How can you communicate the value of innovation to executives?

Full transcript

Intro

Ciara: I didn't go to business school. Nobody taught me how to come up with these metrics. There is no playbook.

Jay: Welcome to another episode of Facilitator's Q&A with Jay. These episodes are dedicated to helping to inspire facilitators, shape, and lead better conversations. In this episode, I'm talking with Ciara Peter.

Ciara has worked in both design and product throughout her career. And today she's the VP of Product Design at Gainsight. And in this episode Ciara and I are talking about better ways to communicate the value of innovation to busy executives.

So I asked her, what matters to executives? What metrics are they looking to see? What's the conversation need to be about? How do we handle pushback from them? Like, we've got plenty of ideas to work on already.

This topic is personally important to me because I feel like I spend too much time selling innovation and workshops, and sprints, as opposed to doing the work. And as facilitators working in the innovation space, we need team members, and stakeholders, and executives onboard with our ideas. That means we need to be able to pitch and share the work that we're hoping to do.

And so I was excited to invite Ciara in and learn from her about the success she's had designing these conversations.

Today’s question

Ciara: Well, if we all knew what mattered to every executive, I think our lives would be a lot easier.

It's very important to put it in their language as well. I think sometimes we use the word Design Sprint, we may wanna call it an Innovation Sprint. We may wanna call it a Labs Project. So think about what would really resonate with that audience, at least while we're trying to get this approved.

Jay: Yeah, and busy stakeholders, these executives, a lot of them tend to be driven by metrics because that's all they have time for. So what metrics matter to them?

Ciara: I didn't go to business school. Nobody taught me how to come up with these metrics. There is no playbook, so you don't have to be a business genius or love spreadsheets, or whatever to come up with these metrics. This is something that anyone can do. Do it at your level. If we do this five people for a week versus 25 people over the course of a quarter, I think we can get there faster. You're still making a point. And so don't be afraid if you're not from that serious business background to still be able to try to quantify what it is that you think you can achieve.

The metrics probably align to one of these things. So cost savings. Can this sprint help me to optimize my resources so that we can develop more efficiently or faster or whatever that kind of goal is?

Another metric might be, cost earnings. Really thinking about how do we accelerate the motion into that market? It's really saying, I know we wanna enter this market, and I think that if we do this sprint, we can know where to start within a week.

The final one that I would mention is skill-building. So not every executive is like, "Where's the dollars?" You know, they do want to kind of build new muscle within the organization. And so for that, another way to kind of approach this is we need a new way of learning. And we need a new way of working. By doing a couple of these sprints. I mean, I love it that the word sprint is an athletic word. It speaks to exercise. You're helping people to exercise these new skills so that they can think differently and come to innovative solutions faster.

Jay: But so like, what happens when they push back and they say, "What do we need to sprint for and innovation? Because we've got like a whole roadmap, a whole bucket of ideas."

Ciara: I love this quote. "Ideas are precious, but execution is everything." I have never worked at a company where there are not enough ideas. I think prioritization of ideas is one of the biggest things that come out of it. There are ideas coming from everywhere. From executives, customers, market. What are we gonna focus on right now? And on that same note, you may also fail. I mean, I think we've all worked in places where there's been some idea that's been lingering for two years. "We have to solve for this persona. We have to go into this market." And it's just a distraction. A lot of times that sprint can help you get to the answer of failing fast.

Jay: Yeah. Well in the end, isn't it really just learning how to design that conversation with the executive?

Ciara: Yeah, exactly. You can think of this as selling the idea of an innovation sprint, but if you're going to be successful as a designer, a PM, or anyone really selling innovation, you have to be able to pitch your ideas as well.

Jay: Wow, lots to chew on. Lots to think about. So big picture is really, I mean, starting almost where we ended the conversation. Know your audience, know who you're going to be presenting to, get them involved, try to get them to create with you, ask for a little bit of forgiveness, break it down with things light at first, and learn how to speak their language.

Thank you, Ciara. It's been great. I appreciate your time.

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