Three types of frameworks & how to build your own

0:00Frameworks. Consultants love them. You see them all around the business world. You've probably seen a framework if you've seen something like Maslow's pyramid, the BCG gross share matrix, codders, eight-step change process. Frameworks can be incredibly powerful, and I want to walk you through some different examples of frameworks. What I want you to take away from this is just to start generating different ideas. Frameworks are ways of onboarding, an external audience onto your message in an easier way. It's raising up the level of abstraction and saying, "Hey, here's something a shape or a way of structuring or laying out information that looks familiar to you."

0:42You can enter that and then onboard into my world as I take you deeper and tell you what it means. So here's some common frameworks here. We're going to talk about why you use them and run through some examples. So why to use these? Basically, it helps simplify large amounts of information into something that's more digestible. This is essentially what you're doing when you're moving up the pyramid to synthesize information. You're moving from super detailed to something at the highest level, which is accessible, but still understandable. Also, it's a way to bridge from the complex to the simple, and it's a way to quickly get buy-in from the audience.

1:25You show them something familiar, maybe a triangle shape. And they say, "Okay, that looks familiar and makes sense. I see where they're going, three big things. Take me deeper." I want to walk through some examples. Here's one from a freelance project I did. I defined a bunch of different categories. I created my own framework, basically a list here, like five different things. And then I used them to assess the client I was working on and compare them to a bunch of different competitors. So given that the categories were the same and I defined what the categories stood for, I was able to use that to assess the client I was working for against multiple different competitors. This one is a very common one, ease of implementation versus impact.

2:07This is if you're considering a bunch of different initiatives, you can start ranking them. How easy is it to implement and then what is the impact? Impact can often be something like revenue or cross-savings, chart them on a graph, upper right are the best ones. As you can see, that's a clear way of comparing a bunch of different things. And gives a group, this is great in a group, if you're trying to figure out what's most important. You can say, "Okay, do you agree with where we put this?" And you can have arguments around, "Okay, this should be lower, this should be higher." And then you really agree on what you want to move forward with. Another one, Pepsi, high level strategy, right?

2:49So this is like a big rectangle, a bunch of blocks, mission, vision, the Pepsi Co-Way. Very clear, very high level. It's a way of understanding the company with not a lot of words. And you can see below the Pepsi way, there's a bunch of specific initiatives. But their mission create more smiles with every sip and every bite. Vision, be the global leader in convenient foods and beverages by winning with purpose. And then the Pepsi Co-Way is built around these three themes, faster, stronger, better. Underneath those, you'll see that something like stronger has a lot of depth and nuance on it. So this framework is that higher level insight.

3:31Here's the big main insight. And then essentially, there's the pyramid structure below it, right? So each of these faster, stronger, better builds out into a lot of detail, specific initiatives and how it plays to different departments, roles, geographies. Another example, graphical, this is the industry life cycle curve. This is a very common one used in industry analysis. It shows trend over time and gives a name for each stage. Great for analysis or understanding a specific industry. This you're familiar with, I hope, is the pyramid principle, right?

4:13You're moving up, there's arrows and it's showing from bottom to the top. Top is kind of implied that most important. And there's the direction. This one mentioned earlier, the cotter eight step change process, right? Clear sequence, but there's also different colors showing there's these three distinct phases and that they build upon each other. So steps steps go one by one by one. And they build upon each other. So in your mind, you're thinking, okay, building coalitions comes after increasing urgency, but probably builds on the previous step. So there's many popular frameworks, things like process, pyramid, a house, square, two by two's lists.

4:58So I actually created a PDF for you and this should help you generate your own ideas. Ultimately, you want to come up with your own custom frameworks, but start with things like this. I also include some examples in the PDF and you can download that below here. Tips, Google for frameworks. So just Google, how do I show X, whatever you're trying to show? You might come up with better ideas for showing that information. You can also copy consulting firms. So if you're working in marketing, go see what the marketing practice is doing at BCG, Bane, McKinsey, other consulting firms. But typically, good places of starting are common shapes, lists of items that you break into a framework, like the first one I showed or two by two's, just the old graph or just the two axis graph.

5:46Best of luck. I'm excited to see what kind of frameworks you come up with. If you come up with anything really interesting, always feel free to send it to me, Paul@StrategyU.co. I'm always excited to see what people come up with.