Problem
Our client has done much BEFORE they Scan and will do much AFTER they Act. We must leverage our TOTAL involvement with our client to yield the greatest value from our “Three-Days-In-The-Life” experience. We are not a singular event, but take place within the context of an E&Y engagement and the larger workstream of the client.
Solution
Seek opportunities to partner and contract with the client and the sponsors that facilitate the planning process and create the best possible canvas on which to paint the required solution.
Client/Facilitator relationship - Go see their reality! Visit their location and breathe their air. You will learn much about their culture and context—their degree of decisiveness, business unit autonomy, how they regard themselves. Get a handle on what they perceive about their business and competitive climate. Consider their cultural milieu (American, French, Japanese, etc.)
Engagement team/Facilitator Relationship - We are both part of E&Y and delivering solutions to the client. We have a short and heated affair with the project, but the engagement team has is married to what is created in the DesignShop, for better or for worse.
These two relationships are put together through collaboration on the outcomes that must be generated and means to generate them, using the shared knowledge of all parties. The goal of the event is to create “meaningful experience within the context of the client’s reality!” Whatever gets produced in a DesignShop has to work after everyone returns. So the context in which the solution will operate is as important as the solution. This is a challenge for those who would implement a ‘best practice’ answer without regard to the client’s reality (the flip side of this is to generate a way to change the client’s reality to fit the solution, such as changing the aircraft certification laws to allow a Boeing 777 to operate over water with only two engines.)