Thinking About and Understanding the Execution of Ideas
Posted by admin on April 26th, 2007Ideas are easy. Execution is hard. That’s a simple truism that translates across all industry.
At Inertia we have a lot of ideas. In the landscape of technology service providers to the wine industry, nobody, I would argue strives to bring more ideas to bear in execution with clients in the name of service and support than we do.
It’s why we provide unmatched support to our clients on an ongoing basis. Your success is our success and all it takes is one good idea applied to move the needle.
Translating those ideas into a form that is understandable is where the magic comes in.
I’m thinking out loud here, but a colleague and I are kicking around the notion of creating a framework for how we work with and manage clients in the ongoing development of their DIRECT business—whether it be consumer direct or trade direct.
It may be that we don’t ultimately put this framework in place, it may be wiser to continue to enable in a more organic, intimate fashion, but general frameworks for execution of ideas are good for everybody who need to move projects forward.
Most frequently these frameworks have cutesy titles that make an acronym that in and of itself is easily understandable; ultimately the goal is to help create a construct for shared understanding and communication for work activities. Generally, though, without the artifice of the ‘cutesy’ here, almost all methodologies for execution include the following organizing buckets.
Define: Includes defining a business goal, opportunity and scope of activity like increasing club membership numbers by 15% or developing sales activity to four accounts in Florida for our Direct-to-Trade program.
Plan: Includes developing the detailed requirements, the objectives, resource requirements and timeline. This is the who, what, where, when and how of moving an idea into an execution phase.
Assess: Includes identifying existing and desired state of affairs with the end goal, analyzing the gap between the two and developing recommendations.  This is a review of the plan and identifying gaps that may inhibit success.
Create & Implement: Includes developing the solution, testing and executing the program. Once this occurs, the solution should only be changed within the context of a new project or idea. This is executing the plan—you’ve planned your work and now the time is to ‘work the plan.’
Review: Even the best laid plans don’t go as perfectly as we would like in the define, plan, assess, create & implement phase. This review phase is a learning opportunity to gather and talk through what can be improved and enhanced.
Regardless of whether we implement a formalized framework for projects, we already do all of the above as defined by specific tactics, and you do to. Think about your direct sales activities within the above outline and see if it doesn’t help organize your thoughts into a more easily translatable and communicable outline for executing work and sharing results.
