed to successfully satisfy 80% of current demand and How long will it take us to get there?"

The answer will usually be something like 6 months, 1 year, 3 years. This answer then gets plugged into the 'simple objective' to make it into a 'SMART Objective' and becomes the input needed to begin the 'Kill the Company' process.

Steps 1-4 - The Process ('Kill the Company')

The process of 'Killing the Company' then asks participants to post their suggestions explaining as they go from steps 1 to 4 around the poster. Inviting discussion, negotiation, and consensus-building. The facilitator's ruling is final in any areas of contention or divergence. Every suggestion should be discussed and explored especially when consensus is found immediately … if only to avoid legacy thinking still holding on too …

"that’s the way it has always been done!"

Steps 5 - The Outputs

The outputs for post-processing after the 'Kill the Company' process are usually twofold. There will be areas of suggestion and areas still lacking. Any gaps can become inputs to further tools and workshop discussions. Both suggestions and gaps can be elaborated further and result in even more incremental or transformative thinking, including areas of opportunity, ideation, invention and innovation.

The identified outputs of the 'Kill the Company' process become the inputs for the next process. Each suggestion continues to be transformed by group consensus into SMART objectives and the process cycles until all suggestions and gaps have actionable outputs or action plans. Keeping each elaboration within the same team can be most beneficial because they already know how to hunt as a pack, build consensus to overcome much of the existing terrain and successfully take down each kill. When this is done, the group could also (if desired) rank, prioritise and action any high-value suggestions as a matter of greatest urgency.

'Killing a …'

During a recent workshop, I stumbled into a new problem. 'Killing a …' (something other than a company) while my version 1 was still workable, it had as a visual tool begun to feel a little dated and inappropriate within a social context and perhaps too narrow in its focus as we attempted to force-fit a new volunteer social support service for victims of rural crime into a company context. I thought to myself, something new is required, something more appropriate. As with pretty much all needs, problems, early ideas and concepts, I like to make a note, park and then stew awhile fermenting potential solutions in a cognitive process I call 'Joining the Dots' (to perceive anew).

Joining the dots

A few days after the workshop had ended, as I began to unpacked the used post-its, posters and flip chart. I found myself stairing at the 'Kill the company' poster with all its post-its still stuck to it as I unrolled it and asked myself the killer question:

"How would my most innovative ancestor solve this problem?"

A tale of two books

Perhaps it’s a good time to put my hands in the air and surrender to you a secret passion of mine. Back in 2003, I was going through an inspirational period that triggered a hunger for personal self-development, research and storytelling from which I still very much suffer. 

My hunger for learning and sharing knowledge was only matched by a desire to pen two books at some point in the future. The first of two books would be a book that argues for a more humorous dyslexic positive perspective of the world. The second of these two books would tell the story of a creative, inventive and innovative problem solver who was one of my most early ancestors.  

The Evolutionary Human Gap

Did I mention, like myself, my early ancestor was a bit of a missing link, as a historical evolutionary gap, he happened to be the thought leader of a tribe of early humans called 'Home-Erectus' that lived more than 150,000 years ago. His name was 'Homo-Innovatus'. If both books should ever get to be published and you dare to read them, what happened next will perhaps make a lot more sense.

How would early humans join the dots using today's 'Kill the company' and realise new ways to 'Kill the woolly mammoth?' or in the workshop case, 'Kill the social service?' The answer was pretty simple, just as simple as the killer question being asked. 'Homo-innovatus' would never have limited the power of his problem solving to merely 'Kill the company' … Obviously, companies didn’t even exist back then! 

Instead, he would have used his cave painted visual tool to re-imagine new transformative objectives to initiate major changes by gathering the wisdom of the crowd and reaching collective consensus within his small tribe.

In other words, how could my workshop visual tool better free the collective group of participants to cast off the mental constraints of 'Kill the company' to instead pretty much 'Kill' anything. How would 'Homo-innovatus' as the tribes thought leader have done this successfully over 150,000 years ago?

The desire to kill

Today, this natural, primeval instinct, urge and desire to 'Kill the …' (whatever) is just as much a team sport in business as it was a tribal necessity. Providing for the future needs of the tribe, 'Kill the …', grants unconstrained freedom to go in pursuit of exciting new disruptive solutions. Solutions which disrupt not just existing companies, organisations, products, processes, places, peoples (figuratively speaking) and the planet, but to think transformationally about major step changes from existing business models, strategies, plans, services, movements, social and learning outcomes etc. to new evolutionary futures.

With this in collective mind, all be it 'Homo-Innovatus' who led the original thought now like he, very much long lost to a gap in history, I give you the newly resurrected and renovated version of his original 150,000 year old cave painting, washed away by history but newly updated and enhanced for today's modern-day tribe of opportunity hunters.

Happy hunting!

p.s. I've created a number of these A1/A2 workshop tools including 'Killing the ...' and have them printed from time to time as needs be. Anyone hoping to purchase the latest and greatest versions in full colour, professionally printed & laminated as A1/A2 posters printed on 250gsm premium paper, please leave a comment below and I'll ping you back a soon as a price becomes available.

About the author:

Brendon McLoughlin is a Senior Technical Product & Project Manager, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, PhD candidate specialising in the field of Frugal Innovation in SME's.