Every company has a strategy. It is usually kept in thick binders, on a shelf. Out in the field, people still have to decide, every day, on the spot. Diane’s company has forty-three requests for AI pilots, and room for four.
What this film is
An illustrated reading of an article by Donald Sull and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, told in a deliberately flat, slightly weary voice. The narration is a pastiche written for this film; nothing is quoted from any novelist. Diane, her company, its forty-three pilots and its four rules are fiction. The method and the other examples come from the article.
Three steps
Set your objectives.
Find the bottleneck. The one decision where opportunities exceed your time, money or people. Keep it narrow.
Write a few simple rules for that decision. Concrete, written by the people who will use them, and changed when the bottleneck moves.
Sources
Donald Sull and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, “Simple Rules for a Complex World,” Harvard Business Review, September 2012.
IDEO, Skrill and Weima Maschinenbau are examples reported in the article.
The six and twenty-four jams study (Iyengar & Lepper) is cited in the article.
Music: “Soft Lounge Elevator Music”, ikoliks_aj, Pixabay (Pixabay Content License).