At Finish Line PDS, our success is tied to our customers’ successes. Indeed, one of the most valuable services we offer IS success. By working with Finish Line PDS, our client businesses can greatly increase their likelihood of success.
In our daily doings, we all habitually speak about success at a micro level, e.g., success in writing software, or designing medical products, or doing market validation experiments, and so on.
But this entry is about macro success. What are those high-level things that increase the probability of success for the company overall?
- Clear Roles and Responsibilities
- Discipline
- Data-Driven
- Financial Acumen
- Mission Driven
Of course, while each of these is necessary, each company also must competently perform other industry- and company-specific activities to create success. But without these core competencies, the other elements are unlikely to be sufficient to create success in today’s highly competitive world.
Let’s take a deeper look at each one…
Clear Roles and Responsibilities: Without clearly defined roles, quality decisions will not be made, and/or they will not be made soon enough. Measuring success will be impossible without being able to hold each decision-maker accountable to the goals in their area of responsibility. ( Read our blog: Product Development and Company Culture)
Discipline: A disciplined company has a clear set of written processes, and they hold people accountable for following these processes. Without written processes, continuous improvement is simply not possible.
Data-Driven: Making decisions based on a whim or a guess sometimes may be necessary, but data-driven processes always win the day in the long run. Essentially, you cannot manage what you cannot measure, and management is only as good as your data.
Financial Acumen: Businesses that do not make a profit, or show a clear path to it, do not exist for long. Not knowing your key financial metrics and how your decisions affect those numbers is a common way to go bankrupt. Knowing your numbers “cold” is critical to obtaining funding, whether you’re a startup seeking investors or a project manager pitching senior management for scarce company resources. ( Request our free white paper: Four Golden Rules of Startup Success)
Mission Driven: Companies that resist the temptation to be everything to everyone or bounce from one area of focus to another are far more likely to be successful than those that don’t keep their focus on the mission. Knowing what NOT to do often is as important as knowing what to do. Having a clearly defined mission is essential to staying focused on the one thing you can be (or are) better at than anyone else in the world.
As you think through your ambitions for your new product, the product that will solve problems in a new and creative way, the product you’re going to pour your heart and soul into, don’t forget to think at the macro level. Don’t lose sight of the five core competencies because they likely will be the difference between success and failure.
If you’d like to have a conversation about your project, we’re all ears. Let’s schedule a short chat to see if Finish Line is a good fit for you and your mission.
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