DOUBLE
IT! 2000
TOUR
"A Day In The Life"
In this tour of Double It! 2000,
 you will review how one company
used Double It! to build and implement a strategic plan that led to a doubling of sales
and profits within a year. Though this scenario is for a retail-type business, Double It!
can also be used to generate similar results for a wholesale, manufacturing, and service
company. The tour should take ~15-30 minutes to go through.
Here is the background information for the fictional
company and software user described in this tour:
Mary Jones is a senior manager at XYZ Computers, a specialty retailer of personal
computers and Internet products and services serving the Napa Valley and points beyond via
the web. She has installed Double It! 2000 on her Pentium 4 computer that has
128mb of
RAM and Windows XP. She has gone through the Introduction area of the program, where she
selected her company's business type (in her case, Retail-type business), printed out and
deleted the sample data to help her build her company's own strategic plan, and has
reviewed the easy to understand planning concepts that will help her build the plan.
In the Introduction to the program, she was able to
review Double It!'s overall approach to building the strategic plan, called The
Process of Growth. This is what she read:
"PROCESS OF GROWTH: WHAT IT
MEANS TO DOUBLE
Every company -- regardless of the circumstances -- has the potential to double profits
within one or two years. Doubling means different things to different companies. For
companies that are presently losing money, it may mean a rapid conversion of those losses
into significant profits. For those that are marginally profitable, it may be a
multiplication of profits to a substantial level. For those that are already very
successful, it may be a rise to unprecedented levels of profitability.
Whatever your company's profit goal, this program is designed to help you achieve it. The
program takes you through a process to become more aware of the potentials for growth and
to formulate strategies and plans for elevating your company's performance. It is based on
a knowledge of the fundamental process by which businesses grow, as discussed in several
management books:
-The Vital Difference:
Unleashing the Powers of Sustained Corporate Success by Frederick Harmon and Garry Jacobs
-The Vital Corporation:
How American Companies Large and Small Double Their Profits in Two Years or Less by Garry
Jacobs and Robert Macfarlane
Focused Energy Brings Rapid Growth and Profitability
The process of growth is the way companies converts energy into accomplishment and
success. Every company is undergoing this process to one degree or another, whether they
are conscious of it or not. The firms that are most successful are those that are
harnessing energy and turning it into rapid growth and profitability.
Any company can grow rapidly if it learns the process. The process begins with the
company’s base raw ENERGY. The energy is focused and intensified by management's
DIRECTION of the company (through its mission, values, goals, and strategies). The energy
is further intensified through the ORGANIZATION (its structure, activities, and systems).
The energy is then focused and intensified through PEOPLE (including their attitudes and
skills). Through these "lenses" of Direction, Organization, and People raw
energy is intensified to such an extent that it creates the condition for very rapid
growth and very high profitability."
Phase 1: Receive a bill of health
for company
Before Mary can build her strategic plan for improvement,
she needs to know more about the current state of her company. Hence she is ready to
obtain an analysis of the health of her company through Double It's built-in assessment
system. Once her employees fill out and return to her a company assessment handout
(including their ratings on over 100 key questions about the company), she can plug the
data into Double It!, and then receive a complete analysis of the current health of the
company.
Mary begins the process. She begins by clicking on the
phase 1 button on Double It!'s Navigator interface. If you click on the thumbnail picture
below, you will see what she saw: (You can click on any thumbnail picture in this tour to
open it in a larger view, and then click the Back button to return to this tour page.)
Phase 1 of Double It!'s Navigator Interface
Getting Out The Survey
On the Phase 1: Assess page of the Navigator, she clicks on the Print
Survey Handout button, and sees in preview mode the survey form that she will print out
and distribute to key employees. She has the option to customize the statements that are
included in the survey for a retail-type business to more closely fit her business's
environment, or just use the default survey for the retail business type without
modification. After consultation and discussion with other employees involved in
participation in developing the company's future plans, she decides to just use the
default set of statements as is, without change. Here is a small section of
the 2nd page of the survey form:
The top of page 2 on the survey handout
So Mary prints out the survey form, makes
twenty copies of it on her copy machine, staples it together, and distributes it to key
personnel throughout the company. She also decides to include a cover letter, explaining
how to fill out the survey form, and when the survey must be returned to her by. She
keeps a copy for herself so that she can also fill out the survey as well.
Entering Employee Survey Scores
Five days later she has all but two of the surveys on her desk. She
contacts the two who didn't return it, and they apologize and get it to her the next day.
Now she needs to get the data into the system. She starts up Double It! again, goes once
again to Phase 1: Assess page of Double It!'s Navigator interface and is ready to go.
The first thing she needs to do is get all of
the people who filled out the survey into the system. Then she can enter the survey scores
for each person. To get the basic employee info that appears on the returned survey
handouts into Double It!, she clicks on the Enter Employees button. The Employee Entry
screen opens to a blank record with Double It!'s yellow Guide text floating over the
Employee Entry screen, prompting the user on how to fill in information into the screen.
In fact, when most screens open in Double It!, the yellow Guide text opens over it,
helping (i.e. guiding) the user on what to do and what type of information to type into
each entry field in that screen. This is what the Employee entry screen looks like when it
opens:
Employee Entry screen opens
Mary then enters each employee, including the
employees department and (management) level. The first employee she enters is herself.
Here is what she sees when she enters herself into the Employee Entry screen:
Employee survey form info about
employee is entered into program.
Once she enters all of the basic info about
the employee, she is ready to enter the survey scores for each employee. She closes the
Employee Entry screen, and clicks the Enter Survey Scores button, which opens the Enter
Employee Scores screen. She selects the first employee from a pop-up list at the top of
the screen, and then proceeds to enter the scores for each statement for the employee from
that employee's returned survey handout. Here is some of what she sees:
Employee survey form scores
are entered into program.
Mary then posts the scores for the current
employee. She then selects the next employee from the pop-up list at the top of
the screen, enters the survey scores for that employee off the survey handout, and posts
it. Mary continues to do the same for each of the twenty employees.
Viewing The Health Of The Company
Once the data is entered into Double It!, the program generates a number
of reports, charts, and graphics that portray the current health of the company. The
company is assessed in three fundamental ways; how it converts energy (energy
conversion), how well it implements key business values, and the relative
strength of its five growth engines.
Mary starts with the energy conversion results
by clicking on the Energy button on the Phase 1: Assess page of the Navigator. That opens
a screen where the energy conversion process is explained. Here is what she sees:
Before seeing energy conversion bill of health for
company,
the energy conversion process is explained graphically
Mary then clicks on the second tab and reads
about energy dispersion in a company.
Screen that describes Energy
Dispersion in a company
Mary then clicks on the last
tab and clicks on a button that opens a screen where she see the company's actual energy
conversion scores (based on the data she entered form the employee's filled out survey
handouts). From this screen she can see the company evaluated in terms of energy
conversion, and also has access to other buttons where she can see more detailed reports.
Here is the main screen for energy conversion results:
The main energy conversion results
screen,
which also has buttons to see other reports
Mary clicks on various buttons on the main
energy conversion scores screen which opens more detailed reports about the company in
terms of energy conversion. Through the results in the screen Mary begins to see a picture
of the company come into focus, suggesting the strengths and weaknesses of the company.
Now she want to know more. She closes the
energy conversion results screens, and is eager to learn about the company's bill of
health in terms of the company's business values and five growth engines.
She goes through the values section first, and
notes the company's strengths and weaknesses in terms of its business values. She notice,
for example, that two critical values, Continuous Improvement and Develop
People the company is sorely lacking. She even understands the specifics of why this
is the case since she can "drill down" and see the survey statements that are
scored low in for these values.
Mary then goes onto the five growth engines
results. That's the part she heard about from others, and is eager to see the company's
results. She clicks on the Engines button on the Phase 1: Assess page of the Navigator
interface, reviews the Engine results shown in a tabular format there, and then clicks on
another button where she sees the results in a chart format. From the chart she can
graphically see the relative strengths and weaknesses of the five growth engines --
Market, Technology (products & services), Organization, People, and Finance. She
notices that the Organization and People engines are relatively weak,
indicating that the company needs to make a major effort to improve itself in those areas.
Growth and profitability, she remembers reading in the Concepts area for Five Growth
Engines, is only as strong as its weakest growth engines. Here is what she sees:
Double It! assesses company's
"engines" as shown in this column chart
She is very eager to now look at the
subcomponents of each engine, so she can really hone in on just those specific areas that
need improvement. For example, though the company's overall scores for the Market
engine are pretty good, she is interested in seeing which areas within the Market engine
are holding back even greater performance. Next to the Market engine scores she clicks
another button which opens a screen where she gets scores for each of the subcomponents of
the Market engine. Here is what she sees:
Double It! also assesses each
individual "engine" into its subcomponent parts.
Here we see the components for the Market engine.
She can even "drill down" and see even more
detailed results, such as the average survey scores per survey statement within an engine
subcomponent:
Double It! shows very detailed scores, down to the
statement level
(within each engine subcomponent)
Mary is really energized now. She's beginning to understand
the company's strengths and weaknesses in so many ways. She even begins to think about new
ways to improve the company. She is now eager to speak with her peers about her ideas
about such areas as ways to improve the organization of the company, and ways to energize
and increase the morale of people in the company. She even senses new ways to increase
profitability and sales in one of the key departments.
Mary then returns to some of the survey results screens,
and, where available, enters her comments and ideas about an area for improvement that she
would like to focus on. Later on she can refer to these comments when she develops the
company's plan for improvement in the next phase of Double It!
SUMMARY OF PHASE 1
OF DOUBLE IT!
In Phase 1: Assess Mary has --
-Distributed the survey handout form to appropriate employees
-Collected the surveys from employees
-Entered the employee info for each employee into the Employee Entry area
-Entered the survey results for each employee into the Enter Survey Scores area
-Reviewed a number of screens, reports, and charts describing the health of the
company based on the survey scores entered. The results are shown in terms of energy
conversion, business values, and five growth engines
-Entered her comments about the results in various screens
Phase 2: Develop a plan for
improvement
Mary is ready to build the plan for
improvement for the company. In order to build her plan, she'll first have to consider
some important information and issues about the company. With that information, she can
then develop the company's mission statement, as well as list the business values and
goals that should be implemented. Once the values and goals are settled on, Mary can begin
the process of developing the right strategies to carry out the values and goals.
Fortunately, Double It!'s built in strategies can help her come up with the right
strategies to see that the values and goals are implemented.
So Mary is ready to begin the second phase of
Double It! She clicks o the Phase 2: Plan page of Double It!. Here is what she sees:
Phase 2 of Double It!'s Navigator Interface
Putting Together Some Preliminary
Information
Before she begins to use the features in phase 2, she decides she wants to become
familiar with the underlying concepts of this phase of the program. So she clicks on the
Concepts button for phase 2, and reviews the explanation of the ideas that she will use in
phase 2. Here is some of what she sees:
The concepts page for phase 2 of Double
It!
describing what she will be doing in phase 2.
The first thing she will need to do in phase 2
is enter important information about the company, including the company's history,
critical issues its facing, its strengths and weaknesses, the preliminary values and goals
it aims to achieve, and a vision of what it ultimately wants to become. The information
here will help Mary and her peers develop a strong mission statement, as well as develop
solid values, goals, and strategies for implementation later on in this planning phase of
Double It!
Mary realizes that she will probably need to
get others involved in the process of filling in this section of the plan. So Mary sets up
her computer in a conference room with an overhead projector so others can easily see the
information. She then opens Double It!, clicks on the Plan Context Entry button in phase
2, and one by one brings into view the topics she needs to fill in the information for.
With the help of her associates, she begins to enter the information required. Here is
some of what appears on the screen as she has enters some of the data.
Mary begins to develop preliminary information about the
company
which will later be referenced to build the remainder of the plan.
After a very lively debate and discussion
among the participants, the information for the Plan Context is entered. Mary now has some
of the vital information needed to further develop the company's strategic plan. The next
step is to write up a short mission statement.
Developing A Mission Statement
Mary opens the Mission Statement entry area by clicking on the Enter
Mission Statement button. Before she fills in the info, she clicks on the
context-sensitive Concepts button so she can rereview what a mission statement is and what
it should consist of. This will aid her as she builds the mission statement. This is some
of what she reads in the Concepts screen about building a mission statement:
"A company's mission defines its central
purpose, sets forth its core values and long term goals, and provides guidelines for its
future growth.
An effective mission statement helps a
company-
-select which markets to focus on
-identify which customers to seek
-define new types of products and services for development
-determine what kind of people to recruit
-decide what type of organization to build
-set challenging, but realistic long term financial goals"
Based on the concepts and Guide help text Mary
is ready to enter the company's mission statement. Also, because in the introduction of
the program she printed out the sample data pages, she can look at the printout of a
sample mission statement for a retail-type business and use it as further reference to
help her build the mission statement. Mary then enters a few paragraphs for the
mission statement. Here it is:
Mary enters the mission statement for her company
Formulating The Company's Business Values and Goals
Once Mary developed the plan context information and the mission
statement, she moved on to developing the company's business values and goals. In the plan
context she had already entered some preliminary values and goals that the company should
focus on in the future. Now after some discussions with her associates, she was ready to
enter the values and goals that the company really wanted to focus on in the future. Mary
was particularly interested in seeing that some key business values be implemented in the
company.
Earlier Mary had read this definition of business
values in the concepts introduction to phase 2:
"A value is a belief, a mission, or a
philosophy that is really meaningful to the company. An example of a business value is:
"Customer Satisfaction." Another example of a value is "Being Ethical and
Truthful." Every company has one or more values, whether they are consciously aware
of it or not. Another way of saying it is that a value is a statement of the company's
intention and commitment to achieve a high level of performance on a specific QUALITATIVE
factor.
In many recent business management books and journals, developing, adopting, and
implementing values has been identified as perhaps the single key in the success of high
growth, high profit companies. A passion for a value and its implementation into the daily
activities of work was identified by many as the single key to their business success.
For example, Merck, the pharmaceutical company became so successful in its field because
the company was so dedicated to the value of "high quality and purity of its drug
products." Because of this perceived value distributors felt secure carrying Merck
products, and felt confident recommending the products to their customers."
Mary had also read this definition of goals:
"Goals are the broad, primary
quantitative results that management seeks to achieve in the plan. These goals can include
specific financial performance results that you seek to achieve, such as higher revenues
or higher profits (e.g. "Increase Sales"). They can also include goals to
increase the energy level in the company (e.g. “Improve leadership &
direction”), and to strengthen any of the five engines (e.g. "Improve
Organizational Efficiency" for improving the Organization engine, or “Develop
new innovative line of products/services” to improve the Technology engine)."
From Mary's readings of the concepts of Double
It!, she now really understood the power of business values and goals to change the
fortunes of a company. Mary also remembered to look at the sample values and goals they
she printed out at the outset of using the program. The sample values she saw was
particularly interesting. After some thought and consideration, Mary entered into Double
It! the following values and goals into the strategic plan.
BUSINESS VALUES:
Continuous
Improvement -- We understand that a business that must continuously adapt
and improve in order to keep growing and remain profitable. A living organization
possesses unlimited power for accomplishment.
(Later on in this tour we will focus on this
business value.)
Maximum
Utilization of Resources -- We commit ourselves to fully and effectively
utilize all the available resources to promote the growth of our business.
Customer
Delight -- We recognize that in today’s highly competitive market
providing excellent products and service is not sufficient to satisfy clients/customers
and ensure their loyalty. Our goal is the convert the customer’s interaction with our
company into a thoroughly and unforgettably enjoyable experience.
Develop
People -- We recognize that our most valuable assets are our people. We will
develop our people to provide continuous opportunities for them to improve their knowledge
and skills and advance their careers.
Innovation
-- Our position as a provider is based on our ability to identify and bring to
market exciting new technologies even before they are fully recognized and accepted by the
public. We recognize that our business is not bound or limited to any specific
product/service category but is free to respond to the opportunities generated by
technological developments outside the traditional sphere of our category of business.
GOALS:
Increase
sales
-Increase sales of precision components by 35% during the year.
-Increase the sales of ABC line to $5,000,000.
Improve
organizational efficiency
Reduce our
costs
- Reduce our costs by one third in manufacturing
- Reduce by 10% overall in our organization
Improve
leadership & direction
Develop
new innovative line of products/services
When Mary entered the business value Continuous Improvement into Double
It!'s Values Entry screen, here is what it looked like:
Mary wants to focus her company
on the value Continuous Improvement.
Developing Strategies For Implementation
Developing business values and goals was one thing; figuring out how
to implement them was another matter. Mary came up with a few possible strategies to
implement the values and goals she earlier chose for the company to focus on. However,
after racking her brains for awhile, her mind just went blank. Even input from her peers
was of limited help. She then remembered what she had read about Double It!'s built-in
strategies, and hoped that the program could guide her in developing the company's
strategies for the values and goals she chose earlier.
So Mary clicked on the Enter Strategies button on the phase
2 page of Double It!. A screen opened where she selected a business value or goal she had
developed earlier. She was then ready to enter strategies to implement the selected
value or goal. First she noticed that for any goal or value she chose, she could
select from over 100 built-in Double It! strategies. These General strategies
were grouped into five groups -- market, technology, organization, people, and finance --
corresponding to the five growth engines from phase 1.
Mary was keen on first developing strategies for the
business value Continuous Improvement. She chose a few of the built-in
People-related strategies as a way to implement the value Continuous Improvement.
The purpose of a General strategy was to stimulate one's thought so that one could
develop Specific strategies that one wanted to see implemented in the plan.
So from reviewing the General strategies she selected, she
came up with two Specific strategies to implement the value Continuous Improvement.
They were:
Create Ideas Database
-Overview: Make the ideas database accessible throughout the company. Allow users to
select a category, and then make their specific entry.
-Costs: We can probably do it for less than $25,000.
-Options: Perhaps in Lotus Notes, or Access; or even make it Web-based.
(Later on in this tour we will discuss actions to
implement this strategy)
Create Monthly
Rewards Meeting
Put someone in charge of monthly rewards related to improving the functioning of the
organization. Person gets feedback from managers for reward, which is announced at
meeting. Prizes given out.
Here is what the Strategy Entry screen looked like to Mary as she worked on the
developing the strategies for the value Continuous Improvement. On the lower left
you see the general strategies she chose. To the right of the General strategy you see the
Specific strategy she was determined to have the company implement.
For the value "Continuous Improvement"
Mary develops two specific strategies
SUMMARY OF PHASE 2
OF DOUBLE IT!
In Phase 2: Plan Mary has
--
-Entered important information
and issues facing the company into Plan Context Entry
-Entered the mission statement
for the company in Mission Statement Entry
-Entered business values and
goals into Values Entry and Goals Entry
-Developed one or more
Specific strategies for implementation in the Strategy Entry screen for each value &
goal
Phase 3: Act to carry out the plan
For Mary and XYZ Computers there was one more
critical step to using Double It!. It was to create a series of time bound actions
to carry out the strategies the company wanted to implement. For each strategy to be
implemented, a series of actions needed to be created. The action for the strategy would
indicate what action to do was to occur, when it was to start, when it was to be completed
by, who was to do it, and what the current status of the action was.
Mary decided to start working with the
strategy Create Ideas Database which the company wanted to implement. After
careful consideration, she decided that a number of actions needed to be taken to carry
out the strategy. She was ready to enter the actions for this and other strategies
the company was committed to. So she activated the Phase 3: Act page of Double It! as
seen below:
Phase 3 of Double It!'s Navigator Interface
She then clicked on the Enter Actions button
to open the Actions Entry screen, selected the Create Ideas Database strategy
from a pop-up list of strategies she and other committed to in phase 2, and entered the
actions that needed to occur to implement the strategy. Here is what her screen
looked like:
Mary develops a series of actions to be carried out
for the strategy Create Ideas Database
With the help of her associates Mary then developed all of
the actions that needed to occur to carry out each of the strategies. Thereafter, Mary
printed out the report that listed the actions that needed to be carried out by each
employee involved. She informed each employee what his/her responsibilities were for
carrying out the action, and had the employee carry out the action as scheduled.
In the next few weeks and months, the actions began to be
carried out. Mary was put in the position of overseeing all of these actions, which were
in many actually cases full blown projects. Over time Mary monitored the actions very
closely and made sure every actions was carried out on time. If there were changes to the
schedule, she entered the changes into the Action Entry screen, and redistributed reports
to appropriate employees as needed.
A (Very) Happy Ending
Over the next few months Mary witnessed that the strategies she and her peers had
developed were very effective in improving morale in the company, in dramatically
improving the level of organization and efficiency of the company, in overwhelming the
competition, and in taking revenues and profits to unprecedented levels. Not merely 10 or
20% increases, but triple digit increases in sales and revenues within a single year!
Over time Mary began to appreciate the methodology of
Double It! She understood that any company can make dramatic improvements no matter what
its size, what its condition. By making the effort to overcome its weaknesses, by focusing
its purpose and direction, by upgrading its knowledge and skill levels, the company
produced a level of energy that would have been considered impossible a year earlier. The
company was so energized that competitors, customers, and employees were at a loss for
words for understanding the amazing turnaround. Mary had come to realize that a company's
desire to change, to commit itself to a process of improvement had created a company
running full throttle on all cylinders.
Even with this success Mary and her associates at XYZ
Computers were ready for yet more improvements over the following months. They had come to
understand that there really was no limit to how fast, how efficient, and how
profitable a company could become. The key was management's unlimited aspiration for
success, its willingness to address its strengths and weaknesses, its determination to set
a course for its future direction, and its unflagging commitment to carry through on its
goals, values, strategies, and course of action. Mary had not only participated in
helping the company reach the pinnacle of success, but had learned a secret knowledge,
a profound process that could take any company to the peaks of achievement.
SUMMARY OF PHASE 3
OF DOUBLE IT!
In Phase 3: Act Mary has
--
-Entered the actions in
Actions Entry that need to be carried out for each specific strategy she developed
earlier.
-Insured that others carry out
the actions as intended
-Updated the Action Entry
screen to account for changes in the schedule
More Information
Double It! 2000 is
$150. If you would like to order
Double It! 2000, please click here.
If you would like to
go to main page for Double It! 2000, please click here.
If you would like to review
important tips for using Double It! 2000, please click here.
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