new-midior

Map. Assess. Adjust. Make Product Organization Planning a Part of Your Annual Process.

Mon, 13 Dec 2021 19:25:58 GMT

It’s that time of year again – at least for those firms that operate on a calendar year – and by that time, I’m talking about the time for planning. And budgeting. And reflecting. And adjusting. In some ways, it is harder this year than last since in the thick of the pandemic, everything was on hold, locked down and constrained. The picture was bleak but the options were few and so that made product planning more straightforward since there were fewer variables.

Now however, the situation is fluid, varying by company, industry and region, making it hard to know if 2022 plans and roadmaps should contemplate investment for innovation and growth or if the focus should reflect a more conservative, incremental mindset. I imagine many of you reading this will feel it is anyone’s guess. Regardless of where you land, I want to remind – and encourage – each of you to include as part of your process an annual review of the effectiveness and output of your product organization relative to your current product portfolio and 2022 plans. I recommend doing this annually because product is the one area in a company where teams and players need to evolve with the products through their lifecycles and this requires regular tuning. While the roles on a product team may be consistent over the life of a product, the importance, roster of tasks and type of individual/personality needed to be effective in a role will vary with time.

This does not have to be a complex analysis - but it should be a complete one. My back-of-the-envelope approach goes something like this:

Start by making a list of all of the people that serve in a role on a product team. Here, you want to start with your roster of resources and their associated role only.
Next, identify at least one key skill strength and one key personality asset for each individual. To make this quick, easy and most importantly, objective, I like to leverage the “three words” tactic (i.e., ask yourself “What are the 3 key skill strengths that come to mind when I say this person’s name?” and then “What are the 3 key personality assets that come to mind when I try to describe this person?” You may not have 3 for everyone in each category which is just fine since 1 will suffice.) It is helpful to add the product(s) each person is associated with on this list.
Next, get your product list and for each product, make note of the key roles on each product team (not individuals, but role names). Not every product will have the same set of roles – some will have more, some will have less.
Then, for each product-role combination, identify both the top skill and top personality asset that are key to success in the role, for that product, in its market at this time.
Now, for every product, go through a quick exercise and add your assessment of the “match” between the top skill strength/personality asset required to be successful in the role (in this market at this time) and the skill strength/personality asset of the individual in the role. This doesn’t have to be a complex rubric – you can use a basic 5 point scale here. Do not overanalyze or think too hard. Rather, let your visceral reaction provide the input.
Finally, take stock of what you see, what you can learn and where adjustments can be made. Where are there mismatches? Are there patterns that can be observed in terms of more or less alignment between what is needed and what you have?

You now have a rudimentary inventory of people and roles, skills and needs, as seen through a "product" vs. an HR lens (both are important). You also have a basic assessment of how well tuned your product organization is to what is needed to be successful in achieving product goals (based on your match of skills/personality assets required to be successful in each role for each product vs. what is there). Excel is your friend here as the tool for logging and analyzing since after you completed this exercise, you can use basic functions like a pivot table to yield additional, interesting insights. To make things easier, I have included a link here to the tool we developed at MIDIOR for just this purpose in our consulting engagements known as our Product-Role-Resource Tuner. And of course, if you find yourself unsure of where to begin or in need of some assistance at any point in the process, please feel to reach out to me directly .

Click here to access the Product-Role-Resource Tuner.

Reduce External Data Dependencies to Maximize Fund Office Agility

Wed, 08 Sep 2021 20:28:13 GMT

Agility is generally considered a virtue. To that end, the ability to work independently of your vendors - meaning you don’t have to depend on your vendor for ALL situations that require access to your data - gives you greater agility. In practice, that sort of independence is the result of two factors:

Degree of access to all your data “allowed” by your vendor
Level of knowledge and skill to do anything with that access

As we described in last month’s post, access to your data can come in many forms. You may be able to get at your data through reports, queries and other vendor provided tools which are all forms of “allowed access.” But, it is important to remember that the fund office is the “owner” and “custodian” of all underlying data and that the vendor provided tools may or may not provide access to everything that constitutes the complete data set. Even if you feel this level of access is not necessary (and perhaps you wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway), it is an important consideration that may provide options in unanticipated situations. You can think of it as a form of insurance against something going wrong with your vendor. I am not talking about database backups here – also critical – but rather about having access to and an understanding of the complete data set that serves as the foundation for your administration systems. In some cases, if you ask your vendor for a set of data, they are likely to say “Sure, what do you need? We’ll put that in a file for you.” While that is certainly a form of access, unless or until you have set up a process where you’ve defined a request that covers all data elements, and you have a scheduled delivery of those files (e.g., once/month), then you haven’t achieved what we would call data independence. And that begs the question “How do I know what to ask for?” The answer depends, but for most fund offices this would at a minimum include:

All the individuals in the database with their unique system identifiers, including all available demographic information (name, address, dates of birth, marriage, death, etc.)
All the contributing employers in the database with their unique system identifiers
The full history of all contributions transactions, with appropriate identifiers that link to a person and an employer
The full history of all benefit payments with appropriate identifiers that link to a person
The full history of all benefit applications with appropriate identifiers that link to a person
The full history of all benefit credits (e.g. pension credits) for each person whether or not they were ever vested
The relationships between members, dependents and beneficiaries (who is related to who)
For health and welfare funds – the full history of health eligibility for all persons in the database
All configuration and setup data (e.g. list of code names and values, tables of constants used within formulas, etc.)

If you don’t have easy access to your complete data set (which would include these elements), it may be time to work with your vendor to set it up.

Equally important to “access” are the knowledge and skills to use the data. The only way to know that you really have “everything” is if you can decode details. The knowledge component implies that even if it is not formally documented, you understand the data model that is used to support and organize your data. The skills component means that you have the ability (if necessary) to assemble the pieces (data elements) and make sense of them. As we discussed in a previous post, you can probably do a lot using Excel to extract value from your data if you have mastery of the underlying components.

Given what I have just described, I will close with a few questions to ask and answer when assessing your level of data independence from your vendor(s):

Do you have a clear understanding of how your vendor stores and manages your data? Where is it physically, what sort of database is used and how large is the entire data set?
If you have a need for a new report or extract, can you get it yourself or do you need to ask your vendor to do it for you? If you are dependent on your vendor, how long does it take to get that turned around?
Does anyone on your team have a full understanding of the underlying data model? What are the base tables and do you know how they are linked together? Can you create a diagram?
If you can receive extracts of data, do you have a push or pull environment? Push: the vendor sends you a file when they can, or according to a pre-defined schedule. Pull: you can grab up to date data as you need it.

If you can answer all these questions AND are satisfied with your answers, then you can safely assume you have sufficient data independence, which is a key factor in your ability to be agile and also contributes to moderating any risk related to your data.

10 Step Data Quality Program

You know where your data comes from in terms of systems and sources
You are aware of conflicts and inconsistencies between your data sources
You have an approach for resolving any conflicts between data sources
You capture data once, and use it in multiple places
You have documented what data is critical for implementing your business rules, and you have approaches for filling in any missing data
You have tools and processes for identifying and correcting flaws in your data
Your data exists in a format that makes it easy to access using readily available tools
You have independent access to your data
Everyone on your team is cognizant of the value of good data and the long-term costs of sloppy data
You leverage your data to support operations AND to support long term decisions

Where is the Innovation?

Tue, 31 Aug 2021 14:16:04 GMT

Where do you find the most innovative products? Where there are the most significant problems of course. In the graduate courses that I teach, I often use one of the fabulous Ted Talks from some years back by South African journalist, Toby Shapshak, to explain the real engine of innovation: problems. Shapshak offers an image of the world that visually depicts electricity and he maintains that where there is electricity, there is little to no “real” innovation. He asserts that the “dark continents,” where there is limited electricity, are where major innovation opportunities live because there are real problems characterized by real pain. If you have not watched any of them, I encourage you to do so (you can view one of his early TED Talks here ).

Which brings me to the point of this perspective: as you are considering the future of your product portfolio and how to ratchet up innovation, return your team’s focus to the problems. What are they? Where are they? Who has them? How many are there? How painful are they? If you can really understand problems through the eyes of those that have them, it will give you a good read on how valuable they will be to solve and ultimately, how to do some truly innovative development.

Extracting Value From Your Data by Making it Usable

mgoldberger@midior.com (Michael Goldberger) — Wed, 19 May 2021 18:26:47 GMT

At this point in our data series, you might be wondering if you will ever get to hear about using the data you have been so carefully maintaining. Well, you are in luck: in this post I want to begin the conversation on using your data to provide insights, drive decisions and tune your business processes.

Believe it or not, the data that lives inside your benefits administration system may not be as accessible and useable as you would think. Sometimes, the simple act of getting the data becomes a project in itself, burdened by complex reporting tools or constrained access mechanisms. But not to worry, in most cases, you (or your IT experts) should be able to grab your data and put it into a tool that you know how to use – and the Lingua franca here is typically Microsoft Excel. Excel is a powerful medium for sifting, sorting, reformatting, charting and generally putting data into a form that answers your questions or tells you a story. For this reason, I always recommend having access to one or two “super users” – either on your internal team or on staff at a vendor with whom you have a close relationship. Saying “I can’t – or my team can’t” when it comes to Excel is no longer an acceptable answer if you work in this industry (and if somehow this is where your fund office lands, there are a variety of free online resources on getting your team up to speed). Even if your core systems include standard reports or reporting tools, having the capability to use Excel as an additional way to analyze and leverage your data will prove valuable in the long run. We find that the first batch of data or reports you generate typically spawns more questions than answers, so rapid iterations are often needed to get to those answers. This is almost always easier with Excel vs. reporting tools embedded in core systems. Ultimately, you may find that there are certain data or reports that you will want to have available as “standard” in your core system and in this case, iterating in Excel can also help you “define the requirement(s)” for that information. As a side note, if for some reason you cannot get your data out of your core system(s) and/or you cannot put your data into a spreadsheet, it is a leading indicator that it is time to make some changes.

Understanding your options for getting at the data will help you determine whether or not you need external assistance or additional expertise so I have outlined the 5 main approaches below:

Reports: Historically, reports have been hard coded into systems with hard to change definitions of the data set and the page formatting. The nice thing about these types of reports is that they are typically easy to run and print in a format that is suitable for framing. Unfortunately, this type of formatted report is not so suitable for data analysis. If your system only allows you to output reports to a printer or a pdf file - that is a limitation in terms of accessing your data.
Exports: Exports usually allow a user to take the information that is shown in the user interface, and save that data as a file (typically Excel or csv format) which can be opened in another program. Exports are nice in that they allow you to save data, but exports may be limited because you only get the data shown on the screen.
Queries: Some systems have a query tool that lets users define a data set (based on a choice of fields to include and criteria for filtering those fields). The result of a query can usually be exported to an easy to use file … essentially an advanced form of an export. The challenge with queries is that they often require a degree of expertise with the particular tools and syntax of your vendor.
Database Access: This is the most powerful - and most feared - approach to getting at your data. In the world of open systems, it is not unusual to have direct access to the data tables that form the core of your system. However, with an appropriate set of tools (and in fact, Excel is one of those tools) and someone that knows how to use them, you can create your own extracts that utilize the raw data in your system. Asking about direct access to the database, or even documentation of the database is a good test of how “open” your vendor really is to this method.
Data Mashups: A relatively new, but potentially powerful toolkit that happens to live in Excel! Mashups are an approach to data that lets you take data from multiple systems and combine them together with powerful results. For example, maybe you have separate data sources for health benefits vs retirement benefits but you would like to compare names and addresses across the 2 systems - that would require a mashup.

Once you have your chosen method(s) for accessing data and can get it into a useable format, you will want to make it easily accessible for anyone who can benefit from it. Newly created data sets or reports should be stored in a shared file location so that access can be set up for “self-service” – essentially instant access with zero waiting period. In particular, your users should not have to rely on printing, copying and pasting or rekeying to get a view or report that is useful. If that is happening then something about your data isn’t working and you should look for the root cause. For more about how to unlock the information in your core system(s) through better data access or what it could look like for your fund office, drop me a line and I am happy to chat. Happy reporting!

10 Step Data Quality Program

You know where your data comes from in terms of systems and sources
You are aware of conflicts and inconsistencies between your data sources
You have an approach for resolving any conflicts between data sources
You capture data once, and use it in multiple places
You have documented what data is critical for implementing your business rules, and you have approaches for filling in any missing data
You have tools and processes for identifying and correcting flaws in your data
Your data exists in a format that makes it easy to access using readily available tools
You are not dependent on a software vendor for access to your data
Everyone on your team is cognizant of the value of “good data” and the long-term costs of "sloppy data”
You leverage your data to support operations AND to support long term decisions

The Importance of Active Collaboration in a Virtual World

Fri, 30 Apr 2021 18:02:14 GMT

In New England, where MIDIOR is headquartered, signs of spring are everywhere and combined with the prospect of moving outside and beyond our inner circles, hope and excitement seem palpable. With the constraints easing, I have finally started to think about how product teams will need to evolve to continue delivering innovative products that keep them in the game. The COVID-19 pandemic both spotlighted and amplified the challenges that global product teams have faced for some time. From different time zones and geographies, to remote work and the rise of video, most of us can now appreciate why distributed teams constrained to the “2 dimensions” of a screen are rarely as innovative or productive as those that are collocated.

Pre-COVID, we could count on at least a few in-person, shared experiences to bind a product team together into something that is greater than the sum of the individual parts. In our virtual reality, we are meeting and schedule dependent - which is neither creative nor fluid – and the equivalent of stopping by someone’s office to chat about an idea is simply less likely. While I will admit that task-oriented work, especially when served up on a platter and wrapped in a bow, is often easier and more efficient to execute when working remotely, generative thinking and creative work are almost impossible to sustain. Our new reality requires us to rethink how to sponsor innovation and I suggest that we reconsider our habits and approaches and not just try to do things the same way, virtually.

We can start by restating the problem: how do you develop new, innovative products and services with a team that is virtual much of the time? How do you create urgency? Inspiration? Momentum? Is the workflow different? At least one key is to be able to quickly get teams to understand context and align on outcomes, without being together or with a customer. I find that this requires an ability to make the problems products will address “come alive” in a virtual, 2-D setting which depends on the ability to set context through telegraphic visuals, pictures, videos and stories. This requires a different sort of creative skill set along with a competency with the tools, and a laser focus on things like production quality that in the past didn’t really matter (think about that Zoom call with the background noise that distracted you or the PowerPoint that lost your attention… and since you were not in a room with others, you did not have the pressure to stay focused). In today’s Zoom culture, if you want to nurture active collaboration, you will need to engage team members via the screen to elicit reactions and advance thinking versus depending on body language as the primary input to steer a dialogue or peer pressure to maintain focus. What is needed will vary with the product – especially its complexity and maturity - since making a new, unsolved problem come alive requires something very different than a problem that has been successfully solved for years. Supplementing existing teams with these new skills as well as conducting professional development around learning styles, communications strategies and visualization tools will all help to evolve conversations and therefore the generative thinking that spawns innovation. The successful, innovative teams in our virtual future are likely to have skills and tools that in the past might have been more common at a movie studio. As a result, we should be looking at our job descriptions, recruiting plans and retention strategies that attract this kind of professional.

Product Roadmap Considerations in the New Normal

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 19:36:30 GMT

For many of our clients, Fall means planning and budgeting activities get serious. For anyone with product responsibility, it is a time to challenge market assumptions and reconsider the future product roadmap. It is also a time to evaluate the teams and individuals associated with each product for fit with personalities, interests, capabilities and core skills. This latter aspect of the annual planning process is especially important. Companies we consider to be leading the pack evaluate and adjust their product teams each year, even if it is not a formal part of the planning process. This year, an additional dimension to that evaluation has emerged: the ability to advance a product in the face of an unexpected crisis AND a major shift in the nature of work.

One of our tenets for optimal product performance is that the team intertwined with the product must evolve in tandem with the product as it moves through its lifecycle. A new, innovative product needs someone who is able to evangelize and succeed with the missionary sale while a mature, cash-generating product needs someone who can tweak the fine details with incremental improvements to extract maximum value. But, new this year, we also need individuals who can flourish in their product roles in a largely, if not entirely, remote environment. This is not a given. Regardless of whether individuals worked from home in the past, moving the needle to a place where meetings are all done in 2 dimensions, on a screen (think Zoom, Teams etc.), can present a major challenge.

The Agile Manifesto emphasizes “individuals and interactions over processes and tools along with face to face conversations with motivated individuals” associated with any given project. On the surface, it seems easy enough to transition to a virtual dialogue since we are still seeing faces in our discussions. But it has proven difficult to do the generative work in a virtual environment where body language is not visible, whiteboards are strictly virtual and conversations are not fluid and impromptu, instead requiring scheduled Zoom meetings. Even as we are grateful for the technology infrastructure that keeps us connected and visible to each other, it is important to acknowledge that driving a product to meet its goals means creating team momentum and aligning activities with objectives, virtually. Therefore, it is incumbent on leaders and managers to recognize who is good at remote work, understand why they are good at it and leverage what is learned to evolve the way product work is done and product teams are configured. So this year, when you take a hard look at your product portfolio and annual plans, assess the teams associated with each product against the backdrop of a remote environment and tune accordingly.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat to Keep Your Data Clean and Manageable

mgoldberger@midior.com (Michael Goldberger) — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 14:39:03 GMT

Today’s post in our series on data focuses on the importance of having the tools and processes in place for continually identifying and correcting any gaps or flaws so that your data is always accurate. At this point in our series, you know what data you have, where it comes from and where it lives. You can also easily figure out what you don’t have but do need, which means you know which data needs to be corrected and which gaps filled in. Since your data is always changing (new data is entered, existing data is updated), no one’s data is ever perfect at all times. Data is like a river; it’s always flowing. Just because it was all correct yesterday doesn’t mean it will be correct tomorrow.

Compounding this data fluidity is the environment of the fund office: for many data elements, data collection and data entry often end up being manual processes, especially for member information such as birthdates, marital status and life events. And by definition, even when people are being careful, manually entered data is likely to have an error rate of 1 -3 %. While some systems are quite rigorous about validating data before it is entered, others are much less so. It's often a balancing act between imposing restrictions and controls on data entry to optimize inbound data quality versus allowing data entry to be fast and easy with few if any validations. This last point is important because onerous validations often drive creative methods for working around the process. A good example of this would be individuals fabricating a marriage date if it is not known in order to get past the validation that requires a date (even if it is unknown) to create the member record. Unfortunately, once that has been done, it can be very difficult to find the “fake” dates within the data, which can lead to unexpected problems down the road.

Our approach is a little bit different and is based on creating a regular and rigorous “exception detection reporting & correction process.” This is a proactive process that should be incorporated into the daily or weekly processes and all but eliminates the challenge that arises in waiting for a problem to happen and then going back to troubleshoot the data. Essentially, the core of this approach is to design and regularly run data exception reports AFTER the data is entered (vs. a VALIDATION process which occurs before or during data entry). An example of such a report would be one that surfaces participants who are married but where the marriage date is missing. Another might surface people who are working but don’t have a date of birth (DOB) or where the DOB is unrealistic (i.e. the individual would be 122 years old).

It's important to remember that even if your data is determined to be 99% good, if you have 1,000 people you still have 10 errors which can be significant when it comes to providing individuals their benefits in a timely and accurate manner. Hence, the process is never finished and is ongoing - you’re always creating errors, surfacing errors and resolving errors. It is a mistake to think that data entry, and therefore data, is always perfect but if you have a way to continually polish it, it will always shine.

10 Step Data Quality Program

You know where your data comes from in terms of systems and sources
You are aware of conflicts and inconsistencies between your data sources
You have an approach for resolving any conflicts between data sources
You capture data once, and use it in multiple places
You have documented what data is critical for implementing your business rules, and you have approaches for filling in any missing data
You have tools and processes for identifying and correcting flaws in your data
Your data exists in a format that makes it easy to access using readily available tools
You are not dependent on a software vendor for access to your data
Everyone on your team is cognizant of the value of “good data” and the long-term costs of "sloppy data”
You leverage your data to support operations AND to support long term decisions

Mind the Data Gaps

mgoldberger@midior.com (Michael Goldberger) — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 15:49:54 GMT

Now that it is fall and we have all realized some type of new normal , I want to go back to our blog series on the importance of data quality for unions, funds and administrators. Now, more than ever, our new, often virtual environment has a dependency on accurate, current data. I have been gradually tackling each item in MIDIOR’s 10 step data quality program and will address the fifth in this post. It has been a while, so here is a reminder of those details:

You know where your data comes from in terms of systems and sources
You are aware of conflicts and inconsistencies between your data sources
You have an approach for resolving any conflicts between data sources
You capture data once, and use it in multiple places
You have documented what data is critical for implementing your business rules, and you have approaches for filling in any missing data
You have tools and processes for identifying and correcting flaws in your data
Your data exists in a format that makes it easy to access using readily available tools
You are not dependent on a software vendor for access to your data
Everyone on your team is cognizant of the value of “good data” and the long-term costs of "sloppy data”
You leverage your data to support operations AND to support long term decisions

In the last two posts, I talked about the importance of establishing a “system of record” for each piece of data and a commitment to capturing data once and only once (even though it is likely to be used in multiple places). Following on from there, now that you know what data you have, how you get it and where it lives, you can easily figure out what you don’t have but do need. In other words, where are your data gaps that could mess with the accuracy of your systems? In the context of funds and administrators, the data gaps are usually related to information needed to completely implement your business rules. These could be rules related to eligibility, contribution rates, benefit calculations, or maybe something as simple as who gets the monthly newsletter. If you don’t have any gaps, you (or your technical staff) will have a much easier time implementing the rules. In the context of a fund office, the data gaps are usually related to information needed to completely implement your business rules.

In order to determine if you have any gaps, start by defining all of the data inputs required to calculate a benefit, issue a disbursement, report on an activity or whatever else you may need to do according to the plan rules. Some of the rules are described in a plan’s SPDs and some are operational rules that have evolved over time and have become standard practice. In any case, we like to think of those business rules as a set of algorithms or equations, with defined inputs (data) and outputs (actions). If (and that’s a big if), you have clearly defined the algorithms to match your rules, then you can list all your required inputs and compare them to what you have available and define all of the gaps. Because systems are not people (who can often fill in the data gaps), you will need to figure out how to fill in all of the missing data and organize it in a way that lets you perform any calculation, and repeat it over and over, before you can consider your data set complete. The key point is to step through each business rule and ask yourself what piece of information is needed to complete that step and write that all down. I've included two simple examples below.

Product Perspectives in the COVID-19 Era

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 14:52:09 GMT

The impacts of the coronavirus are significant, regardless of location or vocation, company or community, age or gender. We find ourselves marveling at our clients as they do their very best to keep delivering on their promises to customers, members and stakeholders, even as many are considered “non-essential.” At MIDIOR, the nature of our work (consulting and technology services) and the location of our clients has necessitated virtual work for quite some time. We also find ourselves in the fortunate position of having made recent investments in the processes, platforms and training that enable a truly remote work environment. That said, we could not have imagined our current situation where we test the limits of what we can do virtually every single day.

For many of our consulting clients, developing and managing products and services against a backdrop of COVID -19 is challenging to say the least. In some cases, the impact is minimal because the product or service is already offered electronically. In others, teams have been able to pivot their offerings so that customers can realize some or all of their value with virtual delivery. Thankfully, humans are adaptable creatures. For many product teams, however, the exploding stress from not being able to deliver short-term results while staring into an unknown future can be debilitating.

In order to keep your product organization functional and aligned while addressing the stress that we are all feeling, perhaps it is time to accept that the new normal has arrived, rather than waiting for things to go back to the way they were. As product teams, it is not our job to look back and be nostalgic for the past. Rather, we are on the hook to interpret the changes as a signal that it’s time to take a step back, open our plans and revisit our assumptions. From how daily work gets done, to the definition of roles and hiring criteria, to the basics of our product development processes and how our supply chain, distribution, deployment and delivery work, many things may stay the same, but much should probably change. Now is the time to revisit everything and rather than throw prior plans out the window or simply push back all of the dates by six months, product teams should spend time revisiting every assumption, including those previously taken for granted. Be sure to go far and wide on the various scenarios you explore and open up the dialogue to new ideas, completely different ways of operating and changing up your organization as needed. Once you have your scenarios, review marketing programs and sales targets in light of your revised assumptions in order to create realistic financial projections for each possible scenario.

Problems spark innovation. Challenge creates opportunity. But risk is mitigated with focused attention and solid scenario planning so that teams are prepared to make informed decisions as the landscape shifts and new information becomes available. I encourage you all to support your product teams as they reconsider the current state and redefine their products’ futures. You will know you are done when each product manager and program lead can answer the question “if this, then what?” with tangible, actionable steps and a sensible set of numbers. I cannot overstate the importance of this work at this time. Use the current situation as an impetus to open everything back up for scrubbing, scrutiny, quantification and realignment.

Lastly, for anyone reading this that has someone in their circle that is on the front lines, please say an extra thanks from us. And for everyone else holding it together in the background, no matter how, remember we all have a role to play in our community’s recovery.

The Modern Fund Office in the COVID-19 Era

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 16:07:25 GMT

The impacts of the coronavirus are significant, regardless of location or vocation, company or community, age or gender. We find ourselves marveling at our clients as they do their best to keep delivering on their promises to customers, members and stakeholders, even as many are considered “non-essential.” At MIDIOR, the nature of our work and the location of our clients has necessitated virtual work for quite some time. We also find ourselves in the fortunate position of having made recent investments in the processes, platforms and training that enable a truly remote work environment. That said, we could not have imagined our current situation, where we are testing the limits of what we can do every day.

For our union and fund office clients, a shift to remote work can be particularly challenging – because some work cannot be done remotely (i.e. it is difficult to swing a hammer virtually) and because the norm for benefit services has centered on high touch, personalized, in-person work. Most, if not all, of our clients have been pushed further along the “remote work” and “mobile access” journey and now, more than ever, the value of quality member benefit systems, administration platforms, strong IT teams and mobile applications is visible. Today’s question is not “if” teams can work remotely and “how” members can access their benefit information at any time and from anywhere, but “when.” So, irrespective of where you are on your journey, now is a good time to sit down with your leadership teams and discuss your current situation and what a new normal will look like. The following is a quick list of questions to consider as you dialogue with your teams about making remote work and mobile access a reality. I hope it is helpful.

Which jobs can be done while working remotely? For those that can’t, is it really impossible to do the work remotely or is it something else (e.g. people aren’t trained, guidelines are not in place, platforms do not exist or even unconscious bias against remote work for particular jobs)?
Are the basic technology tools in place to make this work? This includes remote access via VPN, or remote or virtual desktops, internal instant messaging platforms like Slack and the ability to conduct video meetings (e.g. Microsoft Teams, Skype, Zoom, Lifesize).
How much security is required and how much training do your teams need?
Do you have guidelines and clear expectations about what it means to work remotely? Timing can get blurry when you are at home in terms of when you are at work and when you are not. Define ways for employees to “check in” and “check out” along with a new roster of team meetings.
Can you service members remotely? There is no (technical) reason your phone and email systems can’t work 100% as well when your staff is distributed. Turning things off is not the answer. If anything, this is a time when members need more service and immediate answers. This may require restructuring workflows in the short term but doing this now will give you a leg up in the future.
Do you have a member portal? Is it a real mobile app with sufficient data to answer member’s basic questions? If not, think about how to enable smart phone access to your benefit systems quickly and put a plan in place for a permanent solution.

It appears that we all need to visualize a future where remote work, at least for some, and self-service everything will be the norm. We can’t turn the clock back, but we can set ourselves up for a better future. See what’s hard now and incorporate an approach to moving through any obstacles and make sure your technology roadmap accounts for a future that includes remote work and member self-service. Making it work is not trivial but it is not impossible either. I hope this is helpful and we always want to hear from you if you have ideas on how we can adapt our services to be helpful in these complicated times.

And lastly, for anyone reading this that has someone in their circle that is on the front lines, please say an extra thanks from us. And for everyone else holding it together in the background, no matter how, remember we all have a role to play in our community’s recovery.

Your Product Organization – Functions, Jobs and People

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 11:43:08 GMT

For me, evaluating a product organization really needs to start by talking about the products: what are they, how many are there, where are they in their lifecycle, what is their level of complexity etc. Next, I ask about the people: who they are, how they interact and left to their own devices, what they are likely to do. As we talk, a visual picture starts to form in my head and that’s where my mantra of functions first, jobs second and people third, comes into play. Product organizations should be fluid, evolving as the product portfolio evolves. I typically recommend that my clients start by taking an inventory of the functions that need to be covered to ensure that their products and services meet their objectives. Only then can they move to the next step of thinking about which jobs logically map to which functions and what people have the appropriate skills to meet the requirements of the job. While there is no model that is “one size fits all,” this approach is consistently reflected in companies who turn out successful products over and over. For many organizations, the disconnect comes when the reporting structure doesn’t actually line up with the functions and jobs, so the cogs in the wheel are not able to turn the business.

Which brings me to my point. I find that what successful product organizations have in common is more about being able to identify the right functions, map appropriate jobs to those functions and staff those jobs with exactly the right people at any given point in time.

More from me about functions, jobs and people in my four minute video above.

Innovation in the Washroom

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 11:40:19 GMT

Have you noticed that sometime over the past 10 years - the entire hand-washing experience has gone through a technology driven revolution? Where there used to be a simple bar of white soap sitting beside the sink, sometimes scented, sometimes shaped like a seashell, there is now a hands-free, infra-red actuated pump that dispenses an anti-bacterial goo, which is available in a full suite of designer colors? Step back and think about how amazing that is, and how it came to happen. The "job" of the product hasn't changed - the soap is still there to clean your hands. But everything else about the product is different, including the delivery mechanism. It is a transition that created new opportunities in a market that was surely defined as mature and priced as a commodity. Is there a soap visionary out there who saw it all coming and had a road-map that led to electronic dispensers in every home? Or was it just the fascinating market system at work? In this case it was more likely the result of multiple innovators chipping away at niche markets until an external event like the H1N1 virus came along and changed the game. As we often say, success is not the result of a perfect business plan or an unbeatable IP strategy. Success sits at the intersection of preparation and opportunity, and although you may have little control of when (or if) opportunity will show up, you can certainly be prepared to take advantage when it comes knocking on your door.

Just something to consider next time someone tells you that your market is mature and that there is no room left for differentiation.

Capture Data Once, Use Multiple Times

Wed, 26 Feb 2020 16:38:08 GMT

Welcome to 2020! After a bit of a hiatus for the holidays, I am picking up this blog series on data quality for unions and fund offices with this post. I started the series by talking about the importance of “getting the data right” in your benefits administration system, including a grading rubric to assess data excellence. Since then, I have unpacked the first three (3) elements of our 10-step, comprehensive data quality program (listed again below) and will tackle the fourth in this post:

You know where your data comes from in terms of systems and sources
You are aware of conflicts and inconsistencies between your data sources
You have an approach for resolving any conflicts between data sources
You capture data once, and use it in multiple places
You have documented what data is critical for implementing your business rules, and you have approaches for filling in any missing data
You have tools and processes for identifying and correcting flaws in your data
Your data exists in a format that makes it easy to access using readily available tools
You are not dependent on a software vendor for access to your data
Everyone on your team is cognizant of the value of “good data” and the long-term costs of "sloppy data”
You leverage your data to support operations AND to support long term decisions

In my last post, I talked about identifying systems of record for each data element and creating some rules on how to use them in order to resolve data conflicts. Once you can identify your master data sources, you need to be disciplined about capturing the data that goes into them (and any subsequent changes) just once, even though it is probably used in multiple places. To accomplish this, you must link the many places a particular data element is used (e.g. reports) back to that single trusted, master source for that data. Maybe this seems obvious but there is a catch. Many fund offices and unions have systems that were built on top of other systems, and business processes that are disconnected from each other so even where intentions are right, there are often copies of the same information residing in multiple places.

For example, think about creating a list of contributing employers. Let's say one of the employers on that list had a name change. How many places beyond your system of record might need to be updated in order to be sure you always use the new name (e.g. on invoices or reports)? If there is more than one, this post is for you. To avoid this problem, you want to “normalize” your data. In a fully normalized system, any piece of data that is used in multiple places, is stored independently, with unique identifiers. Let’s say the employer “Bill’s Sprockets” changes their name to “Bill and Daughter's Sprockets.” In this case, you want to be sure that your “system of record” reflects the new name and anywhere that the employer name is used references that source. This ensures you don’t (1) continue using the old name by accident, (2) lose the connection between information associated with the old name and the new name, or (3) end up with confusion about how many companies really exist.

This will sound like a technical detail, but there is a very important key to having a normalized data set from which you can create such a list – you need a unique identifier (ID) for each employer that never changes. Why is this so important? Because once you establish the Employer ID, any other tool or report that needs information about an employer can reference the Employer ID, rather than something else that might change over time (like the Employer’s name). That unique identifier might be based on something real (like a Tax ID number) or it might be created manually by you or generated by one of your systems. The important points in this case, which also apply to any situation where normalized data is critical, are that:

Every Employer has a unique ID
Every Employer has only one ID
Once it’s been assigned, the Employer ID never changes
Every ID is only used only once, and for only one Employer
You have at least one piece of information for each employer (besides the ID)

For example, a basic mail-merge list, made from data that is not normalized, might look like this:

But a master list based on normalized data will look more like this:

Once you have unique identifiers attached to each employer and are confident that the data in your system of record can be considered your “master” (trusted) source of information, you can start mandating that every report, statement, correspondence, query etc. refers back to that ID and its associated data (i.e. 101, 102, 103 etc.) versus something like the Employer Name. This way you can be sure that if there is a name change, it only needs to be changed in one place in order to have the updated name reflected everywhere it is used.

Another example of why unique identifiers (IDs) are important can be seen with employers that have multiple contacts. Let’s say you have a list of contacts for each employer and some employers have more than one contact. If we did not have a unique Employer ID, we might have:

If we were using Employer Name to connect our contacts to the employer list, then the connection would be lost when an Employer Name is changed (or we would have to know to change it in multiple places). Using unique Employer ID’s, our contact list would be:

You probably noticed that we also created unique Contact IDs. This is because the contacts are another set of data that needs to be normalized. You may also notice that the Contact IDs have nothing to do with the Employer ID. It’s just a number. But now, if Employer 101’s name changes, that name can easily propagate through to any associated contacts.

Once unique IDs are in place, it is likely you will also need to address some of the policy and behavior challenges that naturally occur. If modifications to the normalized data are needed (to change a name or add a new employer for example), there should be a tightly controlled process for granting permission to change the master data set. In the real-world, the data is constantly changing (like employer addresses), the business needs also change (now we need an email for each employer) and sometimes things are changing too fast for your strict process to keep up. So, a balance needs to be found between keeping your master data sets pristine and making them flexible and open to changes. Regardless, being disciplined about using one master source (system of record) and updating that and only that together with using unique identifiers (IDs) for data that is likely to change will go a long way towards improving your efficiency and confidence that your data is the same everywhere it is used.

Is Your Data Conflict Resolution Strategy Working?

Thu, 14 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT

This is our 4th post in a series on data quality for unions and fund offices. During the summer, we wrote about getting the data right in your benefits administration system, including a grading rubric to help you assess your data excellence. Since then, I have unpacked the first two elements of our 10-step data quality program in subsequent posts. Today, I will tackle the third which is focused on resolving data conflicts. In case you don’t have the 10 steps handy, they are:

You know where your data comes from in terms of systems and sources
You are aware of conflicts and inconsistencies between your sources
You have an approach for resolving any conflicts between sources
You capture data once, and use it in multiple places
You have documented what data is critical for implementing your business rules, and you have approaches for filling in any missing data
You have tools and processes for identifying and correcting flaws in your data
Your data exists in a format that makes it easy to access using readily available tools
You are not dependent on a software vendor for access to your data
Everyone on your team is cognizant of the value of “good data” and the long-term costs of ”sloppy data”
You leverage your data to support operations AND to support long term decisions

At this point, you know what your data is, where it comes from and where the problems are likely to be hiding. The next step is to to tackle what to do about those data problems. There are several different approaches to this topic (and if you want, you can spend a few years studying TQM or Six Sigma to get deep into the theory of quality control processes). In the manufacturing world, the goal is to keep defects out of your system by finding and removing them as early in the process as possible. The same concept applies to data – even in the fund office and union environment. It is much cheaper to keep the bad data out, or make corrections, at the point where data goes into the system, than it is to find and correct issues somewhere down the line. Sometimes this might feel like an unnecessary burden – i.e. checking everything 2 or 3 times as it goes into the system or requiring a complete record (e.g. date of birth) before adding a new member. But it’s much easier to correct a member’s name when they start working (because you noticed a conflict) than it is to deal with name challenges as you process a death benefit.

Start by going back through your data inventory and confirming your decision about the “system of record” for each element. In our example in the 2nd post , a member’s UnionID is assigned by the Membership system, so that would be the “system of record” for that data element. Do this for each data element. In our example:

Member Name – Enrollment form
Member SSN - Employer
Member Union ID – Membership system
Hours Worked by Date - Employer
Member Dues Status – Membership system
Member DoB – Enrollment form
Member Marital Status – Enrollment form

Now that you have reconfirmed the “systems of record” for each piece of data, you can implement a business rule that tells you what to do in the case of a conflict. Add the rule to each conflict on your list. For example:

If name (from employer) is different than name (from enrollment form) then use the name from the enrollment form
If Union ID (from employer) is different than Union ID (from membership system) then use the ID from the membership system.

The more of these rules you can establish up front, the easier it will be to maintain clean data down the line. It is important to note that the payoff for all of your quality control efforts may not be visible because you are solving future problems before they happen. If you’re not sure about the cost benefit of putting “high fences” around your data, a little bit of background reading on the value of quality in your data should convince you. The consensus from the manufacturing world is that high quality processes are almost always lower cost than low cost processes.

In my next post, I will discuss the importance of capturing data once and using it in many places. Until then, best of luck resolving your data conflicts.

Are Your Data Conflicts Slowing You Down?

Wed, 30 Oct 2019 13:57:28 GMT

In our last post , we unpacked the first element of our 10-step, comprehensive data quality program. In this example, we will tackle the second step. As a reminder:

You know where your data comes from in terms of systems and sources
You are aware of conflicts and inconsistencies between your sources
You have an approach for resolving any conflicts between sources
You capture data once, and use it in multiple places
You have documented what data is critical for implementing your business rules, and you have approaches for filling in any missing data
You have tools and processes for identifying and correcting flaws in your data
Your data exists in a format that makes it easy to access using readily available tools
You are not dependent on a software vendor for access to your data
Everyone on your team is cognizant of the value of “good data” and the long-term costs of ”sloppy data”
You leverage your data to support operations AND to support long term decisions

If you completed the data inventory described in our last data post, it is likely that you have already found some potential conflicts. The more you know about the potential conflicts up front, the more you can do to maintain the integrity of your internal data. Completing step #1 is a prerequisite here, but once you have an inventory of your data elements and sources, you can use the list to identify potential conflicts. For example, if you add new members based on a list from employers, but get their Union ID based on a list from a Union office – do you compare and reconcile any differences in the member’s name? Do you verify that the “new” Union number doesn’t already exist in your system? Some of the most nefarious problems are created by the “duplicate person” syndrome – i.e. when 2 separate records are referring to the same person. Even worse, is the “duplicate ID” syndrome – when 1 record is tied to 2 different people. These are the data gremlins that can cost you dearly down the road. The expense to resolve any downstream issues compounds over time the longer they linger.

Let’s dive into the specific example of the process for identifying conflicts in action. Start by picking a data element such as “member name.” This is a piece of data that you could receive from multiple places and should already be on your list of potential conflicts. Start by creating a list of the data sources for the data element you selected (i.e Member Name) along with all of the pieces of related data that come from that source. Use a spreadsheet if possible. A document will also work but a spreadsheet will be more helpful later. For example:

Data Source 1 – Employer
Member Name
Member SSN
Member Union ID
Hours Worked by Date

Data Source 2 – Union Membership system
Member Name
Member SSN
Member Union ID
Member Dues Status
Member DoB

Data Source 3 – Member Enrollment Form
Member Name
Member SSN
Member Union ID
Member DoB
Member marital status

From this example, you may learn that:

Member name, Member SSN, and Member Union ID have up to 3 sources (and there are not guarantees that all three fields match)
There are 2 “identifiers” (SSN and Union ID) which should both be unique and consistent
Member DoB may have 2 sources that are inconsistent

Do this for each data source and element until you have identified all of the potential conflicts that could result from a data element that has more than one source. Make a list of those conflicts in a separate worksheet in the Excel workbook that contains your data inventory. We'll discuss resolving conflicts in our next post, but remember that capturing the sources of potential conflicts will make the resolution step much simpler.

Do You Know Where Your Data Is (From)?

Thu, 03 Oct 2019 15:08:45 GMT

Earlier this summer, we wrote about “getting the data right” in your benefits administration system, including a grading rubric to help you assess your data excellence. There are several concepts to unpack, and I will start doing that with this post.

In our earlier post , we emphasized that data is a root cause of many fund office challenges (from business operational complexity to the expense of technology deployments to high quality member services). Getting your data right is the path to unlocking many internal logjams and obstacles. In order to help fund administrators and unions achieve data excellence, MIDIOR has developed a comprehensive, 10-step data quality program that correlates to the 10 elements in our data grading rubric. We will tackle each element in turn in the coming weeks, starting with the first (in bold below).

You know where your data comes from in terms of systems and sources
You are aware of conflicts and inconsistencies between your sources
You have an approach for resolving any conflicts between sources
You capture data once, and use it in multiple places
You have documented what data is critical for implementing your business rules, and you have approaches for filling in any missing data
You have tools and processes for identifying and correcting flaws in your data
Your data exists in a format that makes it easy to access using readily available tools
You are not dependent on a software vendor for access to your data
Everyone on your team is cognizant of the value of “good data” and the long-term costs of ”sloppy data”
You leverage your data to support operations AND to support long term decisions

Maybe this seems obvious, but the first place to start is to be sure you have an accurate list of systems and sources for your data. A seemingly simple exercise is to create your own data inventory (aka, a list), including the “provenance” of every piece of data. To get you started, figure out where the data about your members lives (including the many details about each member); do the same thing for your dependent and beneficiary data, your list of employers (maybe with multiple contacts per employer), as well as your work history or contributions data. This is a good start.

When you start digging into the details - by looking at each of these “lists” and trying to add data about your data - you will uncover some primary sources of data challenges. Even if you can’t “fix” your data sources, it’s always better to be aware of them. Start by creating a spreadsheet of all of your data elements if possible. A document will also work but a spreadsheet will be more helpful later. Then log the potential systems (sources) for each. You can start by asking yourself multiple questions about each data element. An easy place to start is to consider the typical data associated with your basic list of members. How do new members get added? Are they added manually by fund office staff? If so, where do they get their information from? Does it come from the members via a paper form? Do you receive new member lists from employers as well? What about from local union offices? Digging further into the details – do you get member’s names along with their address from the same source? Do you require an SSN or other identifier, like a Union ID for every member? Do those come from different places? For every single unique piece of data, ask these questions and log ALL of the potential sources along with the primary “system of record” for that data if you know it. Give yourself 100 points if you already have such an inventory.

Stay tuned for MIDIOR's next post on identifying Data Conflicts and Inconsistencies.

Got Data?

Wed, 10 Jul 2019 19:38:37 GMT

At MIDIOR, we are a broken record as it relates to data for our union and fund office clients. Whether you are focused on organizing, member services or anything in between, you need accurate systems and accurate systems are, of course, “all about the data.” If you get the data right, everything else is easier. How do you measure how well you’re doing? On a scale of 1 to 10, are you an 8 or a 2?

We recommend a grading rubric based on multiple factors that are indicative of quality, integrity, structure, and completeness. For example, we assess whether:

You know where your data comes from in terms of systems and sources
You are aware of conflicts and inconsistencies between your sources
You have an approach for resolving any conflicts between sources
You capture data once, and use it in multiple places
You have documented what data is critical for implementing your business rules, and you have approaches for filling in any missing data
You have tools and processes for identifying and correcting flaws in your data
Your data exists in a format that makes it easy to access using readily available tools
You are not dependent on a software vendor for access to your data
Everyone on your team is cognizant of the value of “good data” and the long-term costs of "sloppy data”
You leverage your data to support operations AND to support long term decisions

As a side note, a few things that are NOT part of this grading rubric are:

That you’re using any particular brand or type of database or database product
That you leverage “the cloud,” “big data”, “deep learning” or any other buzzwords of the day
That you know anything about referential integrity, primary keys, or row locking and commit logic

Strong member recruitment, high member retention and great member service in the future depend on your ability to keep your data accurate and current today. If you are not sure where you stand, start by asking yourself about the items listed above. When you are through, you will have a better sense of where your gaps are.

Functions, Roles, Jobs and People

Wed, 26 Jun 2019 19:57:13 GMT

When it comes to “product,” we encourage our clients not to be too rigid when spinning up teams. “Product” is the one place in the organization where having a single configuration for product teams is a recipe for disaster. What you need to be successful varies depending on the product: its maturity, complexity, scale, objectives and so forth. Effective product teams also evolve in tandem with products as they move through their life cycle. To be fair, there are certainly groups of activities (which I call functions) and particular roles (not to be confused with jobs) that need to be played in almost every case but companies that “lead the pack” in their respective industries know that how functions are covered and how roles map to jobs will vary from product to product and year to year.

Before starting any product initiative and configuring a team, take a moment to think about its characteristics. Is it large or small in scope? Complex or simple? Is the new product or set of capabilities innovative or is the target clearly defined extensions? Is your development approach Agile or Waterfall? Then think about the functions that need to be covered. In any initiative, there are internally facing activities that include facing off with development teams, translating requirements and prioritizing work. Similarly, there are externally facing activities that include facing off with customers and stakeholders to identify and understand problems and serve as the face of the product in the market. Depending on the scope and scale of the initiative, these functions may be able to be mapped to a single role filled by an individual with responsibility for both the internally and externally facing activities– and they may not.

When individuals are assigned to a product initiative, they often bring along titles that are tightly coupled with their jobs within particular business units or departments. And yet, each team should ideally consist of different roles that have nothing to do with specific positions. Typically, someone will need to capture and prioritize requirements. You also need someone to keep the lists and track the milestones. And, of course, you need someone at the helm serving as champion to evangelize and lead the charge. There is always a financial or business sponsor who makes budget available along with someone who can provide air cover for the team, allowing the players to execute without unnecessary interference. This is particularly important when the product is innovative and goes against the grain of organization’s process and culture. In my view, these are roles and roles have names like Product Owner, Product Manager, Scrum Master, Project Manager, Business Analyst and the like. The particular personality required to succeed in a specific role will vary by product, initiative and point in time.

Depending on what the desired outcome is for an initiative, product leaders must understand what functions need to be covered, which roles are required and what type of personality and experience will be effective. One person can play multiple roles but it can be equally effective to split up roles depending on maturity, complexity, scope and timeline. Which is why I encourage my clients to map functions to roles, roles to jobs and jobs to people – in that order. This should be reassessed on a regular basis as products evolve, requirements change and timelines adjust – which is where the need to be flexible comes into play.

Keeping Member Data Clean

Thu, 23 May 2019 14:39:25 GMT

Managing time and resources at the Fund Office to increase back office efficiency is key to increasing member satisfaction AND keeping costs low. From our experience, the time it takes to track down and update participant information – what we like to call “member data” – can add a wrinkle to the busy activity within daily fund operations (and we all know the more time wasted equals more money spent). Often, the obstacles to efficient processes can be traced back to messy member data: fire drills in the middle of time sensitive processes, enraged members at critical life events, and potential legal action take resources away from the already rigorous daily work required to operate the fund office and only add to the time spent. This can be avoided if adequate time and care are taken to properly maintain the integrity of member data as it is collected, but these activities often fall to the bottom of the list.

For instance, if a person’s social security number is missing, or the year that they initially gained health eligibility was accidentally mixed up with the year the member was married, there is a very real possibility that the member could face unintended consequences at complicated times such as sensitive life events (i.e. retirement or death). Fund Office operations are complicated and, from a member’s perspective, they might not make the connection between providing accurate Dates of Birth to the fund office and receiving the benefit that they have earned over the years. It is the Fund Office operations team's responsibility to understand the convoluted rules that govern benefits administration and ensure that the base member data required to enact those rules is accurate, updated and clean. You can imagine the man power it requires to not only maintain member data, but to effectively communicate the requirements and consequences of missing or inaccurate data to the membership.

Being organized is one of the most underrated facets of record keeping. Everything – from the number of staff that touch member records to the storage of personal data that may date back decades – deserves scrutiny and must be logically documented and stored in a trusted location. However, organization alone does not determine the accuracy of records; people do. Member record maintenance is a mission-critical aspect of your fund operations and it is imperative that you have a trained team, whose primary mission is to maintain a high level of data integrity on behalf of all members. These are the people who can recognize and correct errors before they become problems (“hey – that marriage date doesn’t look right, we better verify it before it gets entered into the system”). These are also the people who will ensure that downstream processes and communications run without errors – think of the time and money saved if a fund office staff member was able to easily retrieve and trust the accuracy of, say marriage dates and SSN's, come benefits administration time. Supporting member data maintenance with careful organization and a capable team equipped with simple tools to help alleviate the potential stress that arises from inaccurate or incomplete information goes a long way.

Accurate and secure maintenance of thousands of member records (along with those of their dependents) is a taxing yet necessary function of modern fund operations. The benefits of clean records are many: better service, accurate reporting, and the confidence that compliance with the new mandates can be achieved. To avoid a mad dash to update “member data,” we recommend constant vigilance on the task of participant data integrity. This may prove to be one of the most cost-efficient initiatives in the fund office.

The Core Four

Wed, 08 May 2019 17:55:25 GMT

At MIDIOR, we talk about a handful of measures that we call the Core Four: Revenue, Profitability, Quality and Market Share. These basic measures form the cornerstone of any assessment of how well a product – or a business – is doing. The specifics on calculating each measure will differ depending on the company or product and I encourage my clients to define those specifics and incorporate them into their plans from the get-go.

Take market share, for example. Common sense tells us that every company should be able to define their market and know where they stand, and by extension, they should be able to do that at the product level as well. Market share is one of the best indicators of progress and position – and it is one of the only quantifiable measures of how you stack up against the competition. So, why is it often so hard to define and measure? The obstacle is something we call the “denominator” problem. Calculating market share requires making basic assumptions about the market boundaries and in most cases, teams can’t agree on the basic parameters or are unable to measure market share because they don’t develop good assumptions about what comprises the “denominator” – aka their target market. Here, a little data can go a long way and a lot of data can send you in circles. And, while other marketplace measures such as assessments of competitive features and functions are important, they can be challenging to keep up to date. In addition, while valuable in terms of the development roadmap, these assessments don’t necessarily tell teams anything about the urgency of changing tactics, especially when product edges are fuzzy (think services) and the lines between products and platforms are not clearly delineated. A clearly defined market (denominator) allows teams to measure their share and make near-term changes to tactical plans. Similarly, teams need to take the time to define Revenue, Profitability and Quality at their most granular level so they can be easily measured and tracked. At a minimum, teams need to define and set targets for the Core Four as part of their annual plans if they want to be able to measure and manage progress and make adjustments along the way.

We can look in the rearview mirror at the business of books in terms of winners and losers as a case in point. We all know the Amazon story. But let’s look at Barnes and Noble and Borders. Barnes and Noble maintained relevance with the introduction of the Nook to compete with the Amazon Kindle. Amazon starting by selling physical books through a different channel, but expanded their market with the introduction of the e-reader and audiobooks (Audible). This in turn gave them the brand equity and resources to move into the brick and mortar space with actual Amazon book stores. Barnes and Noble had always had a brick and mortar presence but was able to measure their market and market share and the trend towards the online purchase of books and the e-reader experience. They were able to counter their declining market share AND take advantage of the new market created by Amazon’s Kindle by increasing their online presence and eventually introducing the Nook. Borders on the other hand, was focused on the “in house” experience and chose to enhance that experience through the addition of cafes in many of their spaces and by investing doubly in their inventory. The problem is, the market was trending away from going to physical book stores to buy books and away from CHAIN book stores as work or hang out spaces in favor of local book stores and boutique coffee shops. Borders was liquidated in 2011 and sold off their book of business to Barnes and Noble (but not before they outsourced their e-commerce to Amazon…).

Ask yourself: Can you run down the list of products that you are responsible for and write down the definition and target for each of the Core Four measures? If you can’t, go back to your teams and ask them to do the good work of getting more granular – you cannot manage what you do not measure.

Assess Your Priorities; Match Your Competencies

Wed, 03 Apr 2019 19:13:49 GMT

At the corporate level, most executives can look at their annual plan and tell you what the priorities are, and which activities are more or less important. Leaders of product organizations and product champions, however, manage to plans that are sure to be pummeled with change: business priorities are fluid, market factors have impact, products progress through different points in their lifecycle and the overall portfolio is in a continuous state of flux. With changes, priorities often shift and companies can quickly find themselves with high competency in areas that are no longer identified as critical to success. Conversely, when organizational competency is lower than a particular priority, it may be time to consider shifting focus to bring them into alignment in order to continue executing on the right things. Identifying any gaps and mapping them to what matters most is a great way to illuminate any misalignment between priorities and competencies so that investments have impact. One place to start is to consider the priorities for Commercial (outward facing) activities and then do the same for Development & Operations (internally focused) activities for a given plan year. Then plot those on a 2x2 for each area and see what they say.

Activities that fall into the lower left or upper right quadrants are in alignment: lower left means low priority, low competency (while never a good thing to have truly low competency, for this purpose it is fine) while upper right indicates high priority and high competency. Activities that fall into the upper left quadrant are the ones that need to be most closely examined since high priority and low competency is recipe for a problem. Activities in the lower right quadrant should also be reviewed to be sure there isn't over investment or spending relative to priority. An annual assessment of organizational competencies versus product priorities should be incorporated into your regular product planning process. Just as decisions are made about which products will receive funding and which will be decommissioned, a disciplined approach to tuning competencies to priorities needs to become part of the organization’s DNA.

The Capacity Reality

Thu, 14 Mar 2019 14:04:11 GMT

Many product professionals find that before they even publish their product development roadmap, they are already a day late and a dollar short. Product teams are constantly asked to do more with less and deliver an increasing number of innovative products on a compressed schedule with the same or fewer resources. This is their lot. And while heroic effort, organization and a little bit of hard work can pave the way, teams often fall short because a key consideration in the capacity planning process was overlooked: namely, the number of great product TEAMS that can realistically be configured.

In terms of resources, when it comes to product, companies are not limited by the number of individual resources they have at their disposal but rather by the number of discrete product teams that can be spun up in parallel. For example, if every product development initiative has tasks assigned to that same person with those special skills at approximately the same time you have a bottleneck that might not be visible if your capacity planning is done by resource “types” (vs. named resources). Setting achievable goals for product development is dependent on adequate capacity and while it is possible to “hire more of a certain skill” it is not always possible to “make more of that certain person” or “split that certain person up” between multiple teams in the same time span. Factor in Agile development methods that keep product teams in a constant state of iteration and you really have a challenge! So, the next time you evaluate the reality of your product development roadmap against your capacity, remember to think about who you have over what titles you have, so you know how many teams you can field at a given time. Do this regularly and you will find yourself better prepared for the road ahead.

Members Are Calling for Mobile: Meet All Their Communication Needs

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 19:23:29 GMT

Online and mobile applications have been available in many industries for years, with credit card companies and banks leading the pack. So, it is no surprise that Public Pension and Taft-Hartley funds are being pushed by their plan participants to consider mobile offerings. For union members and fund participants, there’s a great deal of value in being able to access their hours and benefit information anytime, anywhere – in much the same way that consumers like keeping tabs on their financial information through online banking apps. A mobile benefits app helps members stay on top of benefit information and ask questions that are important to them. With baseline expectations for mobile apps set by consumers in general, it would seem that Public Pension and Taft-Hartley fund offices would be able to roll out a mobile app with confidence, and with the assurance that training and user adoption will be an easy task. Yet, there is often a disconnect between the expectations of the members (i.e. "the market") and what is deemed possible, within policy guidelines or pertinent by the fund office operation teams and the boards that govern them.

Some of the hesitation is due to the seemingly daunting task of getting data ready and available for mobile applications to display. Messy data, lean technology teams and opaque options can all seem like barriers to bringing the great value of a mobile application to the membership. While we agree that these tasks should be met with great preparation and an eye to the details, we would also argue that the value that accrues to the fund office is critical to overcoming these perceived barriers and can provide support for the operations team and lend confidence to the board.

The steps involved in preparing for and building a mobile app also have great value to the operations team at the fund office. Before deploying the mobile app, a fair amount of attention will need to be paid to cleaning historical data. This exercise will likely involve documenting the specifics of business processes and the rules that apply to different member groups. Making the data transparent also means getting the data right. This task forces the fund office to be clear and focused on data quality, the foundation for accurate fund administration and record-keeping. It also provides the fund office with another, almost instant, way to communicate with members.

Creating the mobile benefits app will be a delighter for members and can also be a strategic way to improve fund office operations and analytics capabilities in support of better decision-making. So, put the work in for the members, but also for yourselves as fund office managers and set the framework for the future.

Tune Your Product Organization Model – Often

Wed, 13 Feb 2019 21:24:22 GMT

At MIDIOR we are all about making sure that the product organization is efficient and effective. This state is hard to maintain and especially so when companies set up their product organization, staff it with appropriate roles - product managers, product developers, business analysts for example – and expect that model to work with those same people, in those same roles, for three, five, even ten years down the road. The challenge is that things change: products evolve, markets move, technology and development approaches modernize. Unlike other corporate functions “Product” needs to be fluid: roles and people must be mapped and matched to both the product portfolio and the product development process as they evolve over time. Skill sets at the “person level” may not change all that drastically, but smart application of the skills available on your team across roles, products and initiatives can make all the difference.

The kind of people you need changes as products mature. Typically, innovative products require the entrepreneur as product manager while mature products may require more of an executive mindset. Our advice is that each year, when you go through the product planning process and make decisions about your products and development priorities, at the same time, take a look at the product organization and fine-tune the structure, roles and/or the players, if necessary.

To structure your product organization one time is not enough! We recorded a four-minute video a few years back featuring our Managing Partner, Susan Loconto Penta, that is still relevant today and worth a quick view: you can check out that video below.

Bridging the Gap Between Your Fund Office and a Mobile Future

slpenta@midior.com (Susan Penta) — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 20:24:11 GMT

For many unions and fund offices, building a mobile app to give members self-service access to their information is on the radar but not in the budget. The common perception is that a mobile app is an extension of – or at least intertwined with - the core fund administration system. But, in fact, this does not need to be the case. There are many advantages to having a mobile app that is technically a separate application from the core system and simply leverages the data out of it. For example, it is a cheap and easy way to allow the mobile app to remain compatible with smart phones and tablets that are constantly changing without any impact to the core system. It also allows for the mobile app screens to be designed to fit members’ needs vs. trying to cover both the needs of a fund office analyst and a member in the field or on the job. Members want to see the data that is most interesting to them served up in a simple format that is easy to view and digest. They do not need to be bogged down in the complicated details of benefits administration. In addition, a separate mobile app allows you to quickly and efficiently bring together information from multiple systems for the member – whether it is data from various benefit fund or union systems or other information that is important to get in front of the members (such as alerts).

Over the past 2 years, MIDIOR has harnessed these design principals and invested significant resources in building a mobile application called VIA to give union and benefit fund members self-service access to their information from their phones or tablets (or desktop computers if that is their choice). The VIA mobile app was born out of custom versions of similar applications commissioned by various funds throughout the years. As we watched thousands of users adopt the custom applications with limited learning curves and the fund offices benefit from reduced call volume, increased member engagement and more current data, we decided it was time to create a standalone product that could be used by any fund or union in conjunction with their existing systems. It can be implemented quickly, it is “cloud-based” (which means no need to maintain the infrastructure on which it is hosted), the screens are customizable to your fund and it is priced competitively. For funds that do not have a platform modernization or system upgrade on the horizon, it offers a way to extend the life of your legacy system (and that investment) at the same time as giving your members modern, mobile self-service access. Learn more about VIA.

For a glimpse into one fund’s experience building a mobile future, join our webinar featuring Robert Sica, Director of Technology at New England Carpenters Benefit Funds, and MIDIOR Partner & Co-Founder, Michael Goldberger, on Thursday, December 13th at 2:00 PM . Robert and Michael will share their journey creating and deploying a mobile self-service application that is now being used by more than 8,000 members on a daily basis.

Successful Voice of the Customer Research Depends on Recruiting the Voices

Thu, 27 Sep 2018 19:16:55 GMT

Most product professionals acknowledge that incorporating the “Voice of the Customer” into product development plans and priorities is key to delivering successful products. But how do you ensure you have enough of the right, objective “voices” represented in your input? The answer is excellent, organized recruiting for research.

As a provider of Voice of the Customer (VOC) research services, we can say with confidence that the most labor-intensive aspect of any project is the recruitment of those “voices” – as in finding people to actually talk with or interview. The task can be daunting when you consider that the statistics for getting people to agree to interviews are only marginally better than click rates in a marketing campaign. With a 10 - 20% success rate on securing interviews, many of our clients offer to assume some responsibility for recruitment to help facilitate the process through their established relationships. In contrast, based on many years of experience, we have found that existing relationships are often clouded with years of communications which can either bog things down or create sensitivity to outreach, limiting the size and diversity of the potential interview pool. These minefields are best to stay above as opposed to trying to navigate through (even with sales at the helm). From our perspective, the most effective Voice of the Customer research features a recruitment process that is informed by, but independent of, existing client relationships. This yields a more objective result, typically moves faster and is often easier on the sales team.

Whether your research team is internal or external, having them reach out on your behalf to recruit for interview participation automatically increases the credibility of your VOC program, expedites the recruitment process and sets up the interview for success. In addition, it creates a relationship between the research team and potential interviewee that does not depend on you to play intermediary. As an added bonus, it also establishes the context of the interview outside of your product to make sure that the conversation is as free as possible (For more on why this is important, check out our blog post on what clients will tell us when they have the freedom and safety to do so).

Regardless, it can be hard for organizations to relinquish control when customer relationships are involved. We find that successful interview recruitment depends on establishing a trusted relationship with both our clients and our clients’ clients. To accomplish this, we prefer to take our clients on the journey with us and do as much work upfront to make for a seamless and efficient process, so everyone wins. This includes a deep dive into the target interviewee pool to ensure that we have the most up to date information possible as well as spending considerable time organizing our targets by company and contact title to increase the chances of reaching the right person. Lastly, we often run recruitment in parallel efforts to combat the low rates of return - LinkedIn messaging, calling campaigns and email outreach can happen simultaneously. This requires a large amount of coordination to ensure that targets are not hit through multiple channels at the individual or company level!

Mingling in a client’s professional relationships – even when the goal is to elicit objective, diverse feedback - can be muddy waters. A targeted and extremely organized approach to recruiting for research that involves the product owner is the best way to build the trust required to achieve an excellent set of outputs based on a robust set of interviews. When primary research is involved, we are always respectful upfront, prepared throughout and thoughtful after. Hold your research teams to a similar standard since how they handle interview recruitment will determine the quality of the result.

Even Small Technology Updates Deserve Big Process Changes

Thu, 06 Sep 2018 18:06:03 GMT

At MIDIOR, we continually stress the importance of process modifications to change user behavior as a key part of success in technology platform upgrades. Take something as seemingly simple as replacing a Document Management system. The scale of the investment might not be as great as modernizing a benefits administration system, but you still run the risk of wasting time and money if you do not modernize the process along with the tools. In fact, sometimes these smaller projects make it that much easier for your team to carry the same bad habits into the new system and chip away at the structural updates you so carefully outlined and devolve the process you so thoughtfully designed. In order to avoid this fate, we suggest you consider making at least one “wholesale change” to the legacy process in parallel with “go-live” of the new system.

In the case where a fund office or administrator has a legacy process where only a portion of the documents are imaged, they might consider putting ALL documents directly into the new system right at cutover to the new system. This would require that all documents are opened (either electronically or physically), read, coded and routed or scanned upon receipt. This would certainly be a major process change, but would ensure that the “new way” does not become limited to the “old way” on a new system.

This may not be feasible when proprietary information is involved, but if the regulatory and compliance constraints allow for it, the process change and investment to make would be in a scanning specific resource to complete the routing and/or scanning on behalf of all departments. If all documents go directly into the document management software, the scanning resource will need to know enough about each of the documents to know where they belong in the system which will have implications for hiring criteria (e.g. Health forms vs. Member Documents vs. Claims documentation). If it is not possible to have a single resource coding, routing and/or scanning, each department will have to scan their own documents and, therefore, a purchase of multiple scanners might be in order.

Whatever the future state process is that you envision, our bid is that you make an early investment in that process beyond just the software to make sure it reaches its full potential and inspires your team to reach theirs in the new environment.

Customers Tell Us Things They Won't Tell You

Tue, 21 Aug 2018 15:21:29 GMT

The product teams that we support at MIDIOR would all agree that maintaining accurate insight on customer perceptions and future needs is critical to making the right choices about the product development roadmap. But, getting insight that is both believable and actionable is challenging when “sitting on the inside” – customers often censor themselves and it takes too much time for it to remain at the top of a product professional’s priority list. Too often, product decisions or feature trade-offs are made based on stale information or a product manager’s best judgment.

The good news is that a handful of discussions with the right people is often more effective than a survey sent to hundreds when trying to decide what to build or where to cut. Surveys are perfect for validating concrete hypotheses but it is unusual for the features that will make products great to emerge from this type of research alone. Defining the “delighter features” requires eliciting real, honest customer perceptions of what works (or doesn’t) along with surfacing the pains they face or the gains they wish to make in the context of their day. These hidden gems may only reveal themselves during a lengthy conversation that is allowed to wander and considered safe enough by the customer to inspire candor. Our experience is that using discussions as the mechanism for eliciting requirements is one of the only ways to hear the customer’s unfiltered “voice.” Making those voices actionable requires that transcripts and interview notes be turned into structured data to facilitate pattern-spotting. Product teams can often act with confidence based on the data and patterns gathered this way or they can supplement with an electronic survey to ensure a statistically significant set of facts that back up the details garnered through customer conversations.

The most successful companies understand that customer insight is an ongoing discovery process: market conditions are dynamic, technology is always advancing and customer needs change over time. Our counsel to our clients is to regularly complement the anecdotal knowledge of product teams with objective, discussion-based research conducted by a neutral third party. Either an internal team or an external vendor can work but they must specialize in discussion-based research to yield customer insights that are actionable by product teams.

Manage your Modern Communication Channels, and your Documents will Fall into Line

Wed, 11 Jul 2018 18:18:35 GMT

Scanning. Imaging. Document Management. What comes to mind for many fund administrators is a physical piece of equipment (a scanner), a person feeding paper through it (the analyst) and a way to retrieve and view that image (the document management software). But with a member communications landscape that is continually evolving and the large strides that have been made in the world of member portals and self-service, the way the modern fund office captures and organizes documents calls into question where the document management process begins and ends.

If you are looking to enhance your document management process to support your members and provide better service, working with a specialty software vendor or utilizing the document management functionality available on your core benefits administration system is one place to start. But, really, this is an even better opportunity to think more broadly about how members choose to communicate with the Fund Office and what kinds of documents get passed pack and forth. Sure, some members come in to the office while others prefer to call, but there are new methods that need to be accounted for along with the documents they might generate. Are documents arriving at the fund office through member portals or mobile apps? What about physical mail that is received through an in-person drop-off or the post? And what happens when documents arrive at the office? Some receiving, coding and routing processes might be in place due to archaic rules - or they might even be leftovers from a physical limitation in the office layout that has since been eradicated. With electronic communications on the rise, ranging from plain old email to member self-service applications, there may be an opportunity to filter all electronic documents directly into the document management system upon arrival to cut down on physical paper trails and the dreaded "print an email to scan it into the system” process that often exists. Take this opportunity to assess each of these processes and determine if they are in place because they work, or if they are in place because that’s just how things have been done in the past. At the same time, you need to consider whether the existing coding scheme is appropriate or if a redesign is on the table.

It’s important to ask these kinds questions and consider all communication paths before you make any decisions on the more obvious document management upgrades (the physical equipment, the people, and the software). Otherwise, who’s to know if a single scanner or a single scanning resource is the way to go, or if each department requires their own scanner and everyone will need to share the scanning responsibility. Taking an honest and detailed look at what you are currently doing, writing it down and making a visual process map and opening it up for challenge is the only way to accurately define requirements for your new system and identify the necessary skill sets and resources that will use it and make your investment worthwhile.

Net, Net: Use the process details to inform any document management equipment and software upgrades and use advances in modern communications to inform the process details.

How to Build a Product Success Scorecard

Sun, 24 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT

At MIDIOR we believe that judging a product or idea on the merit of an emotional affinity is dangerous. Instead, we encourage our clients to regularly evaluate their products on a relative basis – both in the context of their product portfolio and with respect to how well it solves customer problems (aka “the market”). While there are many approaches to measuring relative success, we have defined an approach to evaluating products that also prescribes actions. The Product Success Scorecard assesses individual products or entire product lines by measuring competitiveness and market penetration for each target market segment.

SET UP A PRODUCT SUCCESS SCORECARD

For any given product (or product line), choose two “angles” of market segmentation (i.e., two criteria that define a target market segment). Basic examples for a business-to-business product would be company size and geography. Then, set up a grid in Excel with the various company sizes as row headings (e.g. revenue bands) and the geographies as column headings {e.g. country or continent or sales territory).

PUT YOUR PRODUCT SUCCESS SCORECARD INTO ACTION

For each cell that represents an intersection of company size and geography, ask these questions:

Is this product with its current capabilities and features competitive in this segment?
Has this product achieved its market penetration goals (as measured by market share or other criteria)?

The answers to these two questions will yield one of four scenarios:

The product is COMPETITIVE (in terms of features and functions) and it has ACHIEVED its target MARKET SHARE.
The product is NOT COMPETITIVE but it has ACHIEVED its target MARKET SHARE.
The product is COMPETITIVE but it has NOT ACHIEVED its target MARKET SHARE.
The product is NOT COMPETITIVE and it has NOT ACHIEVED its target MARKET SHARE.

Do this for each cell represented in the grid (intersection of size and geography) and log the answer in that cell. At MIDIOR, we like to color code these but numbers will work just as well. Once this task is complete – which can be tedious depending on how granular your segments are – you have succeeded in creating a SCORECARD for your product in its target segments.

INTERPRET THE RESULTS OF YOUR PRODUCT SUCCESS SCORECARD

Assuming you can prioritize the segments (and that you do not want to go through this exercise again with two different angles of market segmentation), you have created a recipe for key focus areas in the near to medium term:Run through this exercise for every product in your portfolio as part of your regular product evaluation and planning process (annually-at a minimum). Based on what your Product Success Scorecards tell you, the next step is to look at your product organization and adjust as needed to bolster capabilities and tune the focus and resource allocation.

Chart Your Growth with MIDIOR's Market Map

Thu, 15 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

If you know MIDIOR, you know that, if anything, we consider ourselves to be a product people. That is why our mission is to support product teams: to support their many daily decisions and the teams who look to them for influence on longer term strategies and future growth plans. To do our part to bolster this system, we have committed to a three-part webinar series aimed at advancing the product discipline and sharing our approaches to driving products towards success. In the third and final installment of our product-focused series, we broaden the lens once more through our Market Map framework. A summary of the framework and webinar are included below for your reference so if you know of a product manager or marketing professional that could benefit from exploring this topic please follow the link at the bottom of this post to access the recording.

Our Market Map framework defines the market landscape by market and opportunity in terms of size, value and growth potential at the most granular level. We examine these “segments” in terms of the solutions that currently exist, the companies that offer those solutions and the perceptions – or “voices” of the customers that purchase them. At MIDIOR, we consider the Market Map to be our first step in defining the market landscape for any given product – essentially helping to paint the whole picture of the market space in which a product or service is operating. The finished product establishes a solid basis for prioritization and decisions about possibilities for future growth. We call this step establishing context, which we can all agree is essential to making any informed decision.

While the finished product is useful as a presentation tool (to inform and align the team), the process of collecting the data and forming the Market Map is equally useful, if not more so. The formal framework and the methodical way that it requires you to collect data, forces consistency of thoughts, organizes information and clearly identifies work to be done.

So far in our webinar series we have explored how our Competition Cube tool is used to assess the competitive landscape and develop competitive product strategies and we have performed analysis at the product level through our Product Market Advisor tool to help inform product investment decisions. This third and final installment will only add to your product team’s arsenal for all future business cases and/or product plans.

Click here to listen to MIDIOR’s webinar: "Chart Your Growth with MIDIOR’s Market Map”.

Drive Better Product Decisions

Mon, 18 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMT

When our clients ask for help with product planning, prioritizing development efforts, or making choices about where to head next with their products, they often start with a story. While stories are always helpful for context, they are insufficient on their own to drive decisions as they are typically based on one person’s memory and can be grounded in emotion, creating product perceptions that blur objectivity. As part of our continuing effort to advance the product discipline and share our approaches more broadly, MIDIOR hosted another webinar on December 13, 2017 that covers our Product-Market Advisor framework. A summary of the framework and webinar are included below for your reference so if you know of a product manager or marketing professional that could benefit from exploring this topic, please follow the link at the bottom of this post to access the recording.

Making product decisions solely on the merit of anecdotes or emotional affinities is unreliable at best. And yet product professionals are asked daily to make trade-offs to stay within budgets, juggling feature requests and marketing dollars to optimize the product portfolio for growth and profitability. MIDIOR’s Product Market Advisor supports product professionals by representing what they “know” to be true (about the market, the product, the numbers) so that they do not need to fall back on what they “feel” is right. The Product Market Advisor supports product decisions and team discussions by providing a logical framework that presents products in the context of their markets on two dimensions: product competitiveness and market penetration for each target market segment. The objective is to create a visual representation of product success in the context of target markets and, thereby, achieve a basis for team discussions on product focus, resource allocation and annual planning.

This webinar comes on the heels of our “Competition in the Age of Disruption” webinar as the second installment of our MIDIOR webinar series. Our previous webinar, “Competition in the Age of Disruption,” focused on the Competition Cube and provided the context for organizations to identify competition from all angles. This next installment presents a companion framework for use by product professionals in making actionable product choices.

Click here to listen to MIDIOR’s webinar: Drive Better Product Decisions with MIDIOR’s Product-Market Advisor . As always, if this topic piques your interest, give us a call - we are happy to continue the discussion!

Changing Roles in the Modern Fund Office

Tue, 12 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Public sector and multiemployer benefit plans continue to be overloaded by risk, compliance and regulatory changes making it more and more complicated for fund administrators to run the fund office. One of MIDIOR’s partners, Susan Loconto Penta, has written an article that was published in the November issue of IFEBP’s Benefits Magazine that explores the changing landscape of the Taft-Hartley world. The article discusses how organizations must evolve in parallel with union structures, technology platforms and member expectations on service and support. It also provides actionable insights to prepare your fund office for the rising tide of implications.

These implications include (but are not limited to):

Risk & compliance considerations that lead to nonnegotiable and exceptionally high day-to-day Operational Costs.
Big spend technology projects that loom on the horizon in order to tackle older technology platforms.
Shifting member expectations that drive these upgrades in technology in order to meet member expectations regarding the availability of their own data (e.g., hours worked, benefits accrued etc.).
The ever-present pressure to cut overhead costs.

Changing Roles in the Modern Fund Offices discusses how to prepare your fund office to meet these obstacles front on. These preparations include analyzing operational efficiencies and employee roles and responsibilities so that they fall in line with your operating system design; Evolving the fund’s governance model to manage risk; Putting service in the hands of the members to meet modern expectations in today’s world of “always-on, real-time information”.

For more insights or to read the article in full, download the Changing Roles in the Modern Fund Office article from the November 2017 issue of IFEBP’s Benefit Magazine here.

Competition in the Age of Disruption

Mon, 30 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Our clients often ask us for practical advice on how to keep their finger on the pulse of the competitive landscape (and ensure future competitive advantage) while dealing with the crisis of the day. At MIDIOR, we use our own logical framework, called The Competition Cube, as our basis for regularly surfacing six potential sources of competition for every product or service that we support through our projects.

On October 25th, 2017, we hosted a webinar to share our approach and provide attendees with our simple framework so they can build out their own Competition Cubes and chart a path towards a holistic view of the competitive ecosystem. MIDIOR’s Competition Cube identifies six planes of competition that product managers, marketing professionals and senior leaders should regularly explore as their basis for competitive assessment. Today, the landscape shifts so quickly that competitive entrants can emerge from the most innocuous of places if you are not prepared. Employing this framework does not substitute for semi-regular, in-depth competitive analysis but rather is a simple and logical methodology that can be used to keep your eyes wide open to sources of potential competitive threats and new market opportunities.

If you know of a product manager or marketing professional that could benefit from exploring this topic, please click here to access the webinar recording and learn how to quickly uncover and assess hidden competitive threats. If you would like to discuss this topic in more detail, give us a call, we are more than happy to oblige!

What’s More Important Than Member Service?

Thu, 09 Mar 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Member service and satisfaction have always been on the front line of fund office priorities. For the modern fund office, though, member service takes on a different meaning as member expectations shift toward a self-service model that allows for real time access to data and answers.

The first step towards establishing member self-service, however, is often in the form of platform and data projects. Technology projects can be intimidating in terms of size, scope, and cost but investing in vendor relationships, systems and data quality is always worth the expenditure.

One of the ways to ensure that you are getting the most out of your technology investments is to utilize the new systems and business processes to shift towards the member self-service model. Once you have brought your system into the future and you have purged your data, put it in the hands of the people who care about it the most – the members.

At MIDIOR, we have helped clients to maximize their return on investment in system overhauls by extending self-service functions to members. This principle can also be used to extend the life of your existing technology platform by bolting on a self-service platform. Our experience tells us that in either case, user adoption grows exponentially when a self-service capability is deployed. Moreover, members (almost) immediately try to interact with the data by reporting errors, reconciling hours and balances to personal records, and updating DOB’s and contact information. Typically, members are not only ready and able to handle the transition, but have high expectations of its implications.

So, get your member communications plans in place and put your system and your data to the test by meeting the members where they already are.

For more insights such as this, download and read our 2016 Study of Public and Taft Hartley Fund Operations report.

What the Super Bowl Teaches Us About Product Management

Wed, 08 Feb 2017 00:00:00 GMT

When asked about his team’s success in the Super Bowl, Tom Brady made this point when accepting his MVP trophy; “Football is a game of energy, emotion and attitude”. I find it interesting that he went straight to the intangibles; secondarily he credited the hard work of his teammates and the skilled coaching of Bill Belichick and staff. To us at MIDIOR Consulting, this sums up what we believe about what makes product managers great. In many ways, the best product managers are very much like the team of New England Patriots that gave us the best Super Bowl of all time. Yes, as a Boston-based company, we have a slight bias. No question, great product managers are hard to find yet they all share the characteristics of a winning NFL team:

They are fierce competitors. While an NFL player focuses on one opponent in one stadium each week, a product manager competes on more than one field: internally for resources and externally against new and well-established players.

They are motivators. Without receivers to catch the ball, linebackers to make the defensive calls, and a special teams unit to handle tasks ranging from punts to field goals, the game cannot be won. A high-energy, enthusiastic product manager will motivate and coordinate a cross-functional team of sales, support, and development players to help win the game for product. One of the key success factors for the Patriots has been the confidence displayed by TB12. He leads by example, modeling the behaviors that keep the team focused on the job at hand – rather than falling into a panic.

They never give up . The opponent may be ahead by 25 points in the third quarter but there is still time left on the clock. For a product manager the obstacles are many and play dynamics can change. Budgets get pulled, a competitor enters from left field, laptops catch fire all over the world. Challenges can seem insurmountable but I’ll guarantee that in the Patriots locker room at half-time Belichick said; “it is what it is”, now win the game.

They execute . Game strategy is important but executing the plays wins the game. The Patriot’s tried many plays that didn’t work out (the flubbed on-side kick, the double-pass, the missed extra point) but they kept at it. In the aftermath of the game, there has been much talk about Atlanta’s coaching decisions and strategies in the 4thquarter. But reality is they simply failed to execute, while the Patriots prevailed. In the same way, great product managers are masters of the details and can execute the plan.

So the next time you scout an aspiring product manager, put aside the resume and look for the attributes that will win you five Super Bowl rings.

Best Practices for a Successful Systems Implementation

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT

The decision to upgrade or change technology at the fund office will have widespread impact on the processes and people that manage day-to-day operations. For both the fund administrator and the trustees, the stakes to succeed are extremely high. To share what we have learned in shepherding clients through this risky and complex endeavor, I was asked to author a series of articles for IFEBP Benefits Magazine.

The first article, that I coauthored with my colleague Jim Hynes, Executive Administrator of Pipe Trades Services of Minnesota, highlights five steps that will help you manage the RFP process and select the right vendor for your project. Selecting System Vendors: What to Consider covers the requisite pregame preparation to guide the development of a comprehensive and detailed RFP.

In the November issue of Benefits Magazine, you will find my latest article: Successful System Implementation: A Fund Administrator’s Guide to Getting It Right . Here I share my perspective about the key aspects of the implementation process that need to be in place before you push the “go-live” button. This article includes best practices to:

Plan the work: understand the program, define the ecosystem, set goals and milestones, establish guiding principles
Design the functions: be sure to cover these 9 key functions before you assign resources
Work with your technology partner: understand your mutual responsibilities to keep the relationship positive and progressive
Manage the risk: best practices to avoid disasters, stay on schedule, manage the costs

Although we all face the challenges of meeting regulatory compliance and funding obligations, the specific operational needs of each fund are different. I am happy to elaborate on any points in the articles and hear how your fund is meeting the challenges of changing technology. You can reach me at (617) 864-8813 or at mgoldberger@midior.com .

Is Speed to Market the Key to Success?

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Speed to market for new products and services gets a lot of attention and acceleration of the development cycle is often a top priority. However, while early market entry often offers a first-mover advantage, I would argue that being “fast” or “first” in no way assures success.

When the focus turns to accelerating cycle time, it’s a good idea to take a step back to examine your company’s overall product strategy and what being “fast” means in that context. Does your company have a track record at being first to market or does your firm prefer to reap the benefits of being a “fast-follower”? I have seen plenty of companies who think they are too slow at development when in fact they are rapid implementers but too slow at deciding what to develop. Regardless of the strategy, the fundamental question is always the same: “Is your product hitting the market at the right time?” If it is, customers will be ready to buy and sales cycles will be as short as they can realistically be for the product or service being sold. If not, then sales cycles will be longer and more expensive and I have found that delays in the sales cycle can be more catastrophic than delays in the development cycle. Rapid market adoption is rarely articulated as a priority for developers but is every bit as important as a required feature request.

So, is the focus on “faster” misplaced? The short answer is probably not – as long as you have defined “fast” in the context of your own firm. If you keep your finger on the pulse of the markets you serve and maintain a real-time understanding of your customers’ needs, your competitors will find your speed and accuracy hard to beat!

Which Idea is the Right Idea?

Tue, 04 Oct 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Many of our clients tell us that their product teams have no problem coming up with innovative ideas but selecting the right idea and taking it through the development cycle at the right time poses more of a challenge. Without the right screening tool all ideas seem valid, so the place to start is by developing the right screening tool for your business. Ideally, new products will be viewed in a portfolio and measured, scored, researched, prioritized and assigned the proper resources in that context. Unfortunately, most businesses don’t take the time to do this. So somewhere between “gut-feel” and portfolio management there is room for an alternative approach. At MIDIOR, we have identified five factors that will help identify the right product to rise to the top of the list:

Business Model : Define the business case. What problem is being solved, and for who? What is the value in solving it? Who is the buying constituency? How will money be made, and what is the scale of the potential ROI?)
Product and Proprietary Advantage: What is the product, service or solution and are the core technologies or platforms available? What is the special sauce and does it afford a particular competitive advantage?
Market and Opportunity: What is the market’s state in terms of maturity and competition? How big is the opportunity that can be served with the product or service? Can you clearly define the market at a granular level to profile the target customer? How attractive is the size and scale of the opportunity?
Team and Objectives: Who’s on the team? Is the “whole” of the core team greater than the sum of the individuals? Is the extended team identified and sufficiently committed to provide advice, support, air cover and supplemental resources? Are short and long-term objectives clearly defined and do they align with team’s competencies?
Funding and Execution Plan: Are all of the tasks documented and mapped against a detailed schedule? Is this plan achievable and realistic based on the funding and resources available?

Once the new product concept is evaluated against all five categories, the team will generate quantitative ratings for:

Success: What is the likelihood of success of this team, with this plan, at this time?
Alignment: Does the plan align with company objectives? With the team’s capabilities? With available funding?
Risk/Reward: Are risk and reward matched? (low risk, low reward OR high risk, high reward)

When the team agrees on “How do we measure success for our business?” and then screens each opportunity against the same factors, the best ideas will rise to the top of the list. For further guidance on screening ideas and managing products visit our website . Or just call us at 617-864-8813 . We’re here to help.

Light Bulbs Are Getting Brighter

Wed, 21 Sep 2016 00:00:00 GMT

From energy savings to home security, the humble light bulb has become a hot bed of multi-tasking innovation. Today’s light bulbs work much harder than those of past years when their primary task was to provide enough wattage to see what you’re doing and create a flattering glow for each room in the house. Now, with a mélange of advanced technology, light bulbs understand your daily routine and dynamically react to ambient light and room occupancy to become more energy efficient, save you money and even act as your home security system.

Light bulbs first started getting brighter in early 2013, when ex-Tesla and NASA engineers hatched the innovative idea that light bulbs could be responsive, react, and read the light around them. Flash-forward a few years, and today we have fully fledged products that use a Bluetooth module to connect with iBeacon technology , developed by industry behemoths ( Philips, GE ) as well as entrepreneurial startups (BeON, Stack).

As the newest residents in the growing field of home automation, whose lunch are these smart light bulbs eating? Certainly not the likes of the novel Nest home security system that is built on true responsive intelligence. But look out standard LED bulbs; these new products are carving out a spot in the IoT market – a position that is so much sexier than the retail shelf in your local supermarket.

Along with so many smart devices - window shades, thermostats, home security systems, doorbells, baby monitors and more - it does make us wonder: “who’s in charge to make these independent agents play together?” More importantly, as we reveal more and more information about our daily lives to these devices, what could happen if the data falls into the wrong hands? With every advance in technology there are positive effects and unintended consequences. It would be smart to consider how smart we want our homes to be.

What Should The Fund Office Spend on Technology?

Fri, 19 Aug 2016 00:00:00 GMT

By Casey Sirotnak • August 18, 2016

For today’s fund office, making the correct decisions about technology investments are mission-critical. To help provide context and uncover answers about how funds make decisions about IT initiatives and how much to spend, MIDIOR launched the Study of Public and Taft Hartley Fund Operations. Now in its third year, we’ve seen tremendous interest from funds of all sizes in how their peers are managing similar challenges.

Although we call this blog “The Modern Fund Office”, for many Taft Hartley and Public Funds, this moniker is an oxymoron. Many fund administrators find their systems outdated and business processes becoming more complicated as they struggle to keep up with regulatory changes and burgeoning member data. In order to bridge the gap between escalating expectations and fragile infrastructure, greater focus on information technology is needed. Our clients tell us they lack a frame of reference for how much to budget for improvement to technology and operations, both in terms of people and infrastructure. MIDIOR’s Study of Public and Taft Hartley Fund Operations may provide helpful context as it covers topics that include:

Staffing levels and roles for the IT department
Meaningful metrics used to evaluate fund performance
Reporting to trustees and the management team
In-house versus outsourced technology and functions

Feel free to to download MIDIOR’s 2015 report to compare how your fund operates on these key dimensions. We encourage you to contribute your insights and expand our knowledge base for 2016 by participating in this year’s research. All responses remain anonymous and we’ll be happy to share the study results with you by year-end.

Casey Sirotnak

Casey is a Consultant at MIDIOR and has particular expertise in requirements. She puts her BA In English from Holy Cross to good use as she works with clients to decode lengthy plan documents and detangle business processes to elicit and capture accurate requirements. As a passionate runner, Casey logs many a mile along the banks of the Charles or sprinting through downtown Boston.

Who Belongs in the Product Organization?

Mon, 15 Aug 2016 00:00:00 GMT

If a company does not have a defined product organization or the product organization is not working as well as it could, MIDIOR is often called in to help. I find that a fundamental issue that comes up again and again in these situations is that there is a lack of accountability for the business of the product. Get to the bottom of that problem and you’ll have some direction on how to build a strong product organization with the right people.

Assigning clear accountability for your products does not require a large organization but it does require product managers who cover the role as their primary responsibility. More often than not, when I see a company configure a new product organization, they put someone senior in charge (a good thing) and then pull folks from different functions into the group, adding product management to their already busy day jobs. This will not work! To build a strong organization you need to have a dedicated team with skill sets that map to the products they will manage. Look inside the organization for individuals with the right characteristics (EEIOU), regardless of their current job titles and support these folks with resources and training. This core team can be supplemented with outside talent, if need be.

Where this organization reports into is somewhat irrelevant in my mind. I have seen successful product organizations report to R&D or development, marketing, even directly to the CEO. The important thing is that when you set up something new or make a change, the initiative needs to be shepherded by someone at a senior level. You don’t necessarily have to designate a CPO (Chief Product Officer) but you do need top-level support to succeed. You may also think about an internal marketing/communications effort for the new organization so that colleagues in every department will understand what this will mean to their position and role.

To sum it up, before you think about who belongs in the product organization, make sure that company-wide, ownership for the products is clearly visible and understood. A lack of accountability is the biggest threat to your success in establishing a product organization which fires on all cylinders.

For more from me about building a successful product organization, see our video here.

Parlez Vous…

Mon, 01 Aug 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Traveling can be one of the greatest joys in life. It can also be incredibly difficult. Missed flights, dodgy hotels, and languages barriers, to name just a few, can all put a damper on any adventure. While sometimes these misfortunes cannot be avoided, gone are the days of being hopelessly lost and confused when you don’t understand the local language.

Introducing the Pilot, by Waverly Labs , a real-time earpiece translator. Sized a little bigger than the average earbud, the Pilot fits snugly in the wearer’s ear, and works in unison with the smartphone application. It allows two people, speaking different languages, to have a conversation. In the words of Waverly Labs, “Simply put, when one person speaks, the other hears it in their language.” The opportunities created by using the Pilot make it the latest addition to wearable technology, as well as every jet-setter's carry-on.

Although the Pilot is not projected to be available until the spring of 2017, there is tremendous demand. An Indiegogo pre-order campaign was set up in June 2016 by Waverly Labs to raise $75,000 for the production of the device. They hit their goal within 15 minutes and have now raised well over $2 million in seed money.

The Pilot is still available for pre-order through the Indiegogo campaign for the early bird price of $199. Considering that most of the future upgrades to the Pilot will be on the software (the app), and easily accessible to buyers, pre-ordering the first generation Pilot appeals to many. Not a bad deal considering the market price of the Pilot is predicted to be $299 a pop.

The Pilot has the potential to make travelers’ lives easier, and creates opportunities to experience cultural immersion, not just superficial tourism. Maybe it’ll even help us all become better citizens of the world. All because a goofy English-speaking guy, wanted to chat with a pretty French gal. It just goes to show that inspiration for innovation can come from anywhere.

Is Your Competitive Intelligence Actionable?

Wed, 20 Jul 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Many companies that we work with invest considerable time and effort to gather competitive intelligence, yet in some instances, what may be valuable insights do not factor into the product plan. We were not surprised to note that, in a recent study, 45% of computer intelligence analysts surveyed said that their input did not make enough of a difference to improve management decision-making.” [1] This raises a question about how competitive intelligence practitioners can make the results of their hard work more useful and actionable for product managers

One approach we see gaining more universal appeal is the construction of a market map that positions competitive intelligence insights and market research findings within the context of current market dynamics and the product plan. As such, competitive insights are viewed on multiple dimensions; market size, growth opportunities, organizational capabilities/competencies and emerging trends on the horizon, any of which may impact the product plan. A market map can even be used to plot possible partnerships and acquisitions, giving you fact-based insight to support a decision to build an alliance or to block a competitor’s next move. You can find MIDIOR’s step-by-step approach to building a market map in this article published in Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals Magazine.

A second technique that can be useful to make competitive intelligence insights actionable for product managers is focused on analysis and presentation of any primary research you may conduct. Conversations with your competitor’s customers will often yield a treasure trove of rich qualitative data. However, the mechanics of translating these free-form discussions into meaningful, structured data to support product decisions is not easy. And don’t forget to place as much attention on the presentation of your results as you do on the fact-gathering and analysis. You will lose the battle in the final mile if your competitive findings don’t pass the “so what?” test.

This post is another in our series of tactical innovation tips that we hope will have an impact in delivering incremental revenue for your product organization.

[1] Benjamin Gilad and Leonard Fuld , “Only Half of Companies Actually Use the Competitive Intelligence They Collect ”, Harvard Business Review (January 26, 2016)

MobileDay Makes your Mobile Office Productive & Safe

Tue, 19 Jul 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Shifts in technology create product opportunities as the change in user behavior gives way to new norms in daily life. The mobile revolution has been great, right? You can be in touch with anyone, from anywhere at anytime, with just a press and a click of a few buttons. Time spent in your car, stuck in traffic is no longer downtime. It’s now call-time. Can’t get to the meeting? No problem – just dial in from the road. But the “last mile” of the conference call, isn’t the phone number – it’s entering the conference code.

Ever been on the road, flipping back and forth between your calendar and the keypad to enter the 8-digit pin followed by the pound sign? Not so easy. All that technology in the palm of your hand, and you might resort to using a pen and a napkin to write down the conference number. Sounds inconvenient (and it is), but worse than that it’s dangerous. Talking while driving is bad enough, but fumbling around while driving is a definite no-no. In fact, you’re 4x more likely to get into an accident while talking on your phone (non-hands free) and 23x more likely to get into an accident while texting! (According to the FCC ) The struggle with conference call numbers is the perfect intersection of both hazards.)

Enter MobileDay, a one-touch conference-calling app that allows you to dial into any conference service, from any platform, in just one touch - a clever solution to an everyday problem for many of us. After all – isn’t that what makes a great product? The MobileDay breakthrough is a single user interface that works with a multitude of conference calling solutions: Free Conference Call, Skype, WebEx, etc. You don’t need to know the type of conference service you’re joining, the app does that for you. The fact that MobileDay also offers a free conference bridge line to those who need it makes us wonder if the traditional conference services are in danger. Could this new safety-first intruder become a competitive threat?

Modern day problem, clever and elegant solution! Props to the team at MobileDay for keeping us safe and productive at the same time.

The “Waze” of the Road

Tue, 12 Jul 2016 00:00:00 GMT

The idea of a navigation app on your Smartphone, in and of itself, is not new to the world of technology. What used to involve printing out MapQuest directions, unfolding a crinkly map, or asking a neighborhood kid for help has turned into the ease of downloading an app. Companies like Google, Apple, and oodles of others, have created their own “Maps” applications, with varying degrees of success. Apple Maps, for example, not withstanding its disastrous initial launch in 2012, replaced Google Maps as the default navigation app on iOS devices. Incorrect directions, faulty public transportation information, and a host of other bugs left many users scrambling for an alternative.

Behold, Waze, a self-described “free social traffic and navigation app” that unites the social with the practical. Founded in 2007 with the idea of creating a community of drivers, Waze began gaining users at an incredible rate in 2012, the same year as Apple Maps’ first release. The app reached 30 million users by the end of the year, three times the number in 2011 (according to KPCB), and that gave the app the jumpstart it needed.

So, how did this success occur seemingly overnight? Waze, like many other navigation apps, constantly gathers data, such as speed and location, by tracking its users, mainly to detect any traffic or unexpected slowdowns. What sets Waze apart, is the information that is actively contributed by users. Waze encourages users to share road reports, where they can record any hazards such as road conditions, accidents, or police sightings. The app is then able to notify other drivers, even suggesting a faster alternate route when possible. Users can then confirm or deny these conditions as they pass by, further strengthening the community, and helping other drivers down the road.

Waze also utilizes social media. There are options to connect with friends via Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare, allowing users to see when and where their friends are driving, as well as send them messages or ETA announcements - much easier than pulling over to send that dreaded “I’m running late,” text.

Waze thrives off the idea of community, epitomizing the idea that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” It’s the teamwork and dedication of users, creating a more efficient driving environment that is an integral, and invaluable part of the app’s success. Waze, however, has a price. $1.3 billion, which is the amount Google acquired the company for in 2013. Can we expect bigger and better things from this team going forward? For now, we’ll be thankful that Waze is still free on the app store.

Do You Have the Right Product Manager for the Right Products?

Tue, 05 Jul 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Much has been written about product portfolio planning but how many leaders of product organizations think about the need to tune their product managers to the products at hand? After all, the product portfolio is fluid and changes over time. When you look at your product organization, do you consider how your products and markets have changed since you initially hired that “just right” product manager for a certain product or line of business?

In order to get it right, you need to match the product manager’s capabilities and personality on at least two key dimensions: where the product is on the adoption curve and where the market for the product is in its lifecycle. It’s not enough to recognize that the characteristics of a passionate evangelist will map well to starting something new or that a harvester mentality will relish stewarding the business of a mature product. There’s a bit more nuance to the assessment of personality and fit. Think about it this way: If you have a new product in a mature market some evangelism may be required as part of its launch but this is not quite the same as introducing a new product into a brand new market. That truly requires missionary selling. At times, even in a new market with a track record of a few years, you may be delivering a mature product where the harvesting skills look the same as in a cash cow business.

By the way, I never underestimate the importance of aligning personality and what motivates a person to the product set. Think about the type of “hard work” your product managers like to do. For a more technical product you do need someone with an affinity for technology – not a technical degree necessarily – but at a minimum someone who is curious about how things work and can hold their own with engineers or developers. In all cases, the successful product manager should know what they don’t know and be able to think on their feet. When you do your product organization health check (which I recommend annually), take the time for a close look at the fit of your product managers to the products they manage.

Think Dirty” About Your Personal Care Products

Thu, 23 Jun 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Understanding what we put into our bodies has become top of mind given current concerns about carcinogens in our food supply and the negative health implications of genetically modified products. When shopping for groceries it’s fairly easy to make informed decisions about what products to purchase since food labels clearly itemize ingredients thanks to industry regulators like the FDA. While eliminating unwanted items from our diet is now straightforward, it turns out that trying to decipher the contents of what we put on our bodies is a more complicated endeavor.

It’s no secret that cosmetic and personal care products are not as well regulated as the food industry. What this means to US consumers is that products like shampoos, creams, lotions and makeup may contain ingredients that could be toxic to humans, unbeknownst to consumers. So how do we avoid selecting products for daily use that contain unhealthy chemicals hidden behind elaborate names without the equivalent of ingredient labels? Enter “ Think Dirty ” – a free mobile app that helps us navigate the ambiguous and often perplexing world of personal care and beauty product labeling. Launched a few years ago, Think Dirty synthesizes personal care and cosmetic ingredient data effortlessly and removes the guesswork for consumers from the equation.

Here’s how it works. Type in a product name in the search bar or scan a product’s barcode to view a breakdown of the chemicals used and see how they stack up in terms of potential harm to the body. Using information pulled and consolidated from various different public databases, the app’s “Dirty Meter” will give your product a score from 0 to 10 (10 being the dirtiest, inducing a skin-crawling urge to immediately toss the product in the trash) based on the inclusion of certain carcinogens, allergens, as well as developmental and reproductive toxins. Not only does this clever app provide explanations including the science behind why an ingredient is toxic and links to associated research, it also suggests “cleaner” alternative products you can purchase (with one click through to that product on Amazon of course) if your product is on the “dirtier” side. With additional features such as “My Bathroom Shelf” which aggregates all of your personal care products and assigns your “shelf” an aggregate score, it is easy to become a more educated consumer. We love this app and wonder if this new level of transparency will compel personal care companies to “clean” up their acts?

7 Steps to Product Enlightenment

Wed, 22 Jun 2016 00:00:00 GMT

In my many years of consulting together with my years as engineer, product manager, entrepreneur, partner, board chair and mother, I’ve learned a thing or two about developing and launching anything new. Many of these have been codified and turned into MIDIOR lore but there’s not a week that goes by that I don’t find myself spouting off at least one of these seven steps to “product enlightenment” – particularly when I’m working with one of our new “MIDIORites” (associates who have recently joined the MIDIOR team). So, while many of you have heard these before, I thought I’d share them again as both a gentle reminder and source of a chuckle in your day. In a nutshell, here are some important things – seven to be exact – to remember when your team engages in any new product or service initiative:

There are no crystal balls. You cannot predict the future and you should not trust anyone who says they can. Success lies at the intersection of preparation and opportunity. Half of that is serendipity – the other half is up to you. The best you can do is be prepared by understanding enough of the details so you are ready to deal with reality.
Brakes let you go fast. If you are not able to put an end to projects gone bad, you will have no resources with which to start new paths. The ability to do more of the right things depends on freeing up resources by making hard decisions about what not to do.
Customers are better than patents. If you don’t have customers, put serious effort into getting to know a few. If you already have customers, get to know them better. The answers to most of your questions are at your customer’s office: to know thy customer is to know thy product requirements.
Innovative products lose money. Innovation depends on risk capital and is an investment for future growth—not a strategy for increasing current earnings. If you are not inclined to follow the product J curve, do not pursue this path for it will only lead to disappointment and failed expectations.
If you can’t give it away, you can’t sell it. If you can’t get anyone to try your product by giving it to them, you probably won’t get them to “trade” their money for it. There is much to be learned from walking the path of a customer in order to understand the complete truth of trying, buying and using your product. Until then, you cannot know what it feels like to live in their shoes.
If your mother doesn’t get it, how do you expect me to? If you are spending most of your time educating customers, then it’s time to rethink the plan with a focus on reducing the sales cycle. This is a common symptom of early stage markets and missionary sales and should be a warning sign for the perils ahead. Beware of the valley of the innovators and the realm of the early adopter – many wonderful products have died the death of the long sales cycle. Do not enter without food, water, and enough capital to last the entire journey.
Passion trumps process , every time. You cannot separate the people from the “product” – and how much they care directly correlates to their level of accountability for the result, and by extension, the actual outcome. Great people who define themselves by the success or failure of their products build great products.

7 Guidelines to Select the Right Technology Partner

Thu, 02 Jun 2016 00:00:00 GMT

So you’ve made the decision to update your systems. The best way to get started is through an effective RFP process. The amount of effort you invest upfront to evaluate and select the right systems vendor will invariably help your fund office prepare for the project itself. We find that the planning process to develop the RFP will:

Help you get organized around your needs and priorities
Help prospective vendors help you, by giving them accurate, detailed information
Help you educate your trustees about what you’re doing
Help you make decisions and understand trade-offs when evaluating proposals

In our work with Taft-Hartley and public sector funds, we recommend seven important guidelines to help in the development of a comprehensive RFP package. Keep in mind that every RFP will include both summary-level information and detailed requirements and needs to be written in a way that is easy to understand for all constituents (trustees, management, IT staff and vendors). Here’s our recommended approach:

1 – State the problem and desired outcome(s)

If you understand the shortcomings of the current system and document where you need to go you stand a better chance of getting there. What constraints are forcing you to make a change now?

2 – Outline the current state and desired future state

Uncovering every detail about your current operations is an important exercise for your organization to go through. If you don’t know how things work now, it will be hard to come up with the right solution down the road.

3 – Document business rules and known exceptions

Although this can be a tedious process, it provides the detail for guideline #2. You may be surprised at what you uncover.

4 – Provide sample artifacts (applications, letters, reports)

Your prospective vendor should understand how you communicate currently: within your office, to regulatory bodies and to plan participants.

5 – Identify interfaces and dependencies

Document how the data flows between the fund office and key stakeholders; your bank, claims processor, actuaries.

6 – Include installed systems, vendors and business partners

Inform prospective vendors about the ecosystem you operate in and ask them about their prior experience with these systems and organizations.

7 – Make a list of specific information each vendor must provide

Structure responses in a way that is easy to evaluate and will allow you to compare apples to apples. Remember, you are in the driver’s seat!

For more helpful tips to manage the RFP process, check out this article for Benefits Magazine that I co-authored with Jim Hynes, executive administrator for PTSMN: Selecting Systems Vendors: What to Consider

Are Your Product Managers Doing the Right Thing?

Wed, 20 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMT

The product manager is a different breed and if you manage a successful product organization you know that this role is what will allow your revenue line to soar. The DNA of product managers will have them report directly to their product, not to their manager or peers, and every decision taken, every ally won, is measured from the perspective of the product. So when you look at your product management organization, how do you know your product managers are doing the right thing? Are there telltale signs that your product organization is on the right track or heading for trouble?

I find that successful product managers share a common set of attributes that apply across industries and market sectors. Energy, enthusiasm, intelligence, and fit with your organization trump years of experience and certifications, every time. Most importantly, product managers need to be the voice of the product and tied to their customers. They will always have a “product first” mindset. Every opportunity, risk and benefit is assessed from the product’s point of view and with this approach, successful product managers stay out of other departments’ politics and agendas. Look for clues in the behavior of your “A team” product managers and you will see they smile and are energized when they talk about their products and customers. After all, everyone they meet, inside or outside of the office, is a potential ambassador for their product’s success. They always have an anecdote to share from their most recent customer visit and never roll their eyes when a sales rep calls with just one more question. If your product managers are too busy with meetings to travel and their days are consumed with jumping “gates”, don’t expect to deliver products that will delight your customers.

We’ve compiled a list of behaviors to look for in your product managers that you may find useful as you hire and coach the team. It could help flag signs of trouble and at minimum, will make you smile.

Is it Time to Update Your Technology?

Fri, 08 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Making smart decisions about changing or updating your back office systems is never easy. This process can be particularly challenging for today’s fund office that operates in a volatile regulatory environment and is faced with changing and often competing priorities. But modernizing platforms is as much about reducing risk as it is about delivering new capabilities. If you invest the effort up front, the promise of greater cost efficiencies and better service for your members lies ahead. We recommend you follow these five steps, with a strong emphasis on pre-game preparation, before you consider the selection of a systems vendor to implement new technology:

1 – Understand the “why”

Understand the “why” – the very first step for the fund administrator and trustees is to understand and agree on “why a systems project now?” Be sure to build consensus around what benefits are expected as the outcome of the initiative.

2 – Budget for a big investment

Budget for a big investment and account for all of the costs. These will include not only what you pay the vendor but internal costs for support and training.

3 – Get your house in order

Get your house in order – don’t jump into technology decisions before you understand the current state of operations. We like to call this the “project before the project”.

4 – Build the team

Build the team – define the roles on your internal project team and who will fulfill them. These folks will be the trusted counterparts to your vendor’s team. Getting the right people involved at the start will be a key success factor.

5 – Pay attention to requirements and data

Pay attention to requirements and data – the importance of documenting requirements and gaining control of your data is critical to any systems initiative.

You can read more about managing the RFP process in this article from Benefits Magazine , Selecting Systems Vendors: What to Consider , coauthored by James Hynes , executive administrator of Pipe Trades Services of Minnesota (PTSMN) .

5 Ways to Foster Productive Innovation Teams

Mon, 28 Mar 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Innovation comes in many shapes and sizes, from products to platforms to process, but at its core, successful innovation is a people and culture challenge. Creating a culture that fosters innovation to support teams with the organizational mindset that allows them to flourish is the foundation for successful innovation in any business that delivers products or services. Successful teams recognize the obstacles to innovation, are equipped with tactics to overcome those obstacles and have the skills to take an agile approach to idea selection, product planning and execution. But how do you develop and nurture teams that can deliver innovation on a repeatable basis?

Here are five ways to think about innovation for your business:

1) People are the key : Innovation depends on the skills, expertise and personality of key individuals or champions. The execution of innovation initiatives is the work of high – functioning teams where the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. Regardless of the type of innovation initiative, success depends not on the idea or technology, but on people interacting with people.

2) Passion matters: We believe that passion trumps process every time. Top-performing teams share passion about a particular vision and that common goal drives people toward success. It is passion about an innovative idea or approach that makes the individual team members want to take risks and be accountable. Passion delivers results.

3) Risk is good: Risk represents the opportunity to do something valuable but keep in mind that most management processes exist to minimize risk and, as implemented, can be obstacles to innovation. Organizations that succeed at innovation encourage their teams to make many attempts and to fail quickly and fail often. We like one of Richard Branson’s insights about innovation that links success to failure – if you haven’t failed yet, you haven’t been in business long enough.

4) Embrace change: There are no crystal balls that can predict the future. Your innovation teams need to have the capacity to run multiple activities in parallel, without complete knowledge of the requirements or what the outcome of other initiatives will be. It is important to keep in mind that change usually means conflict and new ideas always means something will change. If nobody’s riled up, it is probably not worth the effort.

5) Time is the enemy: We have an expression that says, “brakes let you go fast.” The ability to kill innovation initiatives quickly when the payoff is not clear or attainable will free up precious resources for your teams to start on new paths. The best thing you can do is kill bad ideas quickly; the worst thing you can do is to kill good ideas slowly.

In summary, innovation is a team sport. Your organization’s capacity to innovate is only limited by the number and quality of high-performing teams you can configure at any given time, not by how many individual resources you have on the bench.

(This article originally appeared in the Boston Chamber of Commerce blog)

Keeping an Eye on Things

Sat, 27 Feb 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Every once in awhile we come across a product that is such a delighter in every way – design, function, packaging, UI, installation – that we have to give credit where credit is due. Introducing the Dropcam , a simple yet elegant device that that has some advanced technology chops behind the scenes. For our purposes the Dropcam keeps a close eye on a vacation property for its owners – a mission that has become particularly critical in this winter of all winters in the Northeast.

So here’s what we like. Clicks to purchase and feature description on the Nest website are succinct, with limited plan options to make selection easy. The intuitive elements of the entire design from package to product to setup make every step of “getting to go” with the product telegraphic. The neatly designed box with its sleeve is easy to open and the components are few: camera, base, USB cable, screws and even screw sleeves for wall mounting. A small printed card (no voluminous directions) directs us to the Dropcam website for installation and the camera literally sets itself up. And please take note – we’re already delighted before experiencing the product’s features. These include amazing video and audio quality, seamless UI between computer and mobile, night vision, live streaming and even motion detection outside of the camera view. The lesson here is, that what surrounds a great product is just as important as the product itself, and every product needs to make the customer’s life less complicated, not more challenging.

What's Different About Product Organizations?

Thu, 25 Feb 2016 00:00:00 GMT

When working with clients to determine the most effective organizational model for their businesses, I often remind them that product organizations behave very differently from other functions. Unlike marketing or finance groups where the same structure usually serves well year-to-year, product organizations are more fluid and need to change with the dynamics of the product portfolio.

To assure that the product organization model maps to the product portfolio, take a look at the mix between new products or services, existing products that are in growth versus those that are in maintenance mode and products that are on a path to decommissioning. The appropriate staffing and organization for the successful PD&M group will be reflected in terms of numbers of people, mix of jobs and job functions and adequate skillsets to cover the roles to manage each product line. I suspect you’ll agree that the right personality attributes need to map with where that product lies in the lifecycle. The energy and interests of a product manager challenged by missionary products is entirely different from those of the individual adept at harvesting and transitioning products (and their customers) that are nearing their end of the lifecycle. Just as product plans and investments come under review, I recommend an annual assessment of the product organization to determine if a tune-up is in order. You may find our 41 Question Organization Model Health Check useful in jumpstarting this endeavor.

What’s Different About Product Organizations?

Thu, 25 Feb 2016 00:00:00 GMT

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You Had Us At “Hello”

Thu, 11 Feb 2016 00:00:00 GMT

When it comes to member service, the first sign of trouble can present a golden moment of opportunity. Consider this: research shows that customer satisfaction is higher among those individuals who had a problem with a service provider that was resolved, than with customers who never had a problem in the first place. At the same time, expectations are getting higher for quality of service from all providers. Companies like Uber and Apple, with instant feedback from mobile applications or “geniuses on demand,” have demonstrated the ability to harness technology to improve the end-to-end customer experience. So what does this mean for the modern fund office?

Provide a Superior Member Experience

Taft-Hartley and public funds need to rethink their roles as bookkeepers and information administrators in order to take a more proactive role. Instead of member services representing a cost center, consider this an area of opportunity.

The implications of service as an opportunity are twofold: train employees to be focused on better serving member needs and build a culture around proactive solutions. Proactive service means taking advantage of every interaction to be sure that a member is informed about new programs; for example, “have you heard about our new wellness offering?” or “would you like to register for a free health screening?” Proactive maintenance means seizing the opportunity to ensure a member’s records are up to date; “just confirming that this is your current address?” or “I notice we don’t have an updated beneficiary designation for you”… The first time plan participants call with a question can be the moment of truth where you’ll have them at “hello.”

Technology and people are the keys to supporting a proactive approach to the customer relationship. Modern tools can provide visual prompts to your member services team with real-time messages tailored to specific audiences; retired versus active members, for example. Proactive messages can even flag individual exceptions on a member’s record. Mobile applications can also encourage members to help themselves and feel in control. Keep in mind, however, that a proactive member service model demands stringent attention to data quality. The information that supports your front-line representatives or feeds your mobile app must be accurate and complete. Now’s the time for fund offices to embrace the challenge to reimagine themselves in the model of these newer service providers, whether over the phone or via technology, with an attitude that says; “I’m delighted to hear that I can help you with a problem.” Game on!

Michael Goldberger

Michael is a Cofounder and Partner at MIDIOR where he oversees the technology services practice area. With his depth of technology and development experience, he supports clients in selecting the appropriate platforms for their business objectives resulting in higher return on investment. He manages major system overhauls and upgrades for MIDIOR’s Taft-Hartley and public fund clients. Visitors to Michael’s office will notice his vintage collection of technology artifacts that he displays with pride.

Does Your Organizational Competency Line Up with Business Priorities?

Wed, 02 Dec 2015 00:00:00 GMT

The ability to set priorities and stick to the plan is a hallmark of operational efficiency and key to your company’s efforts to meet business objectives. But what if organizational competencies are out of line with your priorities? What if your team lacks skills in the areas that are most important to your success? I find that the alignment of priority and competency is particularly challenging inside the product organization where there are many variables to contend with and the competitive landscape and outside market forces can shift within the span of a calendar year.

Priorities and Competencies

At the corporate level, most companies can look at their annual plan and tell you what the priorities are and which activities are more or less important. The leader of a product organization, however, must consider a plan that will be pummeled with change: company priorities are fluid, outside factors have impact, products progress through different points in their lifecycle and the overall portfolio is in a continuous state of flux. How do you ensure that your product managers’ capabilities remain in tune with the prioritized objectives and that your team can execute the necessary tasks? Do you know where the gaps are and how those gaps map to what matters? I recommend an annual assessment of organizational competencies versus product priorities be part of the regular product planning process. Just as decisions are made about which products will receive funding and which will be decommissioned, a disciplined approach to tuning competencies to priorities needs to become part of the organization’s DNA.

And there’s evidence to back up this concept. MIDIOR Consulting’s benchmark research, now in its sixth year, takes a snapshot of how large companies are practicing the discipline of product development and management. We ask senior executives in charge of products and services, to rank the level of organizational competency assigned to specific product management activities. Take business planning, for example. In our 2014 study, as in previous years, business planning was identified as a top priority but was not considered an area of strength by many. This gap between priority and competency in business planning activities highlights a problem as well as a point of leverage.

ACA Compliance Begins with Clean Member Records

Mon, 09 Nov 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Accurate and secure maintenance of thousands of member records (along with those of their dependents) is a taxing and necessary function of modern fund operations. The benefits of clean records are many: better service, accurate reporting, and the confidence that compliance with the new ACA mandates can be achieved. To avoid a mad dash to update “member data,” we recommend constant vigilance on the task of participant data integrity. This may prove to be one of the most cost-efficient initiatives in the fund office.

The Affordable Care Act ( ACA ) mandates certain monthly reporting requirements (for multiemployer plans that offer health benefits) that now come with harsher penalties for inaccurately reporting information (penalties can be more than double that of former healthcare fines! ¹. For instance, if a person’s social security number is missing, or the year that they initially gained health eligibility was accidentally mixed up with the year the member was married, there is a very real possibility that the fund will be responsible for paying the penalty if the information is not corrected within an acceptable time period. Therefore, it is high time to assess the effectiveness of your organization’s upkeep of the countless member records for which you are responsible.

Approaching member data maintenance with careful organization and a capable team equipped with simple tools will help alleviate the potential stress that arises from inaccurate or incomplete information. This may sound trivial and tedious, but being organized is one of the most underrated facets of record keeping. Everything – from the number of staff that touch member records to the storage of personal data that may date back decades – deserves scrutiny and must be logically documented and stored in a trusted location. However, organization alone does not determine the accuracy of records; people do. Member record maintenance is a mission-critical aspect of your fund operations and it is imperative that you have a trained team, whose primary mission is to maintain a high level of data integrity on behalf of all members. These are the people who can recognize and correct errors before they cause problems (“hey – that marriage date doesn’t look right, we better verify it before it gets entered into the system”). These are also the people who will ensure that downstream processes and communications run without errors – think of the time and money saved if a fund office staff were able to easily retrieve and trust the accuracy of the afore-mentioned missing SSN, come ACA reporting time.

From our experience, the time it takes to track down and update participant information – what we like to call “member data” – can add a wrinkle to the busy activity within daily fund operations. This issue can be avoided if the time and care is taken to properly maintain the integrity of member data as it is collected. It all starts with an organized process and having the right people.

¹IRS Information Reporting by Applicable Large Employers-Information Reporting Penalties

Joseph Zorokong

Joseph is an Associate Consultant at MIDIOR and works with clients on issues related to dates, data and deadlines. His work on data integrity initiatives helps the funds he works with be confident of data accuracy for regulatory compliance (ACA, in particular), as well as, providing an accurate basis for reporting to trustees and outside constituents.

Taking the Pulse of Your Product Organization

Tue, 13 Oct 2015 00:00:00 GMT

In my three decades of working with products and the teams that manage products, there are fundamental questions that come up time and time again, for example: Is our product organization structured properly to achieve success? How do we make the right product investment decisions? What product performance measures will put us on the right track to improve? In 2009, at the behest of our financial services clients who were curious about how their peers in other large companies were managing their product organizations, we initiated research to take the pulse of the product development and management discipline and understand the thinking around some of these questions. While at MIDIOR we did not consider ourselves a “research firm” per se, the very next year we expanded our industry focus to include Technology & Communications and Industrial Products & Manufacturing companies - mostly to answer our own questions and to provide insights to our colleagues and friends in those industries. As a result, what was started out of curiosity has in fact become an annual research initiative. Year-to-year we’ve observed some differences, but increasingly we see commonalities between the industries. In addition, we’ve used the data to determine what " Leading the Pack " companies do differently from the rest. We share our Benchmark Study of Product Development and Management free of charge with our clients as well as with the community of practitioners who share our passion for products and choose to give back in taking the time to participate. Reporting back about your product organization and new product initiatives presents the opportunity to benefit from lessons learned and raises the bar for all of us who practice the discipline.

Consider Your Product Blueprint

Wed, 05 Aug 2015 00:00:00 GMT

One of the first questions that we ask when a client wants help with a “product development” problem is “what does your company’s ‘product blueprint’ look like?” And specifically, “where are product decisions handled in your organization?” You need to have people who report to the product, who live and breathe by how well their product is doing (whether or not they have the title of product manager) and who can make decisions with their product’s best interest in mind.

At MIDIOR, we use our proprietary P4 Framework to quickly diagnose issues with the development and delivery of products or services and how they work, or don’t work, together. Using P4, we are able to construct a company’s “product blueprint” from the product management vantage point. This yields key insights into how decisions are made and exposes underlying risks and inconsistencies in product and platform plans. P4 provides the foundation for a structured approach to product and portfolio planning on four key dimensions:

Products – this is the inventory of products and services that are being developed and delivered to customers

Platforms – these include underlying modules or processes that are used to build the products and services (we like to call this building blocks)

Points of Delivery – these are the key points of engagement or interface with customers and are often the places in the delivery process where customers interact with the company, its products and

Projects – these are initiatives with defined beginnings and ends that contribute to products, platforms and points of delivery. Projects can be cross-product initiatives, special technology programs, or other kinds of projects including sales, marketing, manufacturing or customer service initiatives.

To create, manage and deliver “best-in-class” products and services, you need a “best-in-class” product blueprint that ensures decisions consider the product management point of view. A visual take on the P4 Framework will get you started – the product management vantage point is at the center of the diagram.

Beware the “SIMPLE” Task

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Communication is the crux upon which fund office efficiency and participant satisfaction rest. For fund office employees who spend their days tackling complicated pension calculations and untying cryptic eligibility factors, it can, for obvious reasons, be appealing to stamp the disclaimer “SIMPLE” on certain tasks. Pushing a task down on the list of priorities before taking the time to understand where within the web of fund office activity the task exists, and therefore identifying all paths that lead both to and from it, can prove to have far reaching consequences. Maintenance of participant information, and mailing addresses in particular, sound like an innocuous, if not slightly menial task. The immediate problem lies in the fact that people’s lives are not static and, therefore, tracking them as they live to ensure consistent and effective fund office communication efforts, is no easy task. A failure along the lines of communication can interfere with benefits administration and can lead to dissatisfied participants and a less than compliant fund office.

The seemingly simple tasks are the ones whose implications can grow to monstrous proportions, and unlike the known beasts of fund office operations, can leave their proponents wholly unprepared for battle. So, prioritize the task at hand, make it a habit and do your due diligence, this year and going forward.

What’s Your Data Quality Score?

Tue, 28 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Did you ever think about the quality of your data? It’s a topic that’s not usually given enough attention. Data quality is more difficult to quantify than one might think at first glance, simply because there are so many dimensions. The day-to-day work of the fund office depends on data that is valid, accurate, consistent, available, complete, and timely — all of these are aspects of data quality. Every record of data that doesn’t meet these criteria can be the source of errors and exception processes that interfere with the goal of providing first-class service to members. When it comes to data – a focus on high quality really does lead to lower costs.

To quantify your fund’s data quality, I recommend creating a data scorecard, effectively a report card for your data. Each aspect of data quality (validity, accuracy, consistency, etc.) receives its own score based on the various sources and repositories of data at the fund, and these scores are combined to provide an overall data quality score. Following a disciplined process will often reveal stagnant pools of information, long past their freshness date, and will help you prioritize where to begin your data cleanup efforts.

Data Drives Fund Office Communications

Some measures of data quality seem obvious; of course we want our data to be accurate! How can we send mail to members with missing or incomplete email addresses? However, if your organization doesn’t have a defined process to keep contact information current, then much of the data – that once was valid, accurate, consistent, available, and complete – quickly degrades and becomes useless (and expensive) for the organization. Just like milk, data has a limited shelf life. In my experience, member contact information can be out-of-date for as many as 25% of members and the lack of an ongoing process for keeping the data fresh and accurate is the root of the problem. Consequently, 25% of the time and money spent on each mailing is wasted, and a quarter of your membership fails to receive the, often time-critical, messages being sent.

Superior member service relies on excellent member communications that, in turn, depend on high quality data. In fact, participants in MIDIOR’s 2014 Study of Public and Taft Hartley Benefit Fund Operations report that IT investment in communications and information delivery platforms is a key area of focus for their funds. But keep in mind that the mechanism for information delivery doesn’t matter if the contact information is out-of-date. This is the Achilles’ heel of fund office communications. Every fund has its own unique data quality issues, but a well-built data quality process and scorecard will allow your team to understand just how serious these issues are and how to structure a plan for improvement.

Keith MacKay

Keith is a Principal Consultant at MIDIOR where he provides keen technical insight and sophisticated development capabilities. A consummate software guy, Keith has delivered numerous custom software projects during the course of his career and is MIDIOR’s resident expert of all things data.

Innovation Comes in Many Shapes and Sizes

Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Much of what is written about innovation is focused on coming up with the next big disruptive idea but at MIDIOR we recognize that innovation comes in many shapes and sizes; from platform to process, new business models to distribution channels. There are many dimensions to successful innovation not the least of which is how to make informed decisions about which new products and services to take through development and bring to market. If you don’t have the tools and techniques to screen and validate your ideas to select the right ones you will surely invest time and resources going down the wrong path. Stages of Innovation is written for product teams that are tasked with innovation in pursuit of delivering incremental revenue even as they manage all of the blocking and tackling of their everyday jobs. Our focus is on the discipline of “ tactical innovation ” in support of a defined mission that shows demonstrable results in a shorter timeframe than what “ strategic innovation ” typically delivers. In this blog you’ll rarely find discussion about taking the big swings, changing the corporate mindset, disrupting industries or pivoting the organization. What we will do is share with you some of the lessons learned about successful, and not so successful, innovation initiatives from work we’ve engaged in with our clients. As a result we hope to generate a discussion that may help you incorporate innovation into your team DNA, expand your innovation pipeline, build innovation teams and improve on your innovation track record.

Master the "Core 4" Product Performance Measures

Sat, 04 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMT

The other day I was chatting with one of our larger clients and the conversation turned to one of my favorite topics - measuring product performance. We all agreed that what you measure and track over time – not to mention report to management - drives behavior. But as is often the case, when you dive into the details of a particular product or service, people don’t have their arms around the fundamentals which too often results in poorly-informed decisions about where to invest and how to manage the “business of the product.”

At MIDIOR, we talk about a handful of product measures that we call the Core Four: revenue, profitability, quality and market share . These may seem basic but each is actually a category of measures. Take market share, for example. In our annual research, where we ask leaders of product organizations about how they manage their product businesses, market share comes up as the least frequently tracked measure of the Core Four. Common sense tells us that every company should be able to define their market and know where they stand, and by extension, they should be able to do that at the product level as well. Market share is one of the best indicators of progress and competitive position – and it is one of the only quantifiable measures of how you stack up against the competition. So, what’s so hard about market share? The obstacle is something we call the denominator problem. Calculating market share requires making assumptions about the market and in most cases, teams can’t answer the basic questions or are unwilling to measure market share because they don’t develop good assumptions about their market. A little data can go a long way and a lot of data can send you in circles.

Requirements need ongoing care and attention

Fri, 20 Mar 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Taking the time to go through a serious requirements definition process is not only critical to the success of new technology projects, but will also reduce risk and increase efficiency in most fund office operations. It is also important to understand that requirements are not static and requirements management cannot be considered a one-time event. Real, actionable requirements follow the lead of the fund office itself and evolve every day.

Fund office operations do not pause in time just because the business processes have been documented. Things change as discoveries are made, rules are created, exceptions are uncovered, amendments are approved and inevitably, processes need to be renovated. It is critical to keep the requirements documentation in mind when these things happen and allow them to morph and flex along with the fund office.

Requirements that sit on the shelf get stale (and irrelevant) quickly. If you’ve made the effort to capture detailed requirements and system documentation, then take the time to keep them top of mind as an integral part of the standard process whenever a change is contemplated. This is a discipline that requires time and attention in the moment but has long-lasting payback.

Great requirements are living documents that will keep a fund office operating smoothly, shed light on opportunities for improvement and can reduce the risk of knowledge walking out the door every night. Requirements are in it for the long haul and will continue to take care of you, as long as you take care of them.

Turning free form conversations into structured, meaningful data

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 00:00:00 GMT

As most of you know by now, I am a big fan of having one-on-one, in-depth conversations with customers and prospects. However, while dialogue is a wonderful way to capture customer insight, organizing the free-form data to yield meaningful conclusions that will guide your product requirements and investment decisions is no easy task.

At MIDIOR, we have developed a methodology that takes transcripts of multiple conversations, and turns them into structured data ready for analysis. It’s a time-consuming, often tedious task but the steps are actually simple. Working in a team of two, we read through the transcripts looking for patterns. As we’re reading, we create catch-phrases to categorize points that surface multiple times. We then use these “buckets” to populate that data into Excel. Rather than tackling a lengthy conversation from beginning to end, we traverse the transcripts in an iterative way and repeat the steps across the conversations to digest each element of the transcript. Once all of the data has been bagged and tagged and entered into an Excel file, we step away from the original transcript and focus on refining the data model and organizing the data until we are confident that each point that emerges can be supported by and mapped back to the transcript. Then, we can begin to analyze the data by counting how many times a point comes up for example, and correlating it to other things such as the interviewee’s role, company or application. Once the spreadsheets are complete, the rambling conversations that took you down various paths with your customers are now neatly presented as structured data. Give it a try – you never know what you are going to find.

Product Managers are Your Tactical Innovators

Sat, 21 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

While media attention loves to focus on disruptive innovation and taking the big swings, down in the trenches the individuals best positioned to innovate are sometimes overlooked. Not to downplay the enthusiasm for creating new markets but there are many well-run companies that continue to prosper without re-inventing the competitive landscape - take Marriott, Illinois Tool Works, or Clorox as examples. I would argue that this infatuation with disruption does a disservice to those best suited to innovate. If you look to the individuals who are closest to the customer you’ll find your innovators and more often than not, it’s the product managers who have the ability to create value and consistently grow the business. Their contribution may not be at the enterprise strategy level, but with a tactical focus on new or incremental product development, revenue contribution can be significant. Product managers may protest that day-to-day responsibilities allow them little time to innovate but in fact I see the role, with its opportunity for on-going customer conversations, ideally suited to uncover the problems that seed pockets of innovation. Good product managers by nature have the DNA to be curious. By posing a question as simple as, “what do you hate in your day-to-day job?” invariably opportunities to innovate will surface. From this point forward, it’s the responsibility of the product organization leader as coach, to provide air cover to allow the product manager time to investigate and vet which of these ideas is worth investing in. Or if the skill sets or time are not available in-house, this is the time to call on a consultant with the expertise to size the market and validate opportunities. If you master this critical next step and give your product managers’ free rein to come up with new ideas, I think you’ll find that tactical innovation, grounded in strong execution, will make the difference in delivering short and long-term results.

Changing Behavior is Often the Hardest Part of Changing Technology

Mon, 09 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Getting users to change their behavior and adopt a new system is the last mile of the technology implementation marathon. When the fund office implements new systems, we see a major impact on the people and their roles. This critical dynamic is often overlooked during a software upgrade or platform change. A thoughtful implementation process can help people see the benefit of new systems as their roles evolve. For example, in the case of a health benefits system upgrade, determining heath care eligibility or processing a health claim traditionally took place in a task-oriented environment where an overgrown plan document required individual interpretation – not a very people friendly or consistent process. In the modern fund office, the eligibility rules and claims processing criteria are coded into the system so that fund office workers are free to do what they do best – use their skills to interact with members, understand their life circumstances and provide quality service. Individual judgment should be reserved for overrides and exceptions and technology can take care of the rest. Today’s fund office workers function more like business analysts who understand both the business and the systems to manage the work that has to be done. From line worker to knowledge worker, jobs and functions and roles and operating process need to follow the system.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Tue, 03 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT

And, as I mentioned in my last perspective of 2014, if done correctly a meaningful and useful discussion almost always unlocks key insights and patterns that are difficult to uncover in other ways. That said, while most would agree that the “conversation” is critical – especially when gathering product or technology requirements - I find that it’s not always done effectively. The process of “discussing to understand” is flush with variables and, although there is no way of normalizing the process (not that you would want to as sometimes the most valuable information is extracted from the harsh turns of natural conversation or found between the lines of well a planned question) there are certainly tools available to help navigate through this rough terrain.

Using pictures to reflect a conversation as it evolves can not only help you keep the conversation on track but can also provide a way to cushion a dialogue- heavy process (and ease the pain for the interviewee!). The ability to manipulate visuals in real time also ensures that everyone participating is on the same page and is contributing their knowledge as well as their opinions. For example, manipulating a visual representation of a business process during requirements elicitation (i.e. documenting requirements in pictures) - whether you use a specialized tool like SmartDraw or a standard office product like PowerPoint - naturally results in more direct conversations with clearer, more accurate responses to questions. Visualize a group of people having a discussion about a complex process with the back drop of a constantly morphing visual as the dialogue progresses. In this case, having a visual connection to the discussion will not only be supportive but it can also be eye-opening and angle-producing. The added benefit is that these visuals often become key takeaways that are excellent companions to any notes taken and can even serve as a valuable artifact for the customer with myriad uses – from training to requirements.

Mighty Morphing Netflix

Wed, 03 Dec 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Every once in a while we come across a company so innovative that it turns a traditional business model on its head. Behold Netflix - a company that has pivoted multiple times in a span of 17 years and today presents itself as a streaming monarch while revolutionizing the very way we expect to consume media. Its constant evolution makes Netflix worthy of closer observation.

Flash back to the late 90’s. This new kid on the block capitalized on the shortcomings of the traditional video rental business model, by identifying hidden opportunities spawned by evolving digital technology. Netflix rattled the movie rental industry with its laser focus on convenience; late fees were eliminated and customer service enhanced. By shipping DVDs via USPS for a small monthly fee, Netflix became a mail-order movie behemoth that could compete, and even surpass, the likes of Blockbuster.

Jump forward a decade to the late 2000’s. Facing a pivotal evolutionary moment, Netflix’s next innovation took the form of online streaming. In today’s world, where instant gratification is viewed as a valued commodity, the company saw an opportunity to address TV consumers’ growing complaints about traditional cable television. At MIDIOR we like to call this innovation spurred by the proverbial question “what do you hate about…”? In short, Netflix broke free of the outdated scheduled programming archetype and managed to flip its business model with an on-demand approach that embraces both speed and innovation. Now, for a small monthly fee, subscribers can enjoy various media options streamed over the Netflix website.

As Netflix looks to increase its repertoire of streaming content, we notice the company bracing for yet another evolution: becoming a TV network in and of itself. Two Netflix original series, “Orange is the New Black” and “House of Cards,” were nominated for more than ten Emmy awards each this year. With its foundation of Darwinian strength, we wonder: is Netflix good at media, or good at reinventing itself?

Listen and Lead, Don’t Lecture

Wed, 05 Nov 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Product people are naturally curious so taking that random walk in the woods and asking the next question comes easy. But leading a discussion to gain customer insight or define requirements is more than an “interview”. I see the role as a facilitator - to help the individual you are talking with understand what it is you want them to talk about and to encourage them to consider the questions from every angle. In fact, gaining meaningful primary research through interviews is hard to do well but is a skill that can be developed and I suggest there are proven techniques that will help you get the responses you need.

One mistake I frequently see in people doing “market research” is that the person conducting the interview will launch into the questions before framing the discussion. I find that if you explain what will happen in the time allotted, what ground will be covered and what a successful outcome looks like, it will help you lead a conversation where your counterpart feels you are on this journey together. Taking the time to listen and lead is about establishing trust and to listen well is an art. As a facilitator it’s your job to make sure a person really hears what is being asked and that they consider the question from every angle, something that is quite difficult for people to do particularly if they have been in their jobs a long time. Here’s where the distinction between “lecturing to convince” and “explaining to elicit” comes in. As a domain expert it may be tempting for you to demonstrate how much you know (lecturing) but this can have a chilling effect on the discussion and make your subject shut down rather than be motivated to say more. Your job is to explain what it is you want to talk about in simple terms and using specific examples often helps. On a similar point, I build in frequent pauses before moving on to the next question. Your next question should be prompted by what information is coming back to you. This may seem simple but is often forgotten if the interviewer is wed to a list of questions to be asked in a particular order.

There’s a lot to be said about conducting valuable interviews to elicit meaningful insights. In my next Perspective, I’ll turn to a few tools and techniques that I find useful in getting the most from the discussion.

Tesla Disrupts the Dealership

Wed, 17 Sep 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Tesla is reinventing the way cars are sold - and competitors don’t like it. Cars are traditionally sold by dealerships that operate independently from the automakers. Tesla, however, challenges law and tradition by selling their cars directly to the consumer, with ordering done solely and exclusively online. Though these moves fly in the face of such an established and regulated business, the practice of removing the middleman to reach customers directly is well established in the technology sector. Apple opened its first store in 2001, and in 2009 Microsoft followed suit. While many of their products are purchased online, these single-brand stores provide continuity to the customer experience and give the product producers a venue to interact with their consumers.

When It Comes to Technology, There’s No Free Lunch

Mon, 08 Sep 2014 00:00:00 GMT

A curious paradox of today’s technology is that “free” tools and services (Gmail) are virtually indistinguishable from high-priced enterprise tools that come along with multi-year maintenance commitments (Microsoft Exchange). When considering new technologies for the fund office, you may find yourself trying to compare a $100 tool against a $1 million system. Have we come to a place where the notion that “you get what you pay for” has become irrelevant? At least in the fund office environment, I would argue the answer to this question is no.

The Hidden Costs of Free

Before you commit your organization to “free” offerings, start by thinking about the potential for hidden costs. For example, the “total cost of ownership” of any new technology should contemplate all the man-hours needed to implement and operate a new system along with everything that will be required to integrate it into the existing environment. It is also important not to underestimate switching costs related to changing processes in order to accommodate a new system because these can be substantial. Change may be for the better, but it certainly is not free.

Fund offices demand mission critical systems – where reliability is far more important than any flashy new features. For fund offices, the key requirements are security, stability and availability and for these hard-and-fast reasons, free, or nearly free solutions, don’t measure up:

Fund office data must be secure – you need to know where your data lives and maintain strict control over how it is accessed and by whom. That doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of cloud solutions, and off-site storage – but it does mean you need complete, fine-grained control over all permissions along with answers for archiving and retention.
Stability is a virtue (and reduces cost) – progress can be very exciting, and one of the great features of modern technology is how quickly it evolves. But change is also expensive. In fact, changing a system can cost you more than the original investment. Think about the small, yet frustrating compatibility issues that crop up every time you install a new printer, or upgrade an application. Then consider change in an enterprise system where impact on users, inevitable downtime and associated costs are the consequences when your software vendor makes an unanticipated change.
Availability means 365 x 24 x 7 – maybe your office is closed, but in this age of online access to everything, your systems need to be operational at all times. When evaluating new technology, you may have a requirement for “high-availability.” You may need customized service level agreements that establish tight measures on outages and “time-to-repair/restore.” And since things do go wrong, you also need a system with the ability to recover from errors in a timely manner. Restarting the system and losing a day of data is usually not a viable option.

“Shiny, new and free!” are attractive offerings that can be hard to resist. Perhaps the best way to think about “free” options is as learning opportunities. There’s nothing wrong with exploring the available options as a way to get up to speed on the latest technology and as a way to help you think about what’s possible. But beware of the special requirements inherent to fund office operations before committing to the “free” model.

Michael Goldberger

Take a Random Walk in the Woods

Sat, 06 Sep 2014 00:00:00 GMT

There is no better way to gain customer insight than to put on the hat of an investigative journalist, park your belief system at the door and engage in a meaningful dialogue with your customers or prospects.

There’s an old adage that customers can’t tell you what they want in a product but if you ask the right questions, they will be able to reveal what they need because they will tell you about their challenges. By listening to your customers and taking the time to ask the next question, wherever that might lead, you should get a close enough look to create a hypothesis about their pain points. Basing product decisions exclusively on traditional market research can be risky because it often relies heavily on surveys or focus groups that ask the same questions, in the same order. While reliable, this structured research may only give you answers to the questions you think are important. In fact, for truly defining and refining your thinking, fluid, one-on-one conversations that have no defined “next question” are the way to go. Taking the time for a handful of in-depth conversations is often more valuable than 100 completed surveys when you are doing product development.

Writing and Righting Requirements

Thu, 28 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Requirements are the key to developing relevant, useful products and therefore, the key to completing a successful project. Unfortunately, you can most often find them smuggled between numbers, say, 3 and 4 on the list of tasks to be completed. As a consultant that writes requirements, I would argue that to view this undertaking as a single step amongst many would be to err on the side of danger, especially in the Taft-Hartley world. Miscalculating the importance of the requirements as a deliverable, as well as a process, would be like setting off in a row boat to capture a 25ft shark: You’ll soon find yourself wishing for a bigger boat.

Uncovering and capturing requirements should be considered a fluid process that is consistently integrated with all the other steps of the project, as well as, with the operational processes that will be maintained far beyond the project itself. With this perspective, you will be able to better prepare both the team and the Fund Office for the road ahead: Think endurance and flexibility more so than stringency and speed. It is beneficial to have this perspective because requirements are not just a deliverable, but, if done correctly, can become the Fund Office’s knowledge nucleus.

Having a single, consistent and persisting knowledge center is critical simply because the alternative is not so pretty. There is a tendency in the realm of Benefits Administration in particular to use people as both the preservers and the vehicles of relevant Fund intelligence. When individual people own pertinent information, whether it be the operational process behind a Board Decision or even the interpretation of a particular section of a plan document, the foundation of the Fund Office looks more like a series of pillars as opposed to a strong, solid anchor. With this structure, a single vacation day can lead to delays and employee turnover becomes an obvious and inevitable Achilles heel.

Casey Sirotnak
Casey is a Consultant at MIDIOR and has particular expertise in requirements. She puts her BA In English from Holy Cross to good use as she works with clients to decode lengthy plan documents and detangle business processes to elicit and capture accurate requirements. As a passionate runner, Casey logs many a mile along the banks of the Charles or sprinting through downtown Boston.

When Good Dates Go Bad

Wed, 20 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

In administering benefits, a lack of focus around dates can be a recipe for disaster. We have a tendency to pay close attention to the “important” details: a member’s pension amount, annuity balance, or health premium. But consider that each and every one of these calculations relies on accurate date inputs. For instance, a pension benefit wrongly slated for payment in the year 2041 will surely result in a phone call from a disgruntled member. There’s a cost incurred, not only monetarily, but also in a breach of trust with the members. When dates are wrong, members can be paid incorrect amounts or even worse, have no health coverage when they need it most.

Think back to Y2K, a time when people thought the world was going to end – computers would stop functioning, trains were to collide, and planes would fall from the sky – all because of the format we used to input dates. Now, years later, in an effort to create unambiguous one-to-one dates, we have the ability to enter a date in a vast number of ways. While this solved the Y2K problem, it created unintended consequences in a lack of uniformity and increased potential for human error.

Inaccurate dates tend to have a ripple effect. Recently, in working with a client, I was put in the position of being a judge, divorcing members in the plan. In systems that allow for multiple marriage dates there is an underlying assumption that in the event a participant divorces, and then remarries, the new marriage date will simply void the previous marriage. I can tell you from hard experience, this assumption is not always right, and in fact, quite tedious to correct. If your system is not set up to properly account for changes in marital status, then upon retirement, plan participants may find their benefits still linked to an ex-spouse. In the case of this client, due to a lack of attention placed on dates – hundreds of participants had multiple spouses! Expect to see more from me about date arithmetic and the implications for your fund office operations in subsequent posts.

The Importance of Context in Product Development

Wed, 20 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Recently I found myself in a meeting with a vendor’s product development team to discuss requirements for customizing their software to our client’s needs. The team kept asking me about how a particular function in their software should work. My answer (“I don’t know - you tell me!”) was just a little bit snippy since I hadn’t seen a demo of the product yet, never mind the function they were referring to. At that point, I certainly couldn’t visualize enough of the system to map it to our client’s future vision of their business process. How do I get to this function? How many clicks? Do I need to execute any other function in order to make it appear on the screen as an option? This chicken and egg conversation is all too commonplace between developers and business users. An integral part of the product development process is understanding how a product will be used by the customer but in the excitement of developing something new, I find too many people overlook this important first step.

Context is all about starting at the beginning. Before thinking about the important features, developers and product managers need to establish a common understanding of how that product will be used to support a user’s needs. Let’s take the example of the humble notebook. In order to have a fully functional product you need to know a lot about your customer’s world. Will your customer be using the product in the office or out in the elements? Will she be drawing or taking notes or primarily jotting down lists and columns of numbers? Does the notebook need to fit into a messenger bag or purse? What type of writing implements will be used with the notebook? And so on… Somehow, when we get into the product space people forget about all of the things that could ultimately be showstoppers if the product is not designed for its context. Have your developers get out of the office with the product managers or sales people. Encourage them to ask the open-ended questions and observe what the customers or prospects are doing in addition to what they are saying . This is the heart of being good at defining requirements and as we all know, good requirements are the key to developing relevant, useful products.

Manage the Relationship with Your Technology Partners

Mon, 11 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Fund office administrators are accustomed to maintaining long term, strategic relationships for legal counsel, actuarial expertise, investment management and other professional services. It’s time to start thinking about your relationship with technology partners in the same way.

It’s All About the Data

Like it or not, information technology has become integral to the operation of an efficient fund office. Today’s fund offices manage not only billions of dollars in their funds, but also billions of records about their members. As custodians of this data, you are obliged to maintain the accuracy, privacy, and integrity of an ever-growing stream of information and you are responsible for communicating with your members through an ever-expanding menu of methods (phone, online, mobile). In many cases, you also handle thousands of financial transactions every month – be they employer contributions, member benefits payments, or interest on member loans. In order to keep up, you need to master today’s technology, develop a plan for tomorrow’s technology and somehow manage the transition from the past to the future without disturbing your day-to-day mission-critical operations.

What should you expect from your technology partner? At minimum, you should be able to work together to:

Define policies related to processing, protection and retention for all categories of data

Create a 3 – 5 year technology strategy that aligns with your overall operations strategy

Identify new opportunities for cost reduction, risk reduction and/or improved member services

Build a staffing plan that identifies needs for internal skills and resources to support your technology plan

Too many fund offices, and technology providers, engage in a transactional vendor model as opposed to a long term, strategic relationship. That may work for your office equipment and phone systems – but it’s insufficient for your core operations. Select a partner who can help you make the critical decisions about how to evolve the fund office. In the same way that you rely on legal and actuarial services to provide expertise in an ever-changing regulatory environment, a knowledgeable partner can help you select and implement the right tools to improve the efficiency and quality of service delivery, while reducing the risk associated with the rapid pace of changing technology.

Michael Goldberger
Michael is a Cofounder and Partner at MIDIOR where he oversees the technology services practice area. With his depth of technology and development experience, he supports clients in selecting the appropriate platforms for their business objectives resulting in higher return on investment. He manages major system overhauls and upgrades for MIDIOR’s Taft-Hartley and public fund clients. Visitors to Michael’s office will notice his vintage collection of technology artifacts that he displays with pride.

Access Your Benefits – Anytime, Anywhere

Wed, 06 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Thanks to online banking and other early adopters of online and mobile applications, a fund office should be able to rollout a mobile app with confidence, knowing that training and user adoption will be an easy task. For members, there’s a great deal of value in being able to access information anytime, anywhere. A mobile benefits app helps members keep track of information and ask questions that are important to them. Do I have enough qualifying hours for health benefits? How close am I to retirement? Have my employers reported all of my hours to the fund office? What will my pension be if I retire next year? Where is the nearest healthcare facility in my network from my current location?

However, keeping members informed with is only a small part of the value proposition of a mobile application. The steps involved in preparing for and building a mobile app have even greater value to the operations team at the fund office. Before deploying the mobile app, a fair amount of attention will paid to cleaning historical data. This exercise will likely involve documenting the specifics of business processes and the rules that apply to different member groups. Making the data transparent means getting the data right. This task forces the fund office to be clear and focused on data quality, the foundation of everything a fund does.

Now that the data for the mobile app has been cleansed and scrutinized, it can serve as an excellent tool for fund office managers to analyze member data. With SQL Query tools, fund office managers can ask ad-hoc business questions and make fact-based decisions to improve and optimize operations. Standard reports, trend reports, and other analytics can be developed for managing the fund office and these will influence the fund office business rules.

Creating the mobile benefits app will be a delighter for members as they can access their data easily at any location during the course of their day. It can also be a strategic way to improve the fund office operations and analytic capabilities in support of better decision-making. For members and fund office managers alike: a win, win.

John Sutter

John is a Principal at MIDIOR, where he is a practice lead for both management consulting and technology services. With a background spanning systems architecture, user interface design and data analytics, John is known for helping clients change the way they think about data and most recently has focused his attention on mobile applications and analytics to support claims auto-adjudication.

Consider the Data Warehouse

Tue, 05 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Multiemployer and public funds have a long horizon for their data needs: systems change, plan rules change and years of contribution history for pensions and annuities must be maintained. Building a data warehouse is one solution to taking the data that’s trapped in your operational systems and making it useful. To free the valuable data and make it accessible will involve lots of time, people, resources, and possibly new technologies. But before getting lost in the language and technical aspects of data warehousing, there are five guiding principles I recommend for designing the data warehouse that can help your project be a success.

Define your objectives. Designing the data warehouse can become a contentious struggle between business users and IT developers. Take the time to reach consensus and publish the goals of the data warehouse. This important step can serve as the guardrails that keep the project on track.
Design for the users. Be prepared to answer design considerations for how the users will use the data. You want to be sure that the design supports users in asking the right questions to get accurate answers.
Design for the benefit plan. The designers of your data warehouse schema will need to understand many of the fund’s legacy business rules and other business processes that generate data. Every fund office is different and understanding the rules is just as important as understanding the technology.
Design in stages. Often, organizations that try to design a warehouse for the entire enterprise will encounter rework along the way. Business processes or project dimensions may change over time before the whole warehouse is deployed. Designing in stages by subject areas (claims processing or pension contribution history, for example) will be more efficient and expedient than trying to design for the entire enterprise.
Design for Usage. Form follows function when in comes to historical data sets. Keep in mind that in some cases, you’ll need to deliver information extremely quickly. Form usually follows function so designing de-normalized and summary tables may be the best approach to support rapid response time. Indexing methods or specific hardware appliances can boost performance of queries. Almost all considerations map back to knowing how the data will be used.

Once you have designed and implemented the data warehouse, the work doesn’t stop there. Be sure to review the original goals defined for the data warehouse and keep a record of fund office business decisions that are made as result of data warehouse queries. That way, you can justify and understand the value of the warehouse and learn from the decisions made along the way.

John Sutter

John is a Partner at MIDIOR, where he is a practice lead for both management consulting and technology services. With a background spanning systems architecture, user interface design and data analytics, John is known for helping clients change the way they think about data and most recently has focused his attention on mobile applications and analytics to support claims auto-adjudication.

Tesla: Can Giving Drive Success?

Tue, 22 Jul 2014 00:00:00 GMT

We’ve noticed that Tesla, a rapidly growing electric car company aiming to promote growth in the electric vehicle sector, has repurposed a business strategy pioneered by technology companies: Tesla recently announced that they will open-source their technology. Google opened up Android after spending millions to develop the software and since then, Android has surpassed iOS as the most used mobile phone operating system. We wonder if Tesla’s decision to open-source technology will help it to succeed in the same way.

Tesla’s decision to offer other automakers free use of their technology is not the first time that the company has made its technology available to others. Competitors have been paying Tesla for their technology for some time. Daimler and Toyota both own shares in Tesla. Daimler’s Smart City Car uses a Tesla battery, and the Mercedes B-class EV uses a Tesla power train. Toyota’s second generation RAV4EV uses a power train, battery, gearbox, and software supplied by Tesla. Tesla’s history of offering technology assistance to other automakers and decision to open-source its technology begs the question: is Tesla a car company or, at their core, a technology company?

Tesla’s announcement that it will share its technology to promote sector growth is not without risk. Although Tesla certainly stands to benefit from the network effects of EV sector expansion, this relatively undeveloped market is not without competition. GM has announced plans to release a markedly improved model of the Volt. The new Volt will have a 200 mile per charge capacity and cost about $30,000, slating the vehicle to target the same customer as the forthcoming Tesla Model 3. This new development will certainly test the feasibility of maintaining a competitive advantage while the lines between competition and collaboration become increasingly blurred. Could Tesla’s decision to open-source technology and share its patents reflect an emerging strategy in which industry growth trumps proprietary technology? We’re excited to see how this model of open sourcing technology will impact market development moving forward.

Innovation is not Invention

Tue, 08 Jul 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Our clients often ask us to help them improve their innovation track record and wonder what steps they can take to foster an innovation culture. Well, in response to the step up in these inquiries, we acquired a firm in June called Stages of Innovation , which expands both our capabilities and resources in this area. I’m happy to welcome Robert Goldberg, the founder and owner of Stages of Innovation, to the MIDIOR team. Rob is expert in tactical innovation and all things “new products” and with the addition of Rob and his organization, MIDIOR now has a beachhead in the New York metro area and our clients will benefit from extensive experience helping companies create and sustain their innovation pipelines.

As most of you know, at MIDIOR, we believe that at its core, innovation is not a process issue or technical puzzle but rather a people and culture challenge. When clients express the desire to build an “innovation culture”, we start by looking for the entrepreneurs that are already thriving somewhere in the organization (often at the fringes). Our focus is on the number of small, cross-functional teams that can be assembled around specific new product or service initiatives as that will determine innovation success. Teams that prosper recognize the obstacles to innovation, are equipped with tactics to overcome those obstacles and have the skills to take an agile approach to idea selection, product planning and execution. Without the ability to execute, and a culture that embraces risk and failure, innovation is nothing more than a pipe dream.

Focus On What Is Truly Important To The Success Of The Product

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Many times, when a client is launching a new initiative, the team will talk to me with great enthusiasm about the features and functionality of their new product or service and I’ll stop them short and ask, “Have you thought about what is truly important to the success of the product?” The things that get in the way of product success are often surprising and typically have everything to do with time-to-value for the customer.

For example, I find that the mechanics of installing a product can actually be one of the biggest deterrents to adoption. Take anti-virus software. The risk of not using it is high yet everything about installing it is difficult because somehow you just never know what it will conflict with – will it stop your email from working, mess up your calendar, prevent you from downloading a file? If you can’t get the user to find value quickly, they’ll abandon their effort. Conversely, if you can get customers to quickly use the product in their daily environment, you’ll build a powerful entrenched relationship that’s hard for a competitor to displace. After all, what’s the primary deterrent to changing your bank or credit card? It has nothing to do with the product’s features anymore. Reality is that with automatic payments set up in multiple places, it is simply too great a hassle to make a change.

You may be surprised to find that what is most important to the success of a product are often the things around the product, and not the product itself. To delve further into the definition of a product as well as all the things that may determine its success.

What's so good about an egg?

Mon, 14 Apr 2014 00:00:00 GMT

If you happen to look through the archives of MIDIOR’s materials, from collateral to presentations to our blog and website , you’ll notice we are slightly obsessed with eggs. It may come as a surprise to some of you that farming runs in my blood; my grandfather raised Guernsey cows, my aunts raised sheep and horses and to this day my uncle still has chickens. I am also a proud member of my local CSA and still believe that farming of some sort is in my future.

For me, as a passionate foodie and cook, it’s no wonder that I find the egg, nature’s perfect incubator, to be worthy of great admiration. In one neatly sealed package, you’ll find the secret to an abundance of award-winning recipes, and at the same time, in the right conditions, you have all the ingredients to nurture and hatch a chick. The egg is an amazing, living, breathing, multi-tasking work of nature that in my mind, serves as a metaphor for how innovation and new product development thrives, or dies, at companies. It’s all about context – the egg has to be fertilized and incubated and it all has to happen at just the right time. Supply the right conditions and something wonderful and valuable will develop; drop it along the way and you’ve got a 3-cent mess to mop up. And for the aspiring chefs in the crowd, here’s one of my favorite quick and simple recipes based on the marvelous egg and my Italian heritage – just in time for spring: Eggs with Garlic Scapes

Where do you find innovation?

Mon, 17 Mar 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Following on from my last post on inspiring innovation and the importance of the “start-up” mentality, I found myself chatting with one of my colleagues and the topic turned to where to start when trying to seed an innovation culture. I suggested to my colleague that, more often than not, the innovation mindset is already thriving, unrecognized and waiting to be nurtured, if you know where to look.

If you’re looking for innovation in any organization, find the entrepreneurs and you’ll discover deep pockets of new ideas. Typically, these entrepreneurs are in non-headquarters’ jobs, thriving at the edges of the enterprise, perhaps in sales, support or even managing a remote operation. Usually, these are the people that are most passionate about solving a problem for their customers yet they are also usually the ones that are most constrained by limited resources. That’s where innovation comes into play. It’s the entrepreneurial mindset hard at work, caring enough about a problem to overcome obstacles, and sometimes circumvent processes to find a solution that is clear as day. Find the entrepreneurs and you’ll find innovative behaviors that can be modeled and harnessed for the benefit of the enterprise.

Taking on The Challenge of Clean Drinking Water

Wed, 12 Mar 2014 00:00:00 GMT

As Bob Metcalfe from 3Com pointed out more than 15 years ago, invention is not innovation although often it’s a part of it. In visiting our local Burger King recently, the younger set was fascinated by the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine that offered 100 flavor variations at the push of a button. Out of curiosity about how this new product manifestation works, we did a bit of digging and uncovered an innovation story with a twist. While at first blush the innovation appears to be in the product - morphing the variety of a soda fountain into a vending machine - the more compelling story is about distribution, delivery and support.

Here’s how the story goes. Building on what scientists know about insulin dosing, the inventor Dean Kamen and his firm DEKA Research, designed the “beverage jukebox” for Coca-Cola as a novel branding and merchandising tool. Then, applying that same technology in the same footprint, Kamen created a machine, dubbed the Slingshot , that takes any liquid and turns it into clean drinking water. Powered by a Stirling engine running on a combustible fuel source, clean water is produced by means of vapor compression distillation (for the engineers in the crowd). With this new machine, innovation is catapulted far beyond the physical bounds of the invention itself. Coca-Cola has the potential to harness

its existing infrastructure, comprised of more than 300,000 employees in Africa alone, so that the program can take root and succeed in its mission to bring clean drinking water to the developing world. In reaching this target, the Slingshot has both efficiency and longevity in mind as it was built with the identical footprint as the commercial Coca-Cola vending machines, allowing it to flow through existing systems just as seamlessly as drinkable content flows through its innovative internal design. So when your kids’ eyes light up in wonder when they make their drink selection from a Coca-Cola Freestyle machine, think about Kamen’s ambitious goal to develop a technology that would transform the 97% of water that is undrinkable into water that can be used and consumed on the spot, readily and inexpensively.

Late breaking flash: At SXSW today, TOMS, the shoe maker, announced an initiative to get into the coffee business and a portion of the sales will be donated to the nonprofit organization Water for People . Is the Coca-Cola or TOMS approach more innovative? More importantly, which approach do you think will be more effective?

Innovative products lose money: Get over it

Mon, 24 Feb 2014 00:00:00 GMT

When I talk with large companies about fostering innovation, I’m repeatedly surprised that, although they recognize the need to foster a startup mentality, they get it all wrong when it comes to their expectations about making money.

A true startup culture, as every venture capitalist understands, requires meaningful investment for reasonable returns and more often than not, the chosen initiative will lose money in the early years. There is no expectation that the startup will break even in year one or even by year three. Large companies need to adopt the VC mindset that, first and foremost, invests in people. The expectation should be that the team has an idea to take advantage of an opportunity or solve an important problem and that ultimately it will create a company or product that provides value. Here’s the net – if you want to change the game and do something innovative, then invest in a pool of risk capital and set aside your expectations of high returns on investment in the near term. It’s the only way your innovation initiatives can be set free to succeed.

For a copy of a presentation I gave last week to the Boston Product Management Association > How to Build an Innovation Mindset in Services

Power On: What’s Old is New

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Plugging in, powering on or illuminating an otherwise dark space at anytime is something that most of us take for granted. But for many in our global population, where the location is remote or adequate infrastructure has not yet been built, this can be a pipe dream. Two new innovative products, sOccket and the GravityLight, are here to change that by using ordinary items and simple processes to deliver power and light in unconventional ways.

sOckett , which looks like a standard soccer ball, uses kinetic energy to generate electricity. If you kick around a sOccket ball for 30 minutes it will turn your kinetic energy into 3 hours of electricity: a full charge (16 hours of play) can provide 72 hours of electricity. Imagine if we had our soccer teams practice with sOccket balls and then sent them to people in remote areas? Clever sOccket leverages the world’s oldest passion (soccer) to generate and capture energy in an entirely new way.

The GravityLight delights the engineer in everyone by using gravity to generate light. This small device hangs on a wall and like a grandfather clock, uses a pulley system and a weighted bag to move a series of gears that run a motor to power on an LED light. The bag can be filled with whatever heavy items are nearby (e.g. sand or rocks) and within 3 seconds, 25 minutes of light can be generated. The GravityLight provides safe, reliable light to people without access to electricity and eliminates the need for expensive and toxic kerosene lamps.

Not only do the sOccket ball and GravityLight provide electricity and light for people that cannot power on or light up easily, these products use centuries old practices in innovative ways to solve real world problems. Just think how bright the future could be if we harnessed all of our curious minds to be creative about making what is old new again.

What does a "Bill of Materials" for a service look like?

Mon, 10 Feb 2014 00:00:00 GMT

When I look at anything at all, the engineer in me always starts by trying to figure out how it is made – I make a list of parts and visualize the “Bill of Materials.” For the products I encounter in my daily life, this is a pretty straightforward process as most of these products have “mass.” But, for products with fuzzy edges – services, technology etc. - it’s an entirely different story because figuring out what is on that Bill of Materials is harder than most people think.

WHAT DOES A “BILL OF MATERIALS” FOR A SERVICE LOOK LIKE?
If you are Gillette or Toyota, selling a 3-dimensional product with hard edges then constructing a Bill of Materials is a standard part of operations. Establishing the list of parts, pricing each component, defining what equipment and labor are required in what sequence to assemble the finished product can be complex and time consuming, but not hard to understand. Now, apply that concept to products like search engines, email accounts, ATM transactions or the administration of pension benefits and it becomes much more challenging to get your head around. In order to increase margins and profitability, product teams must focus on innovating or reducing cost or streamlining manufacturing but when it’s hard to nail down the list of parts or to identify the steps in the delivery process, this is challenging. As a result, product managers for services need to be masters at dealing in the abstract and translating that thinking into concrete terms. By drawing lines around – and giving names to– each component of a service and then logically organizing them into categories, it is possible to construct a hypothetical Bill of Materials, even though there is nothing that even remotely resembles a bolt or an electronic part.

So get to work and have your product team define the list of elements in your services, bag and tag them into discrete categories and then map out the process for delivering them to customers. Making that list and checking it twice is a fundamental step in tracking your progress and your profits for all products: To skip this step for services, as well as products, would be like attempting to conduct a symphony without developing a score to follow.

This New Yorker cartoon by Arnie Levin provides an excellent example of how a harmonious delivery process can be thwarted by rogue elements .

Products with Fuzzy Edges

Mon, 27 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMT

In today’s world, where software or services are a significant component of most products, it has become more difficult to determine where a product starts and stops. For a product manager or developer, these “products with fuzzy edges” are complicated to nurture, not to mention cost or value. The challenges related to “fuzzy edged products” don’t stop there, carrying through to every aspect of product design and deployment from requirements definition to user adoption. To be effective, product managers need to eliminate the fuzziness, often defining hypothetical boundaries so that lists can be made, money counted and products managed. Banking services provide a classic example of products with fuzzy edges. The customer deposits or withdraws money from an account but what exactly constitutes the product? The checking account? The ATM transaction? Or is the product the funds that the customer has effectively lent the bank to then loan out and earn interest on? Add the dimension of context, as in what system or systems the product has to live within and work with, and I think you’ll agree with me that products with fuzzy edges demand an entirely new skill set from our product people.

Susan is an engineer, entrepreneur, educator and consultant with a passion for products, technology and teams that has underscored her 30-year career. In her capacity as Cofounder and Managing Partner at MIDIOR, Susan oversees the delivery of consulting services and MIDIOR’s operations. For her clients, Susan is uniquely able to cross organizational and cultural boundaries to create a common product and technology perspective, inspire innovative thinking, optimize organization output and improve financial performance. Susan is uniquely able to cross organizational and cultural boundaries to create a common product perspective and inspire innovative thinking and continues to play an active role in the delivery of MIDIOR’s management consulting and technology services projects.

“Just”: A Small Word with Big Consequences

Mon, 06 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Whenever the word “just” comes up in a business meeting, alarm bells go off in my head and I pay very close attention because “just” never actually means “just” when it comes right down to it. It’s a small word that comes creeping into many discussions, often when you’re about to wrap up. Let me explain with a few examples: “Just” going back in time to adjust inaccurate payroll entries or “just” adding a tweak to an executive dashboard or “just” adding the “share” button to the corporate website. These innocuous requests for “just” a small change all sound simple enough, but they are usually “just” the tip of the iceberg leading to a multi-hour, if not multi-day project - to say nothing of the added layer of complexity that will surely have a ripple effect of unintended consequences. I’m not saying close your ears or be unresponsive to constructive input. Rather, I would just advise giving that little word “just” the most careful of consideration. Even better, adopt my New Year’s resolution to strike the word “just” from our 2014 dialogue and live more simply.

For the true meaning of justice and a chuckle, take a look at one of my favorite New Yorker cartoons by Robert Mankoff .

Product Teams: Jobs and Roles are Different

Wed, 18 Dec 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Before starting any product initiative you have to distinguish between roles and jobs. The leader of a product team must understand what roles are required for this particular team and the individual players need to understand their role on the team.

When individuals are assigned to a product initiative they bring with them titles - product manager, product developer, business analyst – yet each team consists of different roles that have nothing to do with specific positions. Typically, you’ll see someone act as project manager, to keep the lists and track the milestones. Someone has to be the product champion to evangelize and lead the charge. There is always a financial or business sponsor sponsoring the project. These are the roles. And not to be overlooked, someone has to provide air cover for the team. This role might fall to the boss or it could be someone entirely different. Air cover allows the players on the team to execute their roles without unnecessary interference. This proves to be particularly important when the product is very innovative and goes against the grain of organization’s process and culture.

Depending on what the desired outcome is for a project – creating a solid set of requirements, capturing the voice of the customer or actually developing a product - you need to identify the roles and have the right people in them to succeed.

A Breakthrough in Mop Technology

Fri, 08 Nov 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Once in a while we come across a secondary application of a feature that makes us smile and solves a problem simply, yet brilliantly. Behold the Magic Spinning Mop™. Introduced in 2011, the technology behind this mop is described as a “hand press pedal-free spinning system” but look again and you’ll see the good old salad spinner hard at work. Although devices used to wash, dry and spin salad have been around since the 19th century, two French inventors in the 1970’s hold the patent for the early development of applying centrifugal force to the product’s design. So, back to our mop. KGM Global, the self-named “inventor” of this alternative to the hand press spin model mop, has integrated the spinning mechanism into the mop’s handle so that once it wears out only the handle needs to be replaced. We notice a bit of the razor blade/K-cup business model in play here. The claims for the mop’s innovative design are spot on for the utilitarian salad spinner, in short, “the built-in wringer delivers powerful cleaning performance and removes nearly 100% of all excess water”. So hats off to a product that proves the point that innovation looks for a problem to solve and in this instance, innovation appears in an opportunistic reinvention of a 19th century concept. What’s old is new again.

Pining and Pinning: J.Crew Promotes Fall Portfolio on Pinterest

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 00:00:00 GMT

As the first brand to debut an entire collection on the popular, pinboard-style photo-sharing website, Pinterest, in one savvy social media move, J.Crew has us simultaneously pining and pinning. J.Crew, perhaps best known for its simple separates and classic shapes, made a bold move this Fall, and we’re not referring to new selections along the color palette or their dive into the ostentatious land of appliqués (although the collection has us thinking that studs and sparkle are as synonymous with Autumn as crisp weather and the changing leaves). J. Crew proves that although they clearly have an eye for the hot-right-now items of the season, they also have a very seasoned eye directed at consumer behavior. By taking note of the customer’s preferred methods of brand interaction as well as digital marketing trends, J.Crew takes advantage of existing internet infrastructure to streamline the relationship between producer and consumer.

In a world that values being first we often see innovation initiatives grow from the inside, out. When looking to innovate and promulgate an innovation culture, companies and product managers may be tempted to direct efforts inward, with focus on the product and the next big hit. J.Crew’s strategic use of social media exemplifies a critical perspective on innovation that turns this notion on its head. It begins with a step that, for an apparel company in particular, may seem as standard as the white cotton oxford shirt: put the customer first.

Social media provides the perfect channel to execute on customer insights as it quickly adapts to behavioral mutations and provides enough options to meet them at every turn. J.Crew has paired these tools together with the same apparent effortlessness mirrored in any one of the outfits in their Fall 2013 catalog. Not bad for a company that put its first stake in the social media ground only one year ago.

Coffee, Tea & RFID

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

As a way to stay ahead in a market that is becoming increasingly crowded, we noticed with interest that Keurig, the leading brand in single-serving coffee systems, continues its drive to innovate. The new Keurig machine have embedded RFID (radio frequency identification device) technology that allows customers to tweak the size, strength and optimal temperature of their preferred cup of coffee or tea. Keurig appears to recognize that all coffee drinkers have particular tastes and this new control-your-cup strategy is sure to please the serious caffeine lover. Originally engineered for professional services firms where coffee consumption is high and there is little uniformity in tastes, the system is now available for the home brewing market.

The RFID tag was the brainchild of Mario Cardullo who patented the technology in 1973. Originally adopted by mass distribution firms like Walmart to track inventory as it moved through the supply change, Keurig is using this smart technology to encode a recipe that is read by the system to identify the optimal settings that will delight the tastes of coffee and tea aficionados.

We see a lesson here about understanding your customers and where they are headed. Thirty years ago, just as Starbucks was opening its first location, a cup of coffee was a cup of coffee and you scooped it from a tin to drip through your coffee maker. Today, coffee and tea are more like fine wines with infinite varieties that come from specific vineyards (locations). Who knows we may soon be specifying the source and year our favorite coffee beans were grown, completing the cycle of mass customization in the coffee industry!

A footnote: Keurig was acquired by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc., in 2006 and the decision to keep it a separate subsidiary with its own management team is surely a key to its continued innovation track record.

Cupcakes 2.0

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Lots of companies struggle to maintain a steady stream of innovations intended to keep their product fresh and differentiated. But as we often say, there are many ways to be innovative without changing the product. What about simply changing the way the product is delivered? Once limited to the domains of cigarettes and soda, vending machines are again changing the “delivery” game for a wide range of products.

Consider the ATM: a vending machine for money. When the ATM was first introduced, banks didn’t change their products – they still offered checking and savings accounts – they simply changed the way people interacted with them. Thanks to the ubiquitous ATM, we now rarely need to carry cash because the ATM is always open. And ATM capabilities, like the ability to deposit checks without an envelope, provided a new angle of competition for the banking industry.

In a similar way, vending machines are also changing the way we buy electronics since iPods, cell phones and all sorts of accessories are now available via unmanned kiosks in many airports and department stores. Who needs to drive to Best Buy when you can just pick up some noise cancelling headphones at Terminal B?

So who will be next to leverage the vending machine as their platform for innovation? Well, we are very excited to see the latest in cupcake technology being rolled out by Sprinkles, the popular gourmet cupcake shop that originated in California. In an effort to stay competitive in an increasingly crowded market, Sprinkles has created their own “cupcake automat.” Customers can conveniently feed their sweet cravings 24/7. Sprinkles’ high tech dispenser stocks 500 to 600 cupcakes in up to eight of the company’s most popular flavors. Customers make their choice on a touch screen and a long robotic arm retrieves the cupcake, which comes in a lovely individual box so that consumers feel as if they are receiving a gift as well as a sweet. The stock is refreshed throughout the day to avoid stale treats. Customers can now skip the line and try this innovative new way to satisfy their sweet tooth. Maybe Sprinkles is onto something – could this be the future of food fads? Accessibility, convenience and curb appeal - what better way to stay competitive and expand distribution channels? What’s next – Starbucks in a vending machine ?

Have you ever answered your phone with your nose?

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Where do the best new ideas come from? Sometimes they are lying on the street right in front of you.

For better or worse our touch screen devices are now a part of our daily lives. They keep us connected, informed, and some even work as personal assistants, but if you live in a cold climate, the winter months make using these gadgets miserable. If you have ever tried to answer your smartphone with a glove on, you know that no matter how many times you swipe your finger, nothing happens until you either miss the call or get frustrated enough to remove your glove and drop it in the slush.

Just like laptops need a lap, smartphones need a digit (or a nose)to be really useful. These devices count on the conductive properties of your fingertip to have any interaction with their owner. This inability to use your smartphone in the blistering cold has left glove manufacturers only one option: create gloves that use conductive material to mimic your fingertip. This year, if you live where the weather is cold and gloves are a necessity, you will see several glove options available for purchase with patches of conductive fabric on the pointer finger and thumb. These gloves are available in all sizes and colors, for all applications, from sports to fashion. The North Face even makes ski gloves with touch screen sensors. So, whether you are on the slopes or strolling down the street, these gadget-friendly accessories can help you stay warm as well as connected during the winter months.

Once again, we are reminded that innovative ideas can come from many places and that innovation in one industry often creates opportunity in others. Where else beyond clothing can touch screen devices open new frontiers? Any good ideas?

My Car is Smarter Than Your Computer

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Cars are a part of daily life for most Americans. Whether you drive them, ride in them or just try to avoid them, it’s hard to ignore them. At the same time, computers, tablets and smartphones seem to have become an extension of our identity, keeping us plugged in at work and at play. Lately, we’ve been noticing that the improvements in cars seem to be all about technology that makes them act more and more like computers - it’s no longer about the sleek design or horsepower. So, have cars evolved into computers or have computers become driving machines?

Let’s take the 2012 Audi A7, for example, a luxury car that sets a new standard for automotive technology systems, while channeling your inner British spy. Perhaps Audi’s recent integration of our must-have technologies has indeed given us a computer disguised as a car. But what are the consequences of having all this technology at our fingertips?

The A7 incorporates key features you would expect to find on a computer, tablet, or smartphone into an upscale “infotainment” system. Utilizing Google, the navigation system presents 3D Google Earth aerial views on the above dash display that which populates data for a 25 mile radius, while giving traffic updates. For the Wi-Fi dependent among us, T-Mobile and Audi have teamed up to provide a data connection to the A7 owner that supplies drivers with the weather, gas price information, and even access to Wikipedia from the driver’s seat. In addition, the A7’s Wi-Fi hotspot allows 8 devices to connect to the internet, enabling passengers to stream videos to their iPads or surf the web. Is it possible that face-to-face conversation may go the way of the manual transmission? Not to mention that exploring Wikipedia at 65 mph is not a good idea.

Another novelty that Audi includes is the touchpad with handwriting recognition that allows drivers to “safely” use the data connection. The touchpad positioned next to the driver’s thigh allows you to write an address, a phone number, or search for a nearby restaurant with just a touch of a finger - think back to the Etch-A-Sketch from your childhood. And, while many of us can imagine ourselves as James Bond on the commute to work, last time we checked, it is still pretty hard to draw and drive at the same time.

A more practical innovation may be the Audi A7’s “ Heads-Up Display.” Audi has cleverly adapted technology developed for jet pilots to create an adjustable display that projects the driver's speed and upcoming hazards onto the windshield. With data displayed directly in front of the driver, there is never a need to take your eyes off the road, although you may be distracted by looking through letters and numbers.

Sixty years ago, the American car went through a transition from basic transportation, to a personal statement of style and identity, culminating in some very elaborate tail fins and body treatments. So, with an $80K price tag is Audi’s latest innovation an improvement to the driving experience or the 21st century equivalent of the Ford Edsel ?

Innovation without Invention: What's the fuss about Google+?

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

What do you think of Google+, Google’s recent entry into the world of social media? Is this a radical departure for the world’s dominant search engine? Or is it an incremental enhancement that adds new features to Google’s existing product lines? Is this an innovative leap that threatens to demolish competitors? Or is it merely a “Facebook compatible” offering that’s been tossed into the market just because Google can?

Before we can decide, we have to take a closer look at Google+. Is it a product? A platform? An entirely new category of social media? If nothing else, there appears to be healthy demand for it given that in a mere two months, Google+ has acquired 25 million users (consider that it took Facebook 3 years and Twitter 30 months to do the same). Regardless, the jury is still out on whether Google+ is a passing fad or a real, long term threat to companies like Facebook.

First off, advertisers like it! Perhaps more important than its search engine capabilities, Google has developed the world’s most efficient and advanced advertising platform. And Google+ just adds to those capabilities. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Google+ has created a richer, more granular platform where users fill out their preferences for more personalized ads, offering greater predictability for advertisers. Sparks exercises users’ preferences, demographics, and behaviors to generate a news feed with stories, articles, blogs, and video clips tailored to personal preferences. Users no longer have to scour multiple sources to keep up to date on their interests. This clearly makes being informed about what you want to be informed about quicker, but does it also narrow users' “fields of vision” and potentially limit their world views?

Next, the Google+ tagline: “real life sharing, rethought for the web” puts the emphasis squarely on human relationships. With virtual hangouts, users can sit at their computers and “hangout” with buddies via video chat. The idea is to eliminate distance and bring video and chat together in the context of social media, which in turn may allow Google+ to eclipse products like Webex, Facetime and Skype, leaving these vendors wondering what happened.

Speaking of making plans with friends, Huddle, a feature targeted at mobile users, is also worth mentioning. Instead of texting friends individually, Google+ allows users to message their friends and make weekend plans in a single chat. While this is not so different from sending a Facebook message or even a mass text on your iPhone, the name is catchy and Google is heavily marketing it as an alternative use of their platform.

Net net? Google+ allows users to physically group friends, family members, and colleagues in Circles and choose what content they share and with whom. It creates a space for virtual hangouts as well as personalized reading guides and advertising. Cool and convenient? Yes. But is it innovative? The major innovation we see is in the packaging of interesting features. It's another great example of the difference between innovation and invention. Google+ innovates without invention, leveraging the good work and success of other products. Regardless, if you want to hang out for real, get off the couch and go meet your friends at your local bar or restaurant.

Product Leverage: Johnny Carson's Searchable Database

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

One of our maxims about product development and management is the idea that product success is all about leverage. Deliver more products to more markets from a common set of modules and proprietary assets, and the greater your chance for financial success. More leverage from a single investment. Too often we see businesses casting about for new technologies or investing in products that don't share any common components - an approach that makes it very difficult to sustain any innovation because resources are spread too thinly. New product development is expensive, risky and dependent on deep expertise and accumulated knowledge about customers and markets. Keeping up with the times, and all the various forms of competition that emerge requires ongoing investment and re-investment, but your best development bets are those placed within the domain where you have deepest knowledge about how your product is produced and consumed. For example, if you've got some great material that's old but market tested, you can expand your market by creating new offerings that deliver your proprietary advantage through new channels or emerging delivery models. That is an example of a best practice strategy for growth.

We never expected to see Johnny Carson (well, Carson Entertainment Group to be exact), at the forefront of such product development best practices. Although he's been gone since 2005, Johnny's legacy continues to be innovative. It's no longer in terms of live TV performances or automobiles (did you know he was a major investor in the DeLorean Motor Company ?). No, the Carson show has taken its 30 years of proprietary content (that's over 3,000 hours) and taken it to the digital, web 2.0 market. By creating an indexed database of digitized content - clips can be located and licensed through a self-service interface. The database is rich enough to support searching by air date, guest name, or even key words from the dialog. The process reportedly included transcription of over 1 million words of dialog.

Who knew that Johnny was a product guru?

0% Willing to Pay for Twitter

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

By all accounts, Twitter is a wildly successful, innovative new product. But the just-released 2010 USC Annenberg Digital Future Study found that although 49% of people on the internet use services like Twitter, exactly 0% would be willing to pay for those services. So that makes us wonder just how successful that is because scoring a "0%" in a survey like this is hard to ignore.

"Free" is a pretty powerful incentive to get people to try a new product and it's certainly an easy way to test-market a new concept. The behavioral economist Dan Ariely has some fascinating research and observations on the irrational implications of free . At MIDIOR we say that you'll never be able to sell your product if you can't at least give it away. And, clearly you learn something if "free" is not a strong enough incentive for someone to try it. But what have you proved if the only thing you can do is give it away? Do you think you could give away mediocre cookies to about half the people on your street? If yes, what would you learn if after trying them, every single one said they would eat more (lots more) if they were free, but exactly none said they would pay something to enjoy one? Would you think you had a successful product worthy of additional investment or would you be headed back to the drawing board?

So what about Twitter? It's used (a lot) by millions of people many times every day. Even the business world has acknowledged it as an exciting new mechanism for reaching customers. And yet, 100% of the users surveyed assign it zero value. Would you continue to invest? Which leads us to wonder if online services are really that different from other products. Over-the-air television is free, yet more than 0% of us are willing to pay for cable and satellite versions. Tap water is free, yet there appears to be a market for various bottled forms of that beverage. So that 0% finding is just disturbing.

Or perhaps it's just that the survey is somehow flawed.

What Does the World Cup Teach Us About Product Development?

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

With all eyes on the World Cup action in South Africa during the past two weeks, it seemed timely to reflect on what product teams can learn from international soccer. Four quick thoughts:

1 - Total football. The dominant theory of play at this level is known as "total football," an approach that depends on teamwork and on-field adjustments made by the players in real time. For example, a defensive player can move to an offensive position if the situation merits with the offensive player backfilling on defense; "switching the field" is not limited to the play, it can also mean that the left and right defenders, mid-fielders or forwards can switch according to the flow of the game. While critics might refer to it as "total chaos," total football has displaced conventional wisdom about the tightly regimented approaches and the creative, superstar-centric styles that have worked in the past. In this observation we see a correlation with product development teams, where we see a need for teamwork, constant communications and flexibility about roles and the project plan. The ability to make real-time adjustments depends on a team that has experience working together, is collaborative by nature, and is sufficiently in sync so that decisions can be made without waiting for the next meeting.

2 - Sh#t happens. Random, unpredictable events (bad calls, unusual bounces, food poisoning) happen and can have out-sized impact on the results of a game. These random incidents can work for you (see US goal vs. England), or against you (see US disallowed goal vs Slovenia), but you have to play on. The fact that you can't control everything about the result does not mean you don't need a plan. Come into the game with a strategy and a plan, but be ready with alternatives as reality kicks in. As we often say, "the one thing you know about the product plan is that it's wrong" because plans are not predictions, they are just a current assessment based on your most recent assumptions. Successful product teams are able to update their assumptions and rapidly change their plans as sh#t happens. They also know how to identify that they made the change and why it contributed to achieving the objective. Successful management is tolerant of these updates, and is not married to forecasts based on outdated assumptions.

3 - Past success is no indicator of future results (see France and Italy, 2010 editions). Just because you or your company were successful with your last product does not give you reason to be confident about your next initiative. Hubris really is a deadly sin - in World Cup soccer and in product development. Your competitors saw your success and have made adjustments, and if you're not prepared to put in the same level of effort as last time, there is no reason to expect the same results. In fact, repeat success may be the least likely outcome.

4 - You can only field one team. It doesn't matter how large the country is, you can only have 11 players on the field at one time and your bench cannot be infinite. This is the great equalizer that allows smaller countries to compete with larger ones (see Serbia vs Germany). Your country may have 100 great players but you can only field a single team with 11 players. Great results come from great teams. A larger pool of players to choose from may be an advantage, but the real constraint is the strength of your team, including your bench. Product developers often believe that their critical constraints are total resources, or number of great ideas. Reality (and soccer) tells us that the true constraint is the number of great teams you can field. Great products come from great teams. If you only have one great team - it doesn't matter how many great ideas you generate. And total headcount doesn't matter either if they cannot be configured into complete competent teams.

And so, we recommend the World Cup as much for sports entertainment as for product development insights. We hope you are looking forward to round 2 of this fascinating global event as much as we are, especially now that we've become immune to those annoying vuvuzelas (the background noise of this year's tournament)!

As American as Mexican Coke?

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Coca-Cola may be the world's best known brand, and is classically associated with all things American. So how can it be that the latest fad (craze?) is something known as "Mexican Coke?" Mexican Coke is actually Coca Cola's product that is bottled and distributed in Mexico, and is now also available in the U.S. While good ole American Coke sells for approximately the same price as (in fact usually less than) bottled water, Mexican Coke commands a shocking $3 per12 ounce bottle even when purchased by the case!

Aficionados of Mexican Coke will tell you that there is a real difference, thanks to the thick glass bottle and the use of sugar, rather than high fructose corn syrup as the primary sweetener. And thus a market has been created. Now available at Amazon , and allegedly seen at Costco in various parts of the country, Mexican Coke exists as a new, alternative beverage in a crowded field. Small restaurants differentiate themselves by selling Mexican Coke (sometimes instead of and sometimes alongside the other "Real Thing").

Is this the work of some marketing genius? A product manager at Coke spotting an opportunity to innovate and increase margins by a factor of 10? Or just another example of how unpredictable the marketplace can be? The question now is whether or not Coke should jump into this new segment more aggressively. There already so many variations of Coke (classic, diet, cherry, vanilla, etc), why not add "sugar flavored"? And just to make this puzzle even more challenging, it turns out that such a product already exists - but it's only available in certain parts of the country during Passover (because corn syrup ain't Kosher for Passover). Just look for the yellow caps!

Gatorade - Conquering and Dividing Markets

Fri, 21 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Gatorade has long been one of our favorite product stories because of the little known fact that it is one of the most successful technology licensing deals in history. Originally developed through research at the University of Florida, Gatorade royalties have returned over $100 million to the University. The inventor of Gatorade, Dr. Robert Cade is also a great example of what we call perfect product knowledge - a single indivudual who is simultaneously the consumer, the inventor, the investor and the salesman. An accomplished athlete and nephrologist who worked as a medical researcher studying the problems of dehydration, Dr. Cade came up with a drink that combined water, sugar, electrolytes and lemon juice.

Now that Gatorade (acquired by Quaker Oats and then PepsiCo) has come to dominate the sports drink market (a market that surely didn't exist at the time of its invention in 1965), we observe Gatorade taking their game up a notch as the market evolves. Innovators often take advantage of the fact that growing markets can be split into smaller, even faster growing markets. Over the past few years Gatorade has gone the traditional soft drink route of amassing supermarket shelf space through a plethora of flavors, colors and packaging options. With their newest product announcement, Gatorade G3, they are trying something different.

While there used to be "sports drinks" to help you perform better (or at least drink the same stuff as the people who perform better), there are now before sports, during sports, and after sports categories. And guess what? Gatorade has a product for each. There is some science and technology behind those product segments, and now a whole lot of marketing too. It's the before and after segments that have been growing lately, where "energy" drinks and "protein" shakes have been encroaching on Gatorade's turf. So what do you think? Will Gatorade divide and conquer? Or is it at risk of trying to compete outside its domain? What's next - home brewed Gatorade?

The iPad - It's Déjà Vu All Over Again

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

It's been impossible not to notice Apple's iPad announcement last week. Somehow this is an event worthy of front page stories and passionate emotions about breakthrough innovations. You have to give Steve Jobs credit for finding ways to get the world's attention.

On the other hand, where some people see a game-changing innovation, we see the continuation of a long evolution of markets and technologies. A process that certainly does not start or end with the iPad.

So how do you feel about the iPad? Revolution or evolution? A stroll through the dustbins of "pad" computers takes us through the GRiDPAD, Momenta and the AT&T EO (with the infamous GO operating system), not to mention our favorite flameout - MODA Systems. We were about to put together a brief history - but no need as it already exists at " The Long Fail: A Brief History of Unsuccessful Tablet Computers. "

Our point? Innovation for innovation's sake is a false idol. Most products that carry that label wear it as a badge of positioning and marketing, not as the result of invention. Products like this are taking advantage of being in the right place at the right time more than being the first to market with the newest technology. History tells us that being too early to market is more costly than being too late. Not that there's anything wrong with being first, but too many of us forget that exciting new products that capture marketplace success are built on a trail blazed by innovations of the past.

Consider the Escalator

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Submitted for your consideration, the escalator - one of history's great products.

Nathan Ames, of Saugus, Massachusetts is generally credited as the first inventor of the escalator. Although he never actually built one, in 1859 he was issued U.S. patent #25076 for "revolving stairs." Working escalators of various designs were eventually developed and commercialized by the Otis Elevator Company. Until recently, some of those original escalators could still be found in the Boston subway system (how's that for a product life-cycle?).

In 2004, estimates suggest that there were over 30,000 escalators in use in the United States that are used more than 90 billion times per year . Clearly a successful and widely used product.

Essentially used to move foot traffic through public spaces - escalators can be found in department stores, shopping malls, airports, transit systems, convention centers, hotels and office buildings (a platform for many product variants across multiple market segments!).

Escalators efficiently move pedestrians (everyone goes the same direction on an escalator) and provide multiple benefits in each of the above segments all over the world. Some key features that differentiate the escalator from its primary competitor (the elevator) include:

Escalators carry large numbers of people
Escalators fit in the same spaces as stairways
Escalators have no waiting

And of course - our favorite feature of the escalator, is that when it fails to operate for any reason - it simply becomes a staircase (becoming the product that it was intended to replace). How many products can do that?

[vc_video link=" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSIkjNaICsg" ]

One more interesting anecdote about escalators: even though the word "escalate" has entered popular usage, the word "escalator" was actually invented and trademarked by Charles Seeberger in 1900, to mark the product launch at the Paris Exposition Universelle. How's that for branding?

A Recipe for Relevant Requirements

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Most of us are all too familiar with this cartoon that captures the challenges of product development. To people unfamiliar with the process, the joke's just a silly picture, but if you're directly involved in any of the steps, you probably release an involuntary groan every time you see it. Really - what exactly is so hard about delivering what the customer wanted?

The statistics are pretty grim. Research shows that regardless of the business case, more than half of development projects fail. Why is that? The primary cause almost always points back to requirements. The requirements were too stringent, the requirements were too loose, the requirements didn't take into account the customer's environment, etc, etc. All of that is easy to say with the benefit of hindsight, but it still makes you wonder why it is so hard to get the requirements right when all you are really trying to do is build what the customer wants? The problem is that figuring out what the customer wants and will pay for isn't as straightforward as you might think.

Defining requirements is the heart and soul of product development. Get it right and everything else will follow. You'll know what's important and what's just nice to have. Get it wrong and it doesn't matter how good your tools are, or whether or not you have traceability through an automated test process. You may end up with a product that's functional (according to the spec) but not one that will sell. If only managers could identify which initiatives are the faulty ones or how to see the warning signs so that a course correction can be taken to get back on track.

Here's a little known fact: if you are defining requirements before you have established adequate context, your requirements are unlikely to hit the mark. In the product world, adequate context means that the product team has identified, captured and agreed upon key components of the product plan, including the business model, the target customer segments and the key competitive advantages that will be delivered BEFORE they get started. Only then can the HARD WORK of actually defining the requirements begin.

Try this simple idea. Have the product team draw an actual picture (yes, a picture) of the intended customer as part of the requirements definition process. Be sure to include that picture in the documentation and keep it front and center throughout the development process. If the customer is constantly looking back at the process, the team is more likely to stay on the right track and deliver what's really wanted. It doesn't make it easy, just more likely to produce a successful product!

What is a Product?

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Sometimes the simplest questions can lead you into very complex territory. We often start our projects by asking a client for their list of products. Sounds simple enough, but getting a tight definition on what is a product seems to be getting more and more difficult, especially when services are involved. Consulting the dictionary isn't much help. Most definitions of "product" have mathematical roots - a product is the result of multiplying 2 or more numbers, or a thing that is made from a combination of other things. A business oriented definition is "something that is marketed or sold as a commodity" (the "as a commodity" part being an important condition indicating that the "something" is sold in the same form more than once).

Why do we ask this question? As products get more and more abstract, simple management questions such as creating a list of products become agonizing efforts. This ambiguity is often a root cause of many product management challenges. How can there be a coherent product plan or road map when there is no agreement on what is and isn't part of the product? How can product managers know what they are responsible for if there is no schematic of where a product starts and stops? For our purposes we define a product as "the thing that a customer buys." Therefore, the "bill of materials" for a product includes all of the labor, processes and raw goods needed to deliver that which a customer is willing to pay for. A single missing ingredient, like a shipping container, can make the entire product useless (if it can't be delivered for example).

Lately, we've been spending a lot of time in the financial services sector, an industry where products are often services based on abstract concepts. It's also a place where the discipline of product management is still evolving - especially when compared with industries with more tangible products. Consider a product that seems simple - a checking account. Is that a product? It certainly has value and is something that customers use. Like most products, there are many features and functions to consider (interest rates, balance minimums, online checking, auto bill pay, overdraft protection, custom checks, etc). Do you think there should be a product manager for "checking accounts?" How would you measure the revenue for that product? What are the costs and margins for that product? Some banks consider their online banking website to be a product since that's what the customer sees. Should there be a separate product manager for that website? What about a product manager for the ATM network? If so, is the website a part of the product called "checking account?" Or is checking a part of the website offering? In fact, there are no obvious answers. But there is a compelling need for clarity and consistency in how "products" are defined.

One Thing, Well Done

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

We often hear ourselves telling people that the key to growth and profitability comes from doing the same thing over and over. It could be a repeatable process, a perfect design, or a recipe for managing acquisitions. The point is to know what that "one thing" is and figure out how to do more of it, rather than re-inventing your top sellers and looking for new lines of business. That doesn't mean we're opposed to innovation, we just think that creativity without purpose is not the same as progress.

For In-N-Out Burger that "one thing" is the menu, which hasn't changed in 60 years (except for the prices). Their primary innovation over the years has been to add indoor and outdoor seating areas (previously there were only drive-through and walk-up windows). No microwaves, no freezers, no chicken, no salad - just a great product with a long track record of growth.

Not only does this make us hungry for a "double-double animal style," it reinforces our observation that most companies are trying to develop too many new products. The problem with too many is that you end up with a bunch of mediocre ones - as opposed to a couple of winners.

WD-40 Is A Perfect 10!

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Today we have another example of a great product with a great story. Originally developed as a protective coating to prevent rust on the outer surface of the Atlas Missile in 1953, WD-40 is now found in more than 80% of American households. It's not surprising to find WD-40 in the toolbox, in the car, AND in the kitchen. It lubricates, it cleans, it protects and new uses are still being discovered after more than 50 years in the market.

Here is our top ten list of signs that this product was destined for greatness. How well does your product stack up against these indicators of success?

The only significant complaints about the product have to do with the little red straw which can fall off the nozzle and sometimes gets lost (addressed in 2005 with a can design that has a permanent straw)
The product has a fan club with over 100,000 members.
Originally called Rocket Chemical Company, the company name was changed to WD-40 Company in 1969 and went public in 1973.
The original formula has not changed over time, only the packaging and delivery methods (aerosol cans, precision pens, non-aerosol sprays) have changed.
The product has over 2,000 documented uses ; ranging from anti-corrosion, to lubrication, to cleaning crayon marks. Our favorite: "keeps snake and reptile skins pliable in taxidermy"
The product has inspired its own book, The WD-40 Book
The formula for WD-40 has never been patented (it's not that hard to reproduce, but the strength of the brand is just too good).
The product has never been produced under private label or any other name (not even for Sears or Walmart).
It took 40 attempts to get the original formula right - hence the name WD-40 (Water Displacement - perfected after 40 attempts). Good thing they didn't stop after 39 failures.

What About Ambition?

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Have you heard about the Hoover Dam Bypass Project ? The beautiful pictures can give you a small sense of what it's all about. The magnitude of this effort and the engineering challenges are clearly visible. Construction of the Colorado River Bridge (at left) is an inspirational view of what can be accomplished with the combination of vision and planning.

The Hoover Dam Bypass project is a 3.5 mile corridor connecting Arizona and Nevada with a new 4 lane roadway (U.S. Highway 93) that will span the Colorado River. Currently, the only way for traffic to cross the river is via the top of Hoover Dam - a winding route that was never intended to carry heavy traffic or large scale trucking. Over the past 50 years, this tourist route has become an increasingly critical north-south connection for commercial traffic and was even designated official status as a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Route. The project to upgrade the river crossing with a true highway started in 2001 is just now reaching it's final stages.

This all just makes us wonder about the team that had the vision, the ambition, the gall to say, "let's just build a new bridge, in the middle of the desert, 1,000 feet above the Colorado River. It will take 10 years and there will be many bureaucratic hurdles, but we should still do it." Most of the people and organizations we work with struggle to think about long term plans and shy away from the risks inherent in taking on anything that seems impossible at first blush.

What's happened to our ambition? Great products often come from solutions that tackle a problem head on, rather than those that tinker around the edges without taking any big risks. Let this image of a seemingly insane solution remind us to be ambitious and think big about what's really possible.

Why Mess With Success?

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:08:25 GMT

Coca-Cola recently announced that "Classic" was finally being removed from their branding and Coke returns to being just "Coke". Thus concludes the 24-year saga of "New Coke" - the 1984 marketing extravaganza that threatened a revered American brand. This incident has become one of the best known case studies and is widely used in business schools around the world as an example of a massive marketing blunder that cost the company millions. Of course, Coca-Cola has re-invented history and categorized the episode as an example of a bold product experiment. All that has us wondering about Starbucks these days.

As any customer knows, Starbucks continues to experiment with its product mix as evidenced by its forays into breakfast sandwiches, snacks-to-go and smoothies. And as of this month that mix includes instant coffee ! At the same time, Starbucks has acknowledged overreaching in terms of its geographic expansion and as a result, is rationalizing its physical locations in many areas of the country. So our question is, why is Starbucks putting itself at risk of also alienating the loyal customer base that enabled its success in the first place by messing with its cornerstone product: dark roast coffee? Ever since the introduction of Starbuck's Pike Place Roast which is described as "smooth" (loyal customers should read "weak"), we've been noticing that it's harder and harder to get the original (classic?) dark roast coffee at the various shops in our area - either as a fresh brew or a bag of beans to bring home. While there has been no official "announcement" about changing or eliminating the original product - this story is starting to smell just like New Coke. Back then, marketing studies and taste tests provided the data that justified the change and Starbucks surely has similar basis for their decisions. But in the end, we just have to wonder about this desire to change a fundamental feature of the core product that created the franchise. It's about the coffee, right?

Power Law Statistics for Products

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

A recent column by Steven Strogatz in the New York Times titled " Math and the City " has rekindled interest and debate about the surprising applications of Zipf's Law . Zipf's Law , named for the Harvard Linguist, George Kingsley Zipf , was originally derived as an explanation of the frequency of occurrence of words in the English language. Zipf observed that the most common word ( the ) is used twice as much as the second most common word ( of ), three times as often as the third ( and ), and so on. Interestingly, this pattern holds true for words in all human languages. In mathematical terminology this is called a power-law statistic, and the most surprising thing is that this pattern has been found to hold true for many different natural and social phenomena. For example, seemingly random statistics like cities ranked by population, individuals ranked by wealth, earthquakes by strength, web sites by popularity, books by online sales, all fit the pattern identified by Zipf.

Fascinating. But what's that got to do with product management? Here's the notion: maybe Zipf's Law can also be applied to the relative success of products in the marketplace - for example, how market share is bound to be distributed. The most popular product has twice the share of the next most popular, three times the share of the third, etc. And maybe that's a factor that should be taken into account during product planning. As in, if you already have twice the share of your closest competitor, can you realistically expect to gain any additional share? Or, if you are third in the market, does it constrain where you need to set your goals in terms of realigning the entire market (vs. just thinking about your own revenue growth)?

Another way to think about applying Zipf's Law may be to the allocation of development resources. We know that this is one of the more challenging problems in product development: with a given pool of resources - what is the best way to allocate people and funding across multiple initiatives? Since there is no proven method for optimizing the mix, why not let Zipf show the way? The most important (largest opportunity) should get twice the resources of the second most important, and three times the allocation of the third. Why? Because it's the law.

Homework and Requirements Management

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

By day we work on product management issues - helping companies develop better products, by night - we help kids with homework. Usually those are two different worlds, but sometimes they overlap in surprising ways.

Enter Noodle Tools , a California company founded by a mother and son team with an exciting product called "NoodleBib." NoodleBib is described as "the leading bibliography software on the Internet" and its original intent appears to have been to support the automation of complete, conformant and accurate bibliographic citations. It has become a popular tool for helping students implement a process for writing research papers. In this vein - it is described as "powerful note-taking software that promotes critical thinking and creativity." And it truly is a great product for getting students to capture information from a variety of references, while at the same time keeping track of all the ideas, snippets, and relationships back to original sources. The online tool, based on a notecard metaphor, allows scraps of information to be arranged, and rearranged as the students ideas evolve into a coherent form.

Hmmmmmm. I wonder if anyone's noticed that this sounds like exactly what's needed by product development teams as they elicit, refine and create structured documentation for product requirements: A tool for organizing and keeping track of random bits of information that may originate from a variety of sources. Even the notecard metaphor lines up nicely with the concepts used in "Agile storyboards". We haven't thought of it before, but maybe writing research papers (with detailed footnotes and bibliographies) is a relevant training ground for up and coming product managers. So for all the students out there - you just may be getting some practical skills out of those homework assignments that have been keeping you up all night. And hopefully that's a thought that will put a smile on the face of many an English teacher.

Why Can't a Robot Move Like a Caterpillar?

Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

You never know where great ideas are going to come from, and last month's meeting of Northeastern University's Entretech Forum provided a great example. Amongst presentations about various conventional robots (is that a new oxymoron - "conventional robots?") from firms like Hocoma , Foster-Miller and others, a voice comes along with an entirely different point of view. Barry A. Trimmer, Ph.D. and Professor of Biology at Tufts University - asks a very simple question, "why can't a robot move like a caterpillar?" Many of the challenges for robots in their ability to move around corners, up and down stairs, and generally over and around obstacles stem from the fact that they have been designed to move like people or cars, using legs or wheels. But with the clarity that's only available to someone with a little bit of distance from the problem, and expertise in an entirely different subject matter, Professor Trimmer points out that the majority of our knowledge about movement is based on creatures that walk, fly or swim using rigid articulated bones and exoskeletons. And those systems of rigid structures and joints present limitations in terms of three-dimensional movement, especially in confined or irregular spaces. With a soft-body, joints do not restrict movements. Such animals can crumple, compress and rotate body parts with virtually unlimited freedom. As a biologist, Professor Trimmer studies these creatures, and the neural systems that allow them to control movement - a subject he calls, "neural processes that organize sensory and motor information."

The interesting inspiration however, was to apply this field of biology to the engineering challenges inherent to robotics - and create the multi-disciplinary field of neuromechanics, and to launch a new research group called the Tufts Biomimetic Devices Laboratory. The lab's overall goal is to develop devices based on the highly adaptive mechanisms of animal movement, through interdisciplinary projects combining faculty from Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science/Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Psychology and Math. Now that's a cross-functional team!

There's a lesson in here that's not just about robots, but applies to product development, innovation and the search for creative solutions. Our conventional instincts are to dig deeper and deeper into a subject to acquire "domain expertise", consulting experts with deep, but narrow fields of vision. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is go outside your obvious frame of reference. Get a new perspective through consultation and interaction with an entirely different group of people. Are you searching for creative solutions and fresh ideas? Have you tried hiring smart people from different industries? Do you only read about new ideas and technologies from within your own industry? Sometimes the worst thing you can do is to spend your time locked in a single point of view - with trade journals and analyst reports that all reinforce a common set of assumptions. There's an old joke about scientists who study a single problem, learning more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing. Is that happening to you?

Would Anyone Like to Sell a Car Around Here?

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Note to the auto industry: I know you're all fascinated with your latest products, styles and technologies. But have any of you visited a car dealer recently and tried to buy a car?

We've heard that since corporate jets are now considered bad form, some of you are actually driving your own cars. The interesting thing is that maybe the cars (the products) aren't the industry's biggest problem. The problem may be your "point-of-delivery" - the dealership. SUVs may not get great gas mileage, but at least some customers are devoted to them. I don't think you can say that about your dealerships. According to a recent Gallup poll , car dealers rank just about last in terms of expectations of honesty and ethics (below Congressmen and Advertising execs, but just ahead of lobbyists).

Over the past month we've had the opportunity to spend some time visiting a batch of our local car dealers because we really wanted to buy a new car. Unfortunately (for the car industry) - the dealers turned us off so much that we ended up finding a cheap used car that was just enough to get by with. And that is really what happened; a better sales channel would have sold a new car.

Now, you would think that 2009 is a great time to buy a new car and that the dealers might be excited to see a live customer walk into their store. Not so. We ran into one salesman on his smoking break standing outside the door - literally blocking the door. He actually said we shouldn't come in because it was only 15 minutes to closing (Chrysler).

At another location, we walked in and spent 30 minutes checking out the cars, opening and closing doors, studying the window stickers and waiting for one of the fellows to get out of his chair to talk about the product. We left without any interaction with the sales staff (Ford).

Another dealer had no interest in giving out information. He had no answers to questions about price or options or availability. Just "let me know when you're ready to buy" (Volvo).

We've seen both ends of the spectrum in terms of follow-up; hounded with a daily phone call and email (Nissan), and forgotten about by the rep who collected all of our information but hasn't been heard from since (Acura). And just to finish off the neighborhood, there was nothing good to report at Mazda or VW.

So - with all the investment and effort going into quality and reliability of the product - can somebody take a look at the distribution channel? Plenty of companies have recognized that the complete customer experience - from shopping and buying through using and maintaining - is a critical feature of the product. So while we're investing billions to re-invent the automobile let's be sure to think about adding value to how cars get delivered to consumers.

It's a Thin Line Between Love and Hate

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Sometimes you run into a product that you really want to love. But just like the real thing - when you fall in love too quickly, you're often headed for sudden disappointment. These are products that are emotionally satisfying with "delighter" features that may be so innovative they change your perspective and get you excited about something you thought was boring.

Enter the Contigo Auto-Seal Vacuum Mug .

The first thing you notice is that it's beautiful. Maybe too beautiful. So beautiful you start to worry it may not be practical. But you go ahead and pick it up anyway (pardon the pun). The ergonomics are outstanding. The combination of shape and materials provides a grip that is just perfect. The price? Not bad. About the same as those regular old insulated mugs.

Now you're drawn to the detailed information. This thing has "innovative technology!" The patented "autoseal" and "vacuum seal." This baby will not leak - you can throw it into your briefcase or pocketbook or backpack and not worry about a thing. And - it will keep your coffee hot for hours. We are in love. It's not enough to just buy one. I'll take 2!

One day later the honeymoon is over. Everything is still true. This is still the most beautiful, most technologically advanced travel mug we've ever seen. There's just one problem. You cannot drink hot coffee from it. It turns out that sipping piping hot coffee is not the same as sucking water from a sports bottle. The designers of this mug must not be coffee sippers. Or maybe they've scalded themselves so many times they have lost their sensitivity to heat. The sealing mechanism on this mug is so good, that in order to get any beverage out - it needs to be opened and inverted. So you can pour out the hot drink very cleanly. But unless that's how you drink your coffee - this product is not usable. What a shame.

Another example of inverting the Kano model - the theory relating product attributes and customer satisfaction criteria developed by Professor Noriaki Kano . Our simplified form uses the categories of assumed, expected and delighter to describe product attributes. Typically product developers focus on the "assumed" category, because without those the product is unusable (absence of those features are unsatisfactory). Innovators tend to focus on the "delighter" category - where new features can have great impact on satisfaction. Unfortunately, you need all three categories to achieve the status of "great product." We consider "being able to drink without burning or spilling" to be one of the assumed features of a travel mug.

Nice try though.

The power to explain complex subjects

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

One of the most important roles within product management is to act as the intermediary across multiple disciplines. And that means being able to participate in conversations and re-tell stories across different languages. When it comes to communicating with the executive team, you're forced to pare things down to a sound bite if you want to get anyone's attention. Get it right, and you have given yourself some control of the situation (O.K. - not control, but at least some influence). Get it wrong, and bad decisions get made, money is wasted, and opportunities are lost.

We were reminded of the power of a great explanation by a recent segment on National Public Radio's This America Life . The weekly hour-long radio program was once described as " hipster know-it-alls who talk about how fascinating ordinary people are." But they recently took on the task of explaining how banks go bad in very simple terms. The episode, originally broadcast on Feb 27, 2009 is available as a Podcast. The show does such a good job that it entered the conversation at the Senate Finance Committee hearings where Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner was giving an overview of President Obama's 2010 budget.

The fact that these National leaders, who are making the most enormous decisions about the economy, all listened to a radio show explaining the situation, tells you something about influence and impact. So if your trying to influence decisions, and all you have is your "knowledge power" and very little "position power" - figure out how to explain the situation in a way that sets the table. No easy task by any means, but a great skill to develop, and incredibly powerful when you get it right.

Keep the Process Simple

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The New England Journal of Medicine recently published a study about surgical safety, showing that a simple 19-step checklist helped reduce complications and death associated with surgery. Whoa! What about all the multi-million dollar diagnostic equipment? And $300 "hospital grade" electrical outlets? Apparently those are not so clearly correlated with positive outcomes. It turns out that the lowly checklist is highly effective as a tool for improving teamwork, communications and consistency of delivery.

So what does this have to do with product development? Well, product development is a notoriously unpredictable process, with a less than stellar survival rate - less than 50% of products in development make their way to commercial success. Product development is also rife with complicated methodologies and collaboration tools that are nice for filling binders and boosting the corporate bureaucracy, but not clearly correlated with positive outcomes. Our mantra has always been - it doesn't matter what your process is, just have one. And even more importantly, keep the process simple and consistent enough so that people actually follow it. Most of the development processes we run into are so complex that the really successful product teams are those skilled at avoiding the process (a.k.a. "flying under the radar"). Strict adherence to a complex process will inevitably get in the way and frustrate the enthusiasm of product champions. Most surgeons will tell you, what they do cannot be reduced to a simple formula, and every product manager with an ego will tell you the same thing. However, what surgery and product development have in common is that they are both team sports, highly dependent on multiple individuals pulling toward a common goal. So having the list/playbook at hand surely helps. Remember - the process does not substitute for judgement and intuition about the right thing to do. Process may however, provide the brakes and safety valves that can save you before things go very wrong.

Before you spend the next year defining the ultimate product development process, take a moment and start with a one-page checklist. You may be surprised at the impact on your product mortality rate.

Why don't we build software the way we build houses?

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Why don't we build software the way we build houses? It's starting to feel like Agile and Rapid Prototyping have become excuses for not doing any design, let alone systems architecture and engineering. You wouldn't expect to use rapid prototyping for your house, would you? You might employ an architect - a.k.a. "someone who knows what they are doing" - to understand your requirements, translate them into a design and work with some structural experts (engineers) to ultimately produce a set of plans and specifications. Those plans would include sketches, elevations, schematics and a bill of materials which would be a blueprint for the homeowner on what to expect and a recipe for the builder on how to proceed. While it's not strictly a one-way process (there's room for collaboration and redesign along the way), there does need to be that foundation of design and specification. Where is the engineering process in software development these days?

Product Management and the NFL

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The end of the year also marks the end of the NFL regular season, and with that comes the annual purging and rearrangement of head coaches. And seeing as professional football is America's great metaphor for all situations, it gives us pause to consider the management implications. Of course as we're based in Boston, we'll acknowledge the built-in bias about our local team's recent success. That said, it's interesting to question the logic that causes teams to discard coaches (managers) based on their team's performance against the competition (out in the marketplace).

Football, like product development, is truly a team sport. It takes a special combination of people working together (on and off the field), a lot of preparation, ongoing adjustments, and more than most people would like to admit - a healthy dose of luck and good timing. There is also an important difference between organizations that favor a short-term focus on current results (making the playoffs now!) vs. those that are building a sustainable model for ongoing and repeated success (get the process right and the results will follow). In the business world, some would call this the difference between good and great.

So - did the Jet's make the right moves this year? They were on their way toward building a new program with a young coach. New facilities, new players hand-picked to fit the coach's system and philosophy - which emphasized team effort over individual results (O.K. - we'll call it a copy of the Patriots playbook - but that's fair, it worked here why shouldn't it work there). But then - just as the year was about to start, management got excited about getting their hands on a new star (this one was called Favre, but in other cases we've heard this character called "the guy who did blah, blah, blah back in wherever). Great story, very exciting, everyone feels great. The old guy? The teammate we built our system around? We don't need him anymore. Fine.

Now the results are in. The Jets did not accomplish their goals. And you can't say they didn't have talented players. The coach is gone, the core philosophy is gone, and they're left with their aging star. Time to start over? Meanwhile, here in New England - management's reaction to short term challenges (like torn ligaments, torn quadriceps and broken arms) was to stay within the system. Everyone stayed with the playbook, adjustments were made to account for personnel changes - but the core philosophy stayed the same. Their results this year were equivalent to the Jets, yet somehow they appear to have exceeded expectations and remain at the top of their game.

So it's interesting to think about the product development process. While it's unlikely that every product (season) will be a great success (win the Super Bowl), it takes commitment to an approach that the entire team (from receptionist to CEO, or ball boy to GM) buys into - in order to build a track record that consistently beats the competition over multiple seasons. But though the logic is obvious, too often we see managers abandon their process for the sake of this one important project, or fall into the "heroic effort" trap that neglects the need for a complete team.

Apologies to those of you who could care less about football.

Weather or not to rely on the forecast

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Has anyone else noticed that the weather forecasts are getting better? Here in Boston, we've had a series of accurately predicted storms this winter. And thanks to that, people are starting to depend on the forecast and adjust their plans in advance of the weather. Way to go National Weather Service!

Can you say the same about market forecasters? Science and modeling techniques drive the weather forecasting process, real reasons that explain why it's been getting more accurate over time. Since the weather happens every day, we also experience first-hand whether or not the forecaster was right.

But who's checking on the market forecasters and why do so many people tie their elaborate product plans and investment decisions to high level market forecasts found in the most recent report published by their favorite research shop? Of course, people love to have "the numbers" to support their plans, and the forecasts supply that. Yet, we've always been skeptical about those numbers. It's one thing to accept them as one input among many, into your own construct of the market and trends, but we see too many people believing that a forecast as an actual prediction of the future.

Must software products get worse over time?

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Do software products need to get worse over time? Have we stumbled upon a new law of physics?

What drives the compelling need to make things more and more complicated until nothing works as well as it used to. People are always surprised that "well executed but simple" is often what wins in the marketplace. The Palm Pilot, Google, and the iPod were all great because they were simple and obvious. Unfortunately, most vendors take a successful product and start adding bloat just for the sake of adding. Take Outlook for example. Blackberry's are becoming the preferred email client now because its so much quicker to check your messages there than waiting the 5 minutes for Outlook to get itself started. Are Google and Apple starting to add bloat? What happened to my simple Google? It's nice to have maps and news and gmail and video and images - but that's not why we fell in love with Google.

We have all these great software tools at our disposal, but since no one really reads the manual (or even considers taking a course) we don't know how to use them. So what's the point? You can still purchase a PC from Dell with Windows XP pre-loaded - but it costs an extra $100 to have that older operating system? What is the significance of that? Maybe the market is telling us that the older, simpler software is worth more than the new, bloated versions.

Getting Started

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Finally after years of ignoring popular demand, the MIDIOR blog has arrived. Why a blog you may ask? Why now? Good questions.

First of all, it's the beginning of a new year and the turning of the calendar seems like a good time to start new things. So that's your answer to "why now."

"Why a blog" deserves more of an answer. At MIDIOR , our goal is to advance the profession and discipline of product management and product development. And to that end, we find ourselves constantly coming across what we call "teachable moments" - everyday examples of things gone right and things gone wrong in the wonderful world of products and services. As those of you who know us can attest, we view pretty much everything as a product (a bus ride, a speech, a football season, a cookie). Because we think that way, we frequently pause to ponder "how did it get that way?" What were the steps by which that product was conceived, planned, developed and delivered? Why did it come out that way? Was it by design? Or serendipity? Here, in The Product Line, you'll find our commentary and observations ranging from a fascination with Dippin' Dots, to the feature/function requirements of a great meal, to riffs on the teamwork and skills required for film making vs. software development.

We invite you to check back with us on a regular basis. We'll keep it topical, brief, and, if you promise not to be offended, even entertaining. Feel free to post a comment or two if you're so compelled. We'd love to hear what you think.