• Home
  • Work with me
    • Design Your Organization's Future
    • Additional Services >
      • Do you have the right program mix?
      • Impact mapping
      • Create New Offerings
    • Results >
      • Catching up on growth
      • Focusing on the right things
      • Learning from one another
      • Emerging from a crisis
      • Building shared leadership
  • Goodies
  • Podcast
  • Learn More
    • Carol Hamilton
    • Contact
Grace Social Sector Consulting, LLC
  • Home
  • Work with me
    • Design Your Organization's Future
    • Additional Services >
      • Do you have the right program mix?
      • Impact mapping
      • Create New Offerings
    • Results >
      • Catching up on growth
      • Focusing on the right things
      • Learning from one another
      • Emerging from a crisis
      • Building shared leadership
  • Goodies
  • Podcast
  • Learn More
    • Carol Hamilton
    • Contact

Mission: Impact podcast

What needs to be true for this to be a good idea?

2/27/2018

 
Picturephoto by Mindy Johnson
​This question helps you uncover the assumptions embedded in an idea.  Often assumptions for programs and services are hidden in three key areas: audience, problem and solution. For the idea to be a good one, you need to have found the right audience, correctly identified an important problem and designed a solution that is viable.

Let me give you an example. Using a design thinking approach to design new offerings for key segments of our organization’s audience, a team I led at my last association was able to design experiments that gave us feedback in each of these three key areas.

​Audience

In one instance, we had designed a program for one audience segment. After we tested the idea with the target audience and received positive feedback, we proceeded to run a pilot.  After successfully offering the program to one segment the association’s audience, we were able to replicate it for another audience.

​Problem

​Often this area is the most likely to trip you up. Have you identified a problem that is worth solving? Or a problem that is really critical for your target audience? Or is it just something that would be nice to solve? When hard choices are made about time, money and energy, this challenge gets put on the back burner.
 
To test our understanding of the problem, we wrote a problem statement or description of what we thought the problem was. For example: “association professionals often have a clear understanding of the views of their highly engaged volunteers, but are not sure that these reflect their average member.” Through our experiments, we were able to get feedback on how important each issue was.  With feedback we were able to eliminate a number of ideas that addressed problems that were not seen as critical.

​Solution

​When is the last time you got caught up in your idea and created something more elaborate than was really needed? In one case of one program we were testing with members, during the brainstorming stage, the design team had envisioned an executive leadership development program with an extensive online wrap around component. After testing and customer feedback, we learned that members were interested in the in-person aspect of the program. They doubted, however, that they would use the online components. Thus with a short testing period, we were able to eliminate a costly aspect of the program that would have be time consuming and resource intensive to create. It would have also necessitated increasing the program price, yet our research showed it did not provide sufficient value.
 
By testing early, getting feedback from customers we were able to learn and iterate, saving money and staff time by eliminating options that sounded promising at the white board but proved to have faulty assumptions. 

Want to talk about how this might apply to your organization? Request a free coaching session.

Translating Minimally Viable Product for the Nonprofit Sector

2/6/2018

 
Picture
​In my last post I described ‘Lean Start Up’ – a process that became popular in Silicon Valley and the business sector and now is gaining traction in the nonprofit sector. One of the key elements of lean start up is creating a ‘minimally viable product’ to use to test a new idea with customers. But how do you create a ‘minimally viable product’ for the types of programs and services that associations and nonprofits typically create? They are rarely concrete products that can easily be prototyped.
 
There are ways to test your program and service ideas with your target audiences. They range from storyboards to explainer videos to creating a concierge version of your service.  Answer the question – what is the simplest and least expensive way to test your idea? Ideally it enables you to test your idea by observing behavior.

​Storyboards

​Storyboards are essentially a ‘graphic novel’ or comic strip version of your idea. On one project I was facilitating, we used this technique to test our ideas with customers. We first had team members sketch out their idea – stick figures were just fine. This step helped team members push themselves to build out what sometimes was somewhat of a vague generic concept to delineating the concrete aspects of the program or service. We then had a professional illustrator clean up our crude sketches for testing with members. 

​Explainer Video

​Another possibility is to create a short video that explains and illustrates your idea. Dropbox used this method to test the viability of its service. They looked at how many people watched the video and more importantly how often people forwarded the video to test enthusiasm for the idea.

​Simple Web Pages

​Create a marketing page describing your idea. Perhaps it says it is ‘coming soon.’ Include a way to sign up and get more information. See how many people opt in.

​Concierge Service

Another alternative is to create a concierge version of your service. This is especially helpful when its full version would include automation. You build the basic marketing pages and for anyone who signs up staff process the item manually behind the scenes. Your goal is to see how many people enroll and the interest before you spend money on developing a complicated back end.
 
Learn more about storyboarding with this free resource.
 
Want to talk about how you might apply this to your situation? Get in touch for a free coaching session.

    carol Hamilton

    My passion is helping nonprofit organizations and associations have a greater mission impact.

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017

    Categories

    All
    Advocacy
    Associations
    Audience
    Awareness
    Board Development
    Book Review
    Branding
    Burn Out
    Business Model
    Change
    Change Leadership
    Communications
    Community
    Community Engagement
    Conflict
    Consultant
    Content
    Culture Fit
    Customer Centered
    Data Gathering
    Decision Making
    Decision-making
    DEI
    Delegation
    Design Thinking
    Digital Transformation
    Diversity
    Education
    Equality
    Equity
    Evaluation
    Executive
    Facilitation
    Funding
    Fundraising
    Grants
    Group Process
    Health
    Hiring
    Inclusion
    Influence
    Innovation
    Leadership
    Leadership Transition
    Lean Start Up
    Learning
    Lobbying
    Marketing
    Meetings
    Mentoring
    Messaging
    Mindfulness
    Mission Creep
    Money
    Nonprofit
    Nonprofit Life Cycles
    Nonprofits
    Online Meetings
    Online Organizing
    Operations
    Organization
    Organizational Culture
    Organizational Sustainability
    Organizations
    Pandemic
    Partnership
    Pause
    Poc
    Podcast
    Productivity
    Professional Development
    Reflection
    Reorganization
    Research
    Resolution
    Results
    Self Care
    Self-care
    Social Media
    Social Sector
    Somatics
    Storytelling
    Strategic Planning
    Strategy
    Strengths
    Succession
    Team
    Team Building
    Team-building
    Technology
    Transitions
    Trust Building
    Values
    Vicarious Trauma
    Virtual Environment
    Virtual Meetings
    Volunteers
    Wellness
    Workforce Development
    Workplace

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Grace Social Sector Consulting, LLC, owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of the Mission: Impact podcast, as well as the Mission: Impact blog with all rights reserved, including right of publicity.

Home    Work with me     Goodies     Podcast      About    Contact            


Telephone

301-857-9335

Email

info[at]gracesocialsector.com
Grace Social Sector Consulting, LLC, owns the copyright in and to all content in, including transcripts and audio of the Mission: Impact podcast and all content on this website, with all rights reserved, including right of publicity.
  • Home
  • Work with me
    • Design Your Organization's Future
    • Additional Services >
      • Do you have the right program mix?
      • Impact mapping
      • Create New Offerings
    • Results >
      • Catching up on growth
      • Focusing on the right things
      • Learning from one another
      • Emerging from a crisis
      • Building shared leadership
  • Goodies
  • Podcast
  • Learn More
    • Carol Hamilton
    • Contact