Drill is about mining the real knowledge and understanding that exists within your organisation. Too often, a big picture understanding of a particular issue, challenge or opportunity doesn’t exist within the organisation. Different data, information and ideas exist within different parts of the business. There is a temptation to make decisions based on assumption. Drill thinking is the opposite of assumption; it is about taking a fresh perspective, challenging what people currently believe, being clear about the difference between fact and myth within the organisation.
The Drill approach is systematic and structured, taking each aspect of the knowledge area and interrogating it to split fact from fiction. It involves an internal investigation – conducted by a specially created team – of the knowledge area, and group-work designed to create a ‘map’ that explains what’s really going on.
For example, we’ve recently created knowledge maps on:
- The customer experience – an end-to-end map created across business functions which explains what the customer experiences at each stage of their journey, and where the gaps and mismatches in delivery are. This formed the basis of an innovation project designed to fill the gaps and match customer expectations in an enhanced experience that surprises and delights but actually costs less to deliver.
- Customer churn – a key problem for the business largely misunderstood, as it is measured in different ways by different parts of the business and reported on separately. A Drill exercise identified a major assumption mismatch within the business: a sales team selling on the basis of low-price, a technical team developing products on the basis of rich features and a customer support and account management team providing a bespoke ‘high-end’ service.
- A market opportunity – for a potential proposition, where the Drill exercise identified a working assumption of a high level of Internet penetration where this does not exist. The entire innovation changed shape from that point on, looking to commercialise a multi-media relationship that existed in reality.