Among the many challenges in the product development and management world is getting a new product through an organization's functional silos and out the door. This presentation explores the challenges and the benefits of using a new process, social orienteering (tm), to steer products more rapidly and successfully to market.

1. FORGET
THE ORG CHART
TO DO SOMETHING NEW
IT’S THE NETWORK THAT MATTERS

3. ALBERT EINSTEIN
PHYSICIST PHILOSOPHER PATENT CLERK
No problem can be solved from
the same level of consciousness
that created it.

4. Objectives
• Share some thought starters on the challenges
of navigating organizations
• Explore the value of relationships
• Understanding the power of social networks
• Identify the social networks worth a damn
• Review goal-based network navigation
• Consider Social Orienteering™

5. BILL GATES
FOUNDER OF MICROSOFT &
THE BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION
(IN A CONVERSATION WITH WARREN BUFFETT)
It’s important to have someone who
you totally trust, who is totally
committed, who shares your vision,
and yet has a little bit different set
of skills and who also acts as
something of a check on you.

6. HOW DO YOU SEE YOUR WORLD?

7. HOW DO YOU SEE YOUR WORLD?

8. Like this?

9. Or this?

10. WHAT ARE YOU STRIVING FOR?

11. PUTTING OUT FIRES

12. OR LARGE-SCALE
FIRE-FIGHTING?

13. IS THIS YOUR M.O.?

14. OR THIS?

16. ANAÏS NIN
20TH CENTURY AUTHOR PHILOSOPHER
We don’t see the world the way it is.
We see the world the way we are.

17. NOT ALL
PATHS ARE
FRUITFUL

19. NOT ALL AUTHORITY
IS EFFECTIVE

21. RELATIONSHIPS
MATTER

22. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

23. RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT
MATTERS MORE

24. TRUST GROWS OVER TIME

26. GEORGE MACDONALD
AUTHOR, POET, PHILOSOPHER & MINISTER
To be trusted is a greater
compliment than being loved.

27. THE WORLD
IS NOT FLAT

28. THE PROBLEM

29. ORGANIZATION
CHART TYRANNY

30. ORGANIZATIONS
ARE NOT THEIR
CHARTS

31. PUTTING THE FUN
IN FUNCTION
OR IS THAT
DYSFUNCTION?

32. RETHINK
ORGANIZATIONS

35. ORIENTEERING

36. (SOCIAL) ORIENTEERING

37. ORGANIZATIONS HAVE
SOCIAL TOPOGRAPHY

38. & IT IS NOTHING
LIKE YOU EXPECT

39. BUT THROUGH IT YOU CAN
MORE EASILY GET THINGS DONE

40. A (THE) SOCIAL NETWORK

41. EXPERTS

42. YODA
20TH CENTURY FOX PHILOSOPHER JEDI
Do, or do not. There is no 'try'.

43. CONNECTORS

44. ROBERT KERRIGAN
AUTHOR
The way of the world is meeting
people through other people.

45. ADVOCATES

46. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
POET, LITERARY CRITIC & PHILOSOPHER
The first duty of a wise advocate is
to convince his opponents that he
understands their arguments, and
sympathizes with their just feelings.

47. Social Orienteering™
• Map the social network across the organization
• Identify the stakeholders involved in the design
problem (subject experts, advocates, connectors)
and assign those people to team members for
research
• Play out real (or imagined) engagement
scenarios to better relate to the needs of those
stakeholders and raise other issues
• This enables team members to “get inside the
head” of stakeholders and informs choices and
responses
Copyright © Primed Associates, LLC. 2010

48. A QUICK EXERCISE
• Choose product/service project you’re working on or have
worked on recently – write it down
• Write down the key subject matter expert *– the brains
behind the effort
• Write down the key advocate* – the person willing to
champion the effort
• Write down the key connector *– the person who always
knows who to turn to
• Do they know each other? If yes, how? If no, why not?
• How would your life be easier if they did know each other
and supported your efforts?
(*Note: If all three are you – you must be very, very tired)
Copyright © Primed Associates, LLC. 2010

49. HORACE
ROMAN LYRIC POET
By mutual confidence and mutual
aid - great deeds are done, and
great discoveries made

50. NARRATIONENGAGEMENT

51. INTERACTION

52. COMMUNITY

54. WHAT QUESTIONS
DO YOU HAVE?

55. Copyright © Primed Associates, LLC. 2010