Using structure to guide your business
One of the most valuable lessons I have learned in my career is breaking problems down into buckets. I’m a rigorous believer in this kind of structuring as it allows teams to understand problems better, communicate problems and outcomes in a logical way, and to track progress in definable workstreams. This type of structure is the bread and butter of consultants. Every consultant I know at some point went through training for MECE - mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive. What this means is that mutually exclusive things can’t be grouped together. As an example let’s examine cats and dogs. Cats cannot be dogs, ever; they are mutually exclusive. Dogs vs labradors however, are not exclusive; you can be a dog and a labrador.
You are probably asking yourself why you care about this. When you’re creating structure it’s really helpful to have categories that are completely distinct. This prevents overlap, which is not only helpful for assigning work, but also for understanding where you may have gaps. I find this to be particularly important when I’m trying to solve problems. As an example, we have an amazing product at PandaDoc. It’s phenomenal for a variety of use cases. Creating exclusive categories of personas and JTBD - “jobs to be done” allows us to create more clear positioning. When driving improved adoption through our CSMs and marketing we can use discrete categories to identify work by establishing independent categories like discoverability, usability, lack of interest. Doing this ensures we can create separate workstreams for each of these adoption barriers that address the unique cause of each separate problem.
The second part of MECE is collectively exhaustive. Collectively exhaustive means that you’ve found all the possible items that can fit in a set. A basic example would be breaking businesses down by size. No matter how you break it down there are only so many sizes: Solopreneur, SMB, mid-market, enterprise. I’ve exhausted all the sizes of businesses so now when I’m looking at the market I know I’ve found the full set. In my previous examples of JTBD or personas this is key to make sure I’ve looked at all the possible user types or uses for my product. For adoption it would mean I’ve identified all the possible blockers. Why is this important? Without it, you may miss key variables or drivers that are holding back your business.
When you combine these you get MECE and have a list that is distinct with all the major actions or causes you can tackle. I don’t usually get hung up on MECE as there are many guides out there to help you figure out how to brainstorm these lists, but what I find incredibly helpful is the structuring of the problems. Anytime I look to solve a problem with my team, I try to break things down along these lines. It helps align our thinking, makes sure we’ve thought of every possible solution, and ensures we have discrete tasks tagged for individuals. The uses of this are numerous, but in my role this helps me think through the dimensions I want to interview talent on, how I want to determine product marketing focus (JTBD, personas, key pain points), adoption blockers for CSM, expansion levers for account managers, vertical plays for GTM, sales levers to drive improved performance, and even values for brand. Yes, I use a structured approach to determine the attributes of our creative brand!
Not only does this structured approach to brainstorming help me get ideas and action them, but I find it indispensable for communication. Putting things in categories makes it easier to remember them, which makes it easier to create an organizational drumbeat. This is why so many companies use acronyms for their company values. It also makes it easy to communicate to others, because it’s logical and things fall into natural categories. If you are ever having trouble communicating ideas to a customer, an exec, a cross-functional partner, or an investor I highly recommend using a structured approach to make your information easier to follow and action.
I hope this helps and please let me know any great structures you have found useful in your company or organization to drive action.