I have written this an year and half back but somehow never published:
Focus on "what is done" and "what can be done" seems to be rather too stressed by sales functions in any organizations. But when sales functions aspire to build strategic growth paths with long term goals, in my view, there needs to be lot more focus on "how to do". Planning meetings must focus on "how to do" as much as "what to do". I agree that the evolution of "how to do" must be coming from a series of brain storm sessions rather than single planning meeting. But planning meeting must set the tone for this. You do a day long planning meeting and end up not discussing the "how to do" sounds quite disappointing. It kind of gives wrong signals to the members of the team that are focused on "how to do". Instrumental to the success of long term goals, are the base-lining of the set of offerings (How to dos of the equation) to go after during planning meeting. The details of offerings could evolve during the detailed brainstorm sessions, but seeds need to be planted and senior management must be on the same page with architects on these offerings (how to dos). It is not up to architects alone to decide in silos on the offerings and up-sell to senior management. It should rather be driven by a combination of field intelligence from sales directors & account strategists and domain knowledge plus the product technical knowledge of architects. Senior management must see value in the offerings set and approve formally to go after this. Where can you set the tone for whole of this process? It must be the planning meeting where everybody is involved. An eventual realization and postmortem after an year or so will not do any good to the strategic goals.
Focus on "what is done" and "what can be done" seems to be rather too stressed by sales functions in any organizations. But when sales functions aspire to build strategic growth paths with long term goals, in my view, there needs to be lot more focus on "how to do". Planning meetings must focus on "how to do" as much as "what to do". I agree that the evolution of "how to do" must be coming from a series of brain storm sessions rather than single planning meeting. But planning meeting must set the tone for this. You do a day long planning meeting and end up not discussing the "how to do" sounds quite disappointing. It kind of gives wrong signals to the members of the team that are focused on "how to do". Instrumental to the success of long term goals, are the base-lining of the set of offerings (How to dos of the equation) to go after during planning meeting. The details of offerings could evolve during the detailed brainstorm sessions, but seeds need to be planted and senior management must be on the same page with architects on these offerings (how to dos). It is not up to architects alone to decide in silos on the offerings and up-sell to senior management. It should rather be driven by a combination of field intelligence from sales directors & account strategists and domain knowledge plus the product technical knowledge of architects. Senior management must see value in the offerings set and approve formally to go after this. Where can you set the tone for whole of this process? It must be the planning meeting where everybody is involved. An eventual realization and postmortem after an year or so will not do any good to the strategic goals.
