Learning Not to Push

We have been at it again: indulging in Push.

But we are learning not to. This week's examples:

1. We have a product that elicits more complaints than the rest of our 60 SKUs put together. All for the same reason. To date we have tried to explain our way around it with a "Yes but..." excuse Push.

2. We tried to get over some inflexibility from one of our suppliers by Pushing a specification change on a customer who didn't want it. Nearly broke the relationship in the process having completely failed to comprehend how important the existing spec. was to our customer.

3. We have an NPD project in play for a client. They have a "must have" criteria that our "preferred" supplier cannot meet.

So what are doing about it?

1. Re-engineering the product to fix the problem. Sat down with our supplier this week and we have a plan.

2. Building bridges. Hopefully not too late.

3. Re-written the brief to our suppliers to deliver exactly the criteria requested.

Another opportunity popped up this lunch time.

We had proposed a product to a big customer.

"We like it." They said. "But its too big. Can you reduce this particular attribute by a third?"

Guess what...

We said "Yes"!