Business Diagrams
MOIST
What?
What is the brief? How are you going to tackle it
When to use?
Any marketing situation when you need to start, or check you are doing the right thing
A big shout to Leonie Maquire who taught me this a long time ago.
4xPs of Marketing
What?
Have you got the right thing to sell?
When to use?
At the start of thinking about how to sell a product or even make one in the first place.
Think holistically on the problem.
SWOT Analysis
What?
What are you good at?
When to use?
Business planning. Startups especially
Consequence Models
Consequence model #1
To do is often equivalent to not doing.
Consequence Models
Consequence model #2
What is the least worse decision?
What?
To do or not to do.
When to use?
When deciding to do a task ahead of signoff. To work out whether you need to make that investment or even back up system.
A really useful tip to work out when to start projects and how far to continue. Thank you to my old Geography teacher who taught these ones.
20/80 Model
Long Tail Model
What?
20% is your target, the rest is “long tail”
When to use?
In countless examples, from SEO, to bugs, to product sales, to influencers its always the 20% “mass” that really matter.
Decision Timeline
What?
The more a project goes on the more fine-grained the decisions are with regards to consequences
When to use?
Just keep in mind that your decisions have different impacts at key times. Sort of obvious but a model none the less.
People
What to do first?
What?
Do this now or later?
When to use?
Evaluate every task.
Parkinson’s Law
What?
If a task has 2 hours it will take 2 hours. If you have 2 weeks it will take 2 weeks.
When to use?
Planning and action. Shorter timelines are often better and more focused. Longer timelines end up being shorter as you put off the tasks. Short, sharp, focused but finite tasks work better. See also SPRINTS.
Curve of Learning
What?
At a point in time you are trained enough to be a [insert job title here]
When to use?
When learning new things.
In university we are aiming for somewhere between the end of year 2 and 3. Some students are ready for the big wide world before others.
Leadership Curve
What?
As your students and employees progress, treat them differently.
When to use?
When thinking about tasks and delegation plus what your people need.
Choice vs happiness paradox
Monkeys and Bananas
What?
Especially in UX design any choice, even if just two buttons or items slows you down.
When to use?
Especially when creating a walkthrough or flow, like a booking engine or shop. Make choices for the user for them to confirm, or highlight a recommended choice.
The Gift Matrix
Four Columns
What?
Family, Work, Health, Friends.
How much effort are you putting into each?
How are they doing? How is your balance?
When to use?
When judging your life, when seeking what is important and most of all when someone asks “How are you?”
I thank David Gross for this one. I use this most weeks.
Image is from Wikipedia
References & More
Most of the diagrams above come from The Decision Book – I urge you to buy it.
It should also go without saying anything from the Information is Beautiful team led by David McCandless.
