A7: STRATEGIC ISSUES*

...in an ISSUE RAISING session, some issues might not represent the actual underlying issue, and therefore you might want to dig deeper to understand what actually makes the stakeholders nervous.

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People may express concerns that sound like complaints while missing the actual strategic issues that cause these complaints. In a complex decision environment, doing so might lead to missing the right perceptive.

Therefore:

• Ask the team if the management can tackle the issue, and if the answer is yes, then put that issue in a separate list.
• However, if the answer is no, then dig deeper.

To Facilitate:

To dig deeper, try to ask "why" the stated issue is actually an issue until you find the underlying cause.

Here is an example conversation:

Stakeholder: "Lack of category understanding impedes the request for relevant information."

Facilitator: "Why is there a lack of category understanding?"

Stakeholder: "Converting raw, fragmented data into knowledge and cross-referencing with the customer prevents category understanding."

Facilitator: "Why can't you convert raw, fragmented data into knowledge?"

Stakeholder: "Highly fragmented, young industry inhibits deep category understanding."

In that case, we realize that the market size is the problem and there might not be a market to sell.

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