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PART III: Understanding The Situation

PART III: Understanding The Situation

"Before you can solve the problem, you have to understand the situation."

Case competitors have access to an enormous number of frameworks.

  • SWOT.
  • PESTLE.
  • Porter's Five Forces.
  • Value Chain.
  • VRIO.
  • Business Model Canvas.
  • Stakeholder Analysis.

The challenge is not learning what each framework contains. The challenge is knowing when to use it, what question it can answer, and what to do with the insight it produces. This is where many teams go wrong. They select a familiar framework, fill in the boxes, and move on. The result may look analytical, but it isn't necessarily insightful.

A completed framework is not analysis. A completed framework is simply a starting point. The real work begins when you ask, "So what does this tell us?" And then: Why does it matter to the decision we have to make?

This is one of the central principles of Discover Your Mad Skills.

Use frameworks to discover insights, not to demonstrate that you know frameworks.

PART III CLOSING: From Frameworks to Insight

You now have a collection of powerful tools for understanding the situation. But remember: The objective was never to learn eight frameworks. The objective is to become better at understanding businesses.

  • SWOT helps organise internal and external factors.
  • PESTLE helps you understand the external environment.
  • Porter's Five Forces helps you understand competitive pressure.
  • Value Chain helps you understand how the organisation creates value.
  • VRIO helps you understand capabilities and competitive advantage.The 
  • Business Model Canvas helps you understand how the organisation creates, delivers, and captures value.
  • McKinsey 7S helps you understand organisational alignment.
  • Stakeholder Analysis helps you understand the people and groups who influence and are influenced by the decision.

These tools become much more powerful when you connect them. For example:

  • PESTLE: What is changing outside? à 
  • Five Forces: How does that change competitive pressure? à
  • Value Chain: Where does the organisation create or lose value? à
  • VRIO: What capabilities can create advantage? à 
  • Business Model Canvas: How does the business model need to change? à
  • 7S: What must change inside the organisation? à 
  • Stakeholders: Who must support the change? à 
  • Strategy: What should the organisation do?

That is the real purpose of frameworks. Not to produce more analysis. To create a clearer path from:

Understanding → Insight → Choice → Action

The Framework Selection Test

Before using any framework in a competition, ask five questions:

  1. What question am I trying to answer? If you can't answer this, don't use the framework yet.
  2. Is this the right tool for the question? Don't use a familiar framework simply because you know it.
  3. What evidence do I have? A framework should be grounded in the case.
  4. What insight does it produce? If you cannot identify the insight, the framework probably isn't helping.
  5. How does the insight affect our decision? If the answer doesn't change the recommendation, ask whether the analysis is necessary.

 

The Mad Skills Framework Rule

Don't ask, "What framework can I use?"

Ask: "What do I need to understand?"

Then: "What tool will help me understand it?"

And finally: "What does that understanding allow me to do?"

That is the difference between using frameworks and thinking with frameworks.

Deciphering Case Characteristics

Every case is different.

  • A growth case may require market and competitive analysis.
  • A turnaround may require financial and operational analysis.
  • A market-entry case may require PESTLE, Five Forces, market sizing, and capability analysis.
  • A transformation case may require Business Model Canvas, 7S, stakeholder analysis, and implementation planning.
  • An innovation case may require customer analysis, creative thinking, business model analysis, and a financial feasibility assessment.

There is no universal framework stack. The characteristics of the case should determine the tools you use. That is one of the most important Mad Skills you can develop.

Final Challenge

Take a case you have already solved. Without looking at your previous analysis, answer:

  • What did we need to understand?
  • Which frameworks did we use?
  • Which frameworks actually created insight?
  • Which frameworks were unnecessary?
  • What important question did we fail to answer?
  • If we were to solve the case again, which tools would we choose?

Finally ask yourself:

Did we use frameworks to understand the case or did we use the case to complete frameworks?

The answer tells you a lot about your team's analytical maturity.

PART III TAKEAWAY

Frameworks don't win case competitions. Insight does.

And insight comes from knowing:

what to look for, what to question, what to connect, and what matters.

That is the beginning of becoming a more sophisticated case solver.

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