Bicycle versus Ferrari — what would you choose?
How to make better decisions by asking the right questions.
Imagine, you were standing at the starting line of a race and you could choose between two vehicles: a Ferrari and a bicycle. What would you choose?
The Ferrari comes with 390 horsepower, 290 km/h max speed, it is fully fueled and its motor is roaring. The bicycle comes with 27 gears, fully suspended and an aluminum frame. Its maximum speed? Well it depends on your legs…
Instinctively we would all lean towards the Ferrari — wouldn’t we? Why? Because of its superior values on the data sheet.
But wait a second — did we ask the right questions?
A few months ago we had to take the decision what tool set to define as a standard for our online ideation workshops. We had to take this decision at the peak of the pandemic when many new and interesting tools were emerging. Many of them came with intriguing features such as writing sticky notes in series, grouping, rating and highlighting of ideas, options to divide workshops into subgroups, communication through special chats and desktop sharing possibilities and so on. All of those features were truly valuable to enhance the online collaboration possibilities.
On the other hand we had the option to create our own solution based on Microsoft’s standard OneDrive and Office suite. None of these tools were really specialized for online workshops. But if you tweaked every tool a little and added a standard desktop sharing tool it made efficient online workshops possible.
So here we had a decision between a Ferrari and a bicycle. Which solution should we choose?
Look at the data sheet but also on the path that lies ahead of you.
When taking decisions we often focus on the data sheets. But we should pay just as much attention to the path that lies ahead of our decision.
If the road ahead is a smooth and well paved highway, choose the Ferrari. But if you have to ride a narrow path uphill and through the woods — forget the Ferrari and choose the bicycle!
So whenever you have to take a decision for a certain solution, a tool or even a hiring decision, make sure that you have thoroughly assessed
- the data sheet
(features, strengths, weaknesses, costs etc.) - the place of use
(restrictions, competition, company culture etc.)
For our decision on the online workshop tool we knew, that we had a narrow and winding path in front of us: Most of the customers that we work with do not yet allow data from innovation projects in the cloud nor do they allow their employees to use logins to non-certified tools.
This was the drawback of all the workshop tools that we assessed: they ran their own cloud with their own login.
So we decided to go for a dual strategy: We procured access to one of the online tools (“the Ferrari”) but also built a solution based on Microsoft’s standard tools (“the bicycle”).
The balance after one year: approximately 25 workshops with the “bicycle” whereas only 4 workshops with the “Ferrari”.
Most of our customers just were not ready for the perfect solution due to their IT policies.
So, if you want to take better decisions, evaluate the facts on the data sheet. But then pay just as much attention to the boundaries that your solution will face during its implementation.
P.S.: An additional learning for me: Despite the disappointing track record of the online tool (our “Ferrari”) it was a good decision to have it in our “garage” right next to the “bicycle”.
Many customers showed much interest in the specialized online tool and wanted it to be used during our innovation projects. It was only during the project that they realized that their IT guidelines only allowed the usage of the “bicycle” solution.
So besides my learning on how to take good decisions I also learned something on portfolio management:
Having a Ferrari in the garage is sometimes an advantage even if you hardly ever use it.
(But make sure you know how to ride the bicycle, because it will be the vehicle that you will use most of the time!)
