Four phases with one output each: map the model as it actually is, explore three to five alternatives, design one of them in detail, and test it on real customers before investing. Two to four weeks in total, with a decision at every phase boundary instead of a running discussion.
You held a strategy workshop on Monday. You came out with roughly what you came out with last year. Something about digitalisation. Perhaps a new sales channel. Nothing that touches the foundation.
Next year the exercise repeats.
The problem is not your commitment. It is the format. An annual offsite easily becomes a conversation, where most of the time goes on getting everyone to see the same thing before anyone gets to think new.
Rethink NOW packs the work into four bounded phases with one output each. Not a running process. Not working groups that live on. Four phases, and a decision at every handover.
Phase 1: Understand the model you actually have
Before anything can change, you need to know which assumptions you are operating on.
Most companies have an unspoken business model. It lives in people's heads. Ask five managers separately and you get five slightly different answers, and none of them notices, because they are never asked at the same time.
In phase 1 you draw the model on a Business Model Canvas. Not as it ought to look. As it is.
Five questions do the work:
- Who do we make money on? And who do we lose money on without having decided to?
- What exactly are they paying for? Not "a solution". The line that appears on the invoice.
- Where does the money come from? Direct sales, licence, commission, subscription?
- What does a customer cost us? Not budget figures. Actual cost.
- What do we believe makes us unique? Find one example from the past month where it showed.
The last question is the best one. If nobody can find the example, the answer to the fourth question is not a strength, it is a supposition.
Output: a canvas reflecting reality, plus a list of the assumptions carrying the most risk.
Allow three to five days. Not because it is hard, but because you have to agree on what is fact and what is hope.
Phase 2: Explore the alternatives
Most people know the Business Model Canvas. Fewer know there is a catalogue of how business models can be structured. Subscription, freemium, marketplace, platform, bundling, franchise, licensing and a range of others are covered in 66 business model patterns.
You do not explore all of them. You use your own situation to sort.
Concretely: pick four or five patterns that could solve the problem phase 1 found. Draw a complete canvas for each. Assess each through three questions: what does it require of the market, what does it require of us, and how hard is it to execute?
The work can be split. Two people take two patterns, two others take the next ones.
Output: three to five possible future models, each with a canvas and the assumptions that must hold for it to work.
Allow a week.
Phase 3: Design one of them
Now you choose, and it should not happen on instinct.
You have the candidates. You know what the current model costs. You can compare on three numbers: what the shift requires in investment, how long until it breaks even, and what the worst outcome looks like.
Pick one and build it out:
- Which customers do we start with?
- What does the first version cost to build?
- What else has to be in place, in systems, logistics or staffing?
- How do we measure whether it works?
The last point is the one most often fudged. Agree what "it works" concretely means while you still disagree about something. Afterwards, everyone agrees it went rather well.
Output: one finished model, the three assumptions that must prove correct, and a test plan of four to eight weeks.
Phase 4: Test before you invest
Phase 4 is where you put a small amount at stake to find out what reality thinks.
An example. A service company with around 20 employees ran the process. In phase 1 they discovered they had two customer groups with markedly different willingness to pay, and that the difference appeared nowhere in the budget.
Their model was project to project. Phase 2 pointed at a retainer as the candidate.
The test was phrased simply: contact ten existing customers, offer a six-month retainer priced on what they already bought, and count how many say yes.
Seven of ten said yes. It produced a revenue stream that stabilised cash flow, and they could build the rest out afterwards with a confidence they had not had before.
It took two weeks to find out. Had they built the whole model first, they would have spent six months learning the same thing.
Output: data on whether the model holds, and learning for the next round.
Allow four to eight weeks.
Why this beats the annual offsite
An offsite costs time and energy and often ends without anything concrete.
The strength here is the boundary. Four phases, one output each, and a decision point at every handover. After phase 2 something gets chosen. After phase 4 something gets done.
That does not make the work sloppy. It makes it finished.
When to run it
- You are considering a new customer group.
- A significant cost has moved substantially.
- Your largest competitor did something you had not accounted for.
- You have run the same model for four years without challenging it.
- Your managers hold different pictures of how you make money.
The last point is the most common, and it is also the cheapest to test. Ask five managers to draw the model separately and compare. If there is disagreement at the factual level, you have just found where the work starts.
How to find the box carrying the risk is covered in stress-test your business model, and the six underlying shifts an alternative typically moves along are in six fundamental shifts.
Why the phases are built as gates
A phase without a decision at the end is just a meeting with a name.
In 360° Sprint the equivalent handovers are built as gates with a real consequence. Approving a gate marks that layer's models complete, so the progress figure reflects a decision that was taken rather than a box that was ticked. And who may approve is a setting on the organisation, not a matter for the individual.
That is the mechanical version of the point above: a phase ends when somebody with the mandate says it ends.
You do not need consultants to start. You need a whiteboard, three hours, and five managers drawing separately.
If this is your first time working on the model, start with business model: what it is and how to change yours.