The 'Break Through' Five

By on July 24, 2011

One of the “Campers” last night at Camp Ketchum, my company’s learning boot camp, shared a revelation with me. In the compressed and sometimes tense 24 hours that she and her teammates had to digest, analyze, debate, strategize and ultimately craft a solution for an important client, she began to doubt the process I’d been partly responsible for teaching the day before.
 
The “Break Through” 5 — five steps my colleague Tera Miller and I recommended for getting from problem to solution quickly and intelligently — seemed logical in theory, but tricky in practice with a team of people with wildly different views and styles. As this Camper explained it, there was an urge to just jump into tactics, while the process strongly argued for nailing a strategy first. Happily, the camper admitted, she grew to “trust the process,” and seemed grateful to have had it as a guide. So here it is:

The Break Through Five



  1. Objectives as Opportunities – We will target (whom) to help them understand/believe/or do (what)?

  2. Observations as Insights – Look at how people use and talk about the product to glean what’s interesting or significant.

  3. Options as Possibilities – Build off insights to generate many possible ways to meet objectives.

  4. One Idea – Choose one powerful, “break through” idea that meets success criteria.

  5. Outline – Name, frame and explain the main idea and supporting tactics in an organized, outlined format, preferably using visuals.

So next time the prospect of an all-nighter looms, try this out. Judging by the high caliber of the presentations I just watched, it really works.

About Karen Strauss

Doing things based on precedent doesn’t come easily to Karen, which explains why she left law school for the creative side of the communications business. She harnesses the diverse thinking of colleagues to solve challenges creatively. She has launched the firm’s media planning discipline and its open innovation platform, Mindfire. She also authors the firm’s innovation comic strip, which is a popular catalyst for creative thinking.

All posts by Karen Strauss