Podcast page for the episode: 1: Boundaries and the 6 Stages
Myron
He’s Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy
And he’s Myron Weber. And this is the Mental Supermodel’s podcast.
Myron
This is the podcast that explores the theory and practice, art and science of mental modeling. And here on episode one, we are going to talk about the big picture. But before I get into that, let me just clarify. This is episode one, but it’s not our first episode. We recorded an introductory episode that we have called Episode zero. You can find that at mentalsupermodels.com/0 if you haven’t heard it. Of course, you can subscribe and get that now. I like that we called it episode zero because number one, it’s our introduction. But of course, Jeremy, you know, I’m a programmer and programmers, many of us like zero based arrays, things that start at zero instead of starting at one. So just warms my heart a little bit.
Jeremy
Of course it does.
Myron
So anyway, as I said in episode one, we are going to talk about the big picture. And what I mean by that is we’re going to look at using mental modeling techniques to understand an overall process. So when you have a big picture overall process, how do you begin to model and understand that? And this is going to be an application of a technique that we talked about in episode zero. And of course, Jeremy, you can remind the folks of what that is.
Jeremy
We talked all about distinctions.
Myron
Making distinctions. Yeah. So we’re going to apply that in this episode, walking through some real world things that Jeremy has developed over years of how to break a big process down into steps. And then we’re actually going to do a series of episodes about this. But today we’re going to start off looking, how do you understand the big picture? And specifically, then we’re going to extend the technique of making distinctions into a more refined technique of defining boundaries.
Jeremy
Yeah, and when you say big picture and you talk about big processes and breaking processes down, are we also talking about strategic business decisions and entire transformation programs? Anything that’s a big picture like that?
Myron
I think certainly my answer would be yes, but I think it could be big things or small things. But where it’s an overall process and you’re going to break it down into smaller steps. I think if there’s a sort of a problem that requires one step to solve the problem, then you don’t really need to draw boundaries. But if it’s a multi-step process, whether that’s big picture, multi-year strategic initiatives or smaller, or more concise programs or projects. And then require making distinctions and defining those boundaries among and between the steps.
Jeremy
Well, given that, can I take you on a little journey here of a story I have?
Myron
Love to. Take me out of this studio.
Jeremy
So this is an ideal story. And we all know that beginnings are inspirational. Every year business leaders come together to define their annual goals that are supposed to move the company forward. The new strategic priorities are sent to everybody throughout the company hoping that everybody’s going to come together and focus their efforts on achieving these targets. They spend a lot of time on it. They basically want to send it out and hope everybody works on them. It’s a very motivational and inspiring time. Then you have senior managers that are going to say, OK, what can we do to to help? So they start outlining business cases. They’ll talk to their teams and come away with a bunch of ideas like problems to solve risks to address, innovative opportunities to consider. And they’re going to outline these business cases. And then they’re going to say, OK, which of these business cases 1) directly support the executive’s priorities and 2) which ones can we most reasonably and realistically handle? They’re going to evaluate and prioritize all of those and lay them out on a road map. And then some people are going to get some assignments handed down to them to go execute on these ideas. And as they’re working through projects and problems and keeping things moving forward, they’re going to take the time periodically to validate that what they’re doing is still in line with the expectations laid out in the business cases. Then they deliver. But the questions are, did it meet expectations? Did it move the needle? Are executives happy? Executives at this point are going to want to measure what was done against their big goals that they set to see if their dreams have been realized. And in an ideal world, this is the flow of strategy meeting execution.
Myron
Yeah, I think it’s important to emphasize that this is an ideal world. And in saying that, maybe I would interpret that a couple of ways. One is it’s ideal in a certain sense that companies would even have a systematic process for setting strategy and walking through steps to achieve that, number one. And number two, even if they’re trying to follow a process, as you just outlined, there are lots of roadblocks, lots of hazards, lots of things that can derail them before they get all the way through to that end state that you just described.
Jeremy
And a lot of people for years have been trying to find a magic framework or methodology to guide them through this flow. Because a lot of things can go wrong. And Myron, you’ve talked about this a lot, and I would love to hear your thoughts about applying boundaries as a mental model technique to improve the probability of success as we navigate through these.
Myron
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, again, applying the technique of making distinctions and getting a little more refined in how we make distinctions to say, OK, we have a process here. This process of going from strategy to execution to completion and success and pop the cork and everybody celebrate. Right? Well, we want to increase our likelihood of success in walking through this process by breaking it down into steps and in order to break it down into steps, we we need to draw some boundaries between the different parts. And so how do we do that? How do we, in a logical way, separate an overall process into the stages or the steps? Now, I want to emphasize one thing, which is as we talk about breaking a process down and drawing those boundaries, pretty much everything we talk about on this process is human systems. Right? We’re not talking about mechanical systems or biological systems that are naturally occurring. Many of the same principles would apply, but there would be distinctions. So I just want to make sure that it’s clear that we’re talking about how to apply mental models to the functioning of human systems.
Jeremy
And so in order to do that, the boundaries of each of these steps, we think about the overall process that you just outlined of getting from a strategic objective all the way through to declaring success. That has a purpose. But then there are some constraints that are hindering that purpose, and we know there are constraints, because if there weren’t, then the purpose would have already been achieved. So then you perform certain activities and you get certain outputs. So that four part definition of a process is actually what we want to use to break the overall process down and draw those boundaries and make those distinctions to create the various defined stages. So each stage that we want to draw a boundary around should have a defined purpose, constraints, activities and outputs. And let me just say it one more time in case folks are walking, driving, whatever. Purpose, constraints, activities and outputs are the four components of one of these human system processes or stages of the process. So as someone draws their boundaries around the various stages, they have to assure that each stage has a clearly defined purpose, constraints, activities and outputs. And if you can’t define that, then maybe you’ve drawn your boundary incorrectly. And so if two of your stages have the same purpose, maybe they should be the same stage. If your stage has too many activities, maybe that should be broken down into multiple stages. Now, I don’t want to dogmatically say each stage should have only one activity because that’s almost certainly not the case. But if it has too many, then it should be broken down. So you’re going to walk us through the case study here or the model as applied. And so we’ll see how that works in practice.
Jeremy
And one thing that I that I want to come back to is that we’re talking about boundaries. And it sounds simple to say apply boundaries, but one thing that we’re addressing with this podcast is the art and the science and the psychology of making these concepts practical. So we don’t want to just say go set boundaries. Because the question is going to be, where does my boundary start and stop? And that’s why it’s important when you talk about purpose, constraints, activities and outputs, that’s a formula that helps define the beginning and the ending of a boundary. So when you’re just trying to say, well, what does that even mean to to set a boundary? Where’s the stop and start? Well, take this formula of purpose, constraints, activities and outputs. And if you can use this formula to define a beginning and an ending, then you’re setting your boundaries. That’s kind of the process, the technique to set a boundary. Is that right? That’s kind of the way that I see it, the way that I use it.
Myron
I totally agree with that. And I think it’ll probably become even clearer as you walk us through your mental model and demonstrate how you use the technique of drawing boundaries.
Jeremy
Yeah. You know, in that strategy to execution journey that we walked through earlier, we can incorporate some boundaries that we can use to manage the overall complexity of it. So, let’s imagine six boundaries. And we’ll call them Discover, Map, Prioritize, Manage, Validate, and Measure.
Myron
Let me make sure I got this. Discover, Map, Prioritize, Manage, Validate and Measure.
Jeremy
That’s right. And within those six boundaries, we can apply that formula of purpose, constraints, activities and outputs to set the boundary and link us from one boundary to the next.
Myron
So the output of one stage becomes the input to the next stage.
Jeremy
And that’s how we can link them together. So it’s a linear journey that we’ll apply this to. So if we apply these six boundaries to the strategy to execution story that we walked through and we look at Discover, our first boundary. That’s executives putting their strategic goals together. And then Map. Senior leaders and their teams defining the business cases that directly link to those strategic goals.
Myron
So I know we’re not digging into the details of each of these stages today because those are going to be future episodes. But I just want to reinforce the point that in each of these stages, there is a purpose, there are constraints, there are activities, and there are outputs of each of these stages.
Jeremy
Yeah. That’s driving us through it, helping us get through roadblocks and hazards. So once we get through the Discover and the Map stage, then we move to Prioritize. And that’s where we identified in the story where we are identifying the appropriate balance of effort and value for each of the business cases. And then aligning those along a road map. So that’s where we’re Prioritizing our business cases that we defined in the Map stage. And then we have to Manage. So once we have our road map, we want to break those business cases down into projects and work them using common project management methodologies. But that in itself is a boundary that we call Manage and then Validate. Periodically, as we’re working the projects periodically, making sure that each of those projects still directly supports its business case. So here we have the boundary of Validating, but we’re still linking back to the prior stage. And then Measure. We end it with Measure. Realizing the executive’s dreams by confirming that the value that was delivered is achieving what they wanted. So that is a boundary itself that we call Measure. And ultimately, that’s where strategy meets execution.
Myron
Excellent. So, as I said earlier, we’re going to get into each of these individual stages in future episodes, but I also want to reinforce the point that this is not just theory. We talk about the theory and practice the art and science of mental modeling. This is a model that you have worked out and used in practical experience in companies that you have consulted with, advised, worked for in various capacities.
Jeremy
Yeah, because one issue that I come across, and the reason that I defined this, was a lot of times companies will skip stages. They’ll go from Discover, which is defining all of these great goals, and then it’ll just kind of blindly be handed off to someone to go start creating projects. And then they just start managing projects. And then at the end of nine or 12 months, the executives are saying, well, what’s going on with my goal? Have we achieved it? Is it complete? And people will have spent several months working on a project only to find out that it wasn’t the most important thing they should have been working on. Or it doesn’t even support what the expectations were. So, people and companies will skip around. So that’s why I think it’s important to set this as a framework, but even more importantly, because there are a lot of frameworks out there, but even more importantly is the mental process. The thought process of actually moving. How do you move from one stage to the next? And that’s why I think the concept, the technique of boundaries, and the formula of the purpose, constraints, activities and outputs. Using those techniques just helps you think about how you’re moving from one boundary to the next.
Myron
Yeah. And I want to emphasize that point as well. When you listed the six stages earlier, of course, I was able to repeat those back to you. Discover, Map, Prioritize, Manage, Validate and Measure. Because I have read the article that you wrote about this. And are we going to link to that?
Jeremy
Yeah, we’ll definitely put that link on our show notes.
Myron
All right. So mentalsupermodels.com/1 is the episode page. And we will have the link to to Jeremy’s article there. And so then I want to also emphasize that this is a model. It’s a form of a mental model. A framework that you can apply in your business and improve your ability to move from strategy to execution. So that’s one thing we want to have as a takeaway. But the other thing we want to have as a takeaway is the technique of drawing boundaries to break a large process within a human system down into stages or steps or sub-processes. Each of which has a purpose, constraints, activities and outputs. And you can take this and apply this in your life this week. Today, go find processes that need clearer definition and think about how you break it into those stages.
Jeremy
Yeah, excellent. And to the listeners, you can read the show notes, you can learn more about us. Myron Weber and Jeremy Thomas at mentalsupermodels.com. And this episode is mentalsupermodels.com/1.
Myron
And I just want to close by saying that mental modeling is simply the discipline of seeking to understand systems in a structured way. So that when you act with intention, you increase the likelihood of achieving your desired outcome. And that’s why mental models matter and why the world needs more mental supermodels. So check out the episode and we will talk to you next time.
