Case Study – Defining success from multiple stakeholders

Below you will find an overview of a case where LeverSource was asked to create a single plan based on multiple stakeholder viewpoints.

Situation

A private consulting university start-up needing a vision

Complication

Defining success for a complicated topic like a university is difficult. Each stakeholder will have a different perspective. Simply providing a list of metrics won’t develop a shared concensus on what is important.

Approach

Sent a quick email to a cross section of the organization.  Each recipient was ask to provide possible nouns that complete the sentence: “This new university will be successful if <blank> increases/decreases/stabilizes” The group surfaced 27 unique suggestions.  Using the LeverSource method each suggestion was analyzed against all other suggestions resulting in 702 comparisons. This analysis yielded the following insights:

1. 11 of the 27 suggested metrics were isolated in nature
2. 9 suggested metics were in fact outcomes that could not be directly influenced but provided a starting point for an executive dashboard
3. 6 suggestions were high leverage metrics that had a multiplying effects that reinforced each other
4. 1 metric was strategic in defining success of the university

Leverage

The strategic suggested metric was “Decreasing the Time to Promotion.”  The basic assumption is a well performing university will better prepare consultants to hit the ground running.  So if it took 7 years to reach partnership before the university existed might that time be reduced to 6 years going forward?  Of course this reduction of time to promote also depends on 10 other metrics improving as well.

Feedback

This insightful definition led to deep conversations about the curriculum and the need to increase the number of case studies and level of business simulations needed.