July 16, 2020//Nils Marchand
Last Updated: October 29, 2021I consider myself a “do it yourselfer”, or a DIYer. Not a particularly good one, but I have access to YouTube, knowledgeable friends who are a great sounding board, and a willingness to learn new things. Because of the projects I choose to DIY, if I screw something up, there is a limited downside. That’s not always the case in a business context – our decisions have a real impact on the bottom line, our employees, customers, and their data!
One of the projects I decided to try and DIY was replacing the rear-camera on my Chevy Tahoe.
I went through a process when deciding if this is something I should tackle myself or leave to a professional. Questions like:
The questions continued in my head for quite some time, trying to figure out what the best path forward was.
As I went through all the open questions in my head, I realized through that process, the way that I decide to manage a project myself or hire a professional has parallels to the process that my team uncovers when they’re talking to our prospective customers about their own “rear-view mirror” problems. I wanted to see if there were actually similarities.
We gathered the team together virtually over a few refreshments and talked about the best questions that prospects asked us during their evaluation. We looked for themes.
I’ve put the intent of the questions into five big buckets centered around 5 W’s and a bit of color commentary. My hope is that as you are going through your own evaluation process and determining what kind of help you might need (or if you even need it at all) that this might spark ideas for you to consider. The list of actual questions that you’re likely to ask is much longer, but I can’t imagine many people would be interested in reading all of that from me.
So, when my wife asks me what I’m working on, I know that if I have my 5 W’s buttoned-up she’ll give me a thumbs up and wish me luck. Perhaps it’ll be the same when you make a case to your CFO for the investment in a particular project that you’re passionate about seeing implemented within your organization. Oh, and yes, in this particular situation, I managed to fix the camera!
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