Envision a Compelling Future
What are we aiming for after all this work to select (and then roll out and adopt!) a new solution? It’s not sufficiently helpful just to say, “a new case management tool” or “a new commission management solution.” We want to paint a clear and compelling picture of the end state we’re seeking.
Since we’re trying to avoid solutioning with our requirements, it might be confusing to talk about the future state. Let me explain a bit. We’re aiming to envision future processes, capabilities, and insights with a better technology foundation. This includes the flip side of today’s pain points, and it includes things we currently can’t dream of accomplishing with today’s systems and processes.
Let’s take an example of reversing a pain point: rather than switching between applications to copy information from one system into another, we want this information to automatically flow from the new system into another. In our requirements, we’ll say something about automatic integrations with key systems, and list out specific technologies by priority.
In our future state vision, we’ll describe seamless handoffs, with minimal human involvement, between key systems. And we’ll go on to describe how this integration speeds up processing, prevents errors from manual entry, and opens up possibilities on who can support the specific workflow.
Envisioning net new capabilities takes a bit more facilitation and dreaming. I find that simply asking, “what’s your ideal future state?” elicits topics that fit better into the “flipping pain points” bucket. That makes sense, since the existing technologies and processes are acting as a reference point, anchoring our thinking in a certain place.
Having a productive discussion of truly net new capabilities often requires the facilitator to bring specific examples of futures we can inhabit and see how the selection team responds.
If you watch as many home renovation shows as I do, you know that designers sometimes take their clients to example homes rather than simply have the clients describe what they want. This is because (1) we’re often not great at describing what we like and (2) sometimes we don’t know what we want until we see an example. The facilitator gets to play the role of designer in this part of the vendor selection process. We paint the picture of how things can be and see how the selection team responds.
In some vendor selection efforts, we’re not aiming for a transformative future state. We just want to do similar things in a new system. If you’re in that boat, this phase will likely be short and straightforward. Just make sure to take a little bit of time to glance up at the horizon and see if there are functional or technical capabilities you want to explore with the new solution. (I bet you’ll still benefit from creating some use cases for vendors to demonstrate, so don’t skip this phase entirely.)
This Phase at a Glance
In the Future State Vision phase, our goal is to illustrate what can be clearly enough that we open up our thinking beyond simply replacing an existing tool or process.
Everything is fluid in this phase, so don’t get too attached to any specific idea at the outset. The goal is to consider potential visions, incorporate feedback, and keep making updates until the selection team is energized by how we’re describing what can be.
Even precisely how we’re representing the future state vision – journey maps, stakeholder vignettes, use cases, etc. – can change, and quickly, so stay flexible and focused on creating a vision that resonates with the selection team.
Here are facilitator activities at a glance:
Envision a future state better enabled by technology foundation
Illustrate future state vision through use cases or journey maps
Here are selection team activities at a glance:
Engage with future state visioning, providing feedback on what’s truly helpful
Provide anonymized inputs into future state illustration
Our vendor count probably hasn’t shifted much since the last phase, but that’s all about to change in the next set of activities.
Key Activities
Let’s walk through each of the activities in this phase, with what success looks like and considerations to work through.
Envision a future state better enabled by technology foundation
It sounds so simple: envision the future state we’re seeking. And it certainly can be if we’re seeking incremental change, perhaps because the tool we’re using is being sunset but we’re happy with finding an in-kind replacement.
Often, clients I’m working with take the opportunity to zoom out and consider how a new solution can provide a step-change improvement on the current state. This doesn’t have to include massive scope creep; often it’s more about accomplishing the same ends through different means.
For example, I worked with an expert advisory center who was replacing their heavily customized solution that has seen several decades of service with a modern cloud solution. As we talked through their current processes, the lower-value tasks of getting the caller’s contact information and starting point were commingled with the expert consult.
Over the course of several discussions (using a draft ideal client journey that I created and we marked up together), we teased out the idea that we could separate intake information-gathering from the consult… and, better yet, we could use newer tools like online forms, chatbots, or a customer portal to gather intake information before the consult and avoid spending valuable call time on lower-value topics.
Customer portals and chatbots weren’t even on the radar when the selection team started thinking about a new solution, so the future state vision phase was critical in evolving everyone’s perspective on what was possible and desired going forward.
There are two key derailers this phase: trying to define precise, perfect future state processes before we have selected a new solution (impossible) and replicating today’s processes for tomorrow.
Since the system we select is a key input in future state processes, activity-level process flows will come up short at this point. Similarly, we don’t want to assume today’s processes will be relevant or preferable in a new solution.
Focus instead on what needs to be accomplished and do some dreaming on how it could be easier, faster, and more intuitive going forward. I like to start with external and internal customer touchpoints, consider how to delight them even more than today, and outline a flow that is exciting without being overwhelming.
While the facilitator will likely be doing most of the sketching out and presenting during this part of the effort, we really need the selection team to engage with the proposed vision and provide feedback on what’s truly helpful. The facilitator may have what they think is a great idea, but if it doesn’t resonate with the selection team after a few rounds of discussion and refinement, it’s probably better left behind.
Illustrate future state vision through use cases or journey maps
Once the selection team is excited about the future state vision, we want to create a version of it that’s anonymous enough to share with vendors before we executive mutual non-disclosure agreements with them.
So, while the facilitator works on cleaning up the vision that resonated with the selection team, I recommend that selection team members compile anonymized inputs to further illustrate what we’re seeking. This might include sample data, example calls, redacted invoices – whatever will help vendors get a sense for our true challenges and opportunities without over-sharing too early.
We want to share a mix of everyday examples and edge cases, to see if potential solutions can address the breadth of our needs.
At the end of this activity, we should have a good working copy of our future state vision (probably a set of use cases or journey maps), along with whatever anonymized context we’ve decided to provide.
Advanced Class
The artifacts from this phase will be helpful throughout the vendor selection effort and beyond, so work to publish them in a format that the team can maintain going forward. This often means a tradeoff between a shiny, exciting tool (that the rest of the team may not have access to) and a more workaday application (this is how I end up doing most of my content in PowerPoint or Word). Aim to thread the needle between getting the engagement you need throughout the ideation process and having an easily shareable artifact at the end.
For the ideal client journeys mentioned previously, I used Miro because I really wanted the endless canvas and a fun user experience in visioning workshops. The Miro version was easy to share (read-only) with vendors through the selection, so that worked well.
But the client selection team didn’t use Miro in their everyday workflows, so at the end of the project, I found myself copying and pasting un-editable images of the journey into another format. Engagement win, sharing fail.
Tools & Artifacts
At the end of the Future State Vision phase, you’ll have in hand:
A future state vision illustration that resonates with selection team members
Anonymized information (like sample data or redacted resources) that provides context to vendors without revealing the business
