Pivoting
Pivoting involves making a rapid strategic change in response to a shift in the environment, often operating at the boundary between complexity and chaos. It can be contextualized using Cynefin and the Business Model Canvas, and involves using rapidly parallel, safe-to-fail portfolios of ideas to test and iterate.
THE IDEA
Pivoting
The word ‘pivoting’ is often used to describe a situation where you need to change quickly in response to a sudden change in the strategic environment. Sometimes this brings the organization into the liminal domain between complexity and chaos. The term implies that you are pivoting or revolving around something. Are you pivoting around your value propositions, your customers or your relationships? We can use Cynefin to contextualize how we pivot, and we link the axis to different aspects of the Business Model Canvas. (1)
A strategic approach to innovating at the boundary of chaos is setting up what we call a rapidly parallel, safe-to-fail portfolio of ideas or projects. We will do them all quickly and relatively cheaply, and test the market to see which land. We then put our attention on what is having early success and quickly kill the other ideas off. The advantage of trialing multiple activities at the same time is that we don’t expect them to all work, and we only need one or two to land for us to be able to keep moving forward.
When to use it
A startup testing multiple revenue models in parallel and focusing on the one that gains early traction.
A company reorienting its product line after a regulatory change makes its current offering obsolete.
An organization using Cynefin to assess whether its environment is in the complex or chaotic domain and pivoting its approach accordingly.
A team launching several low-cost experiments to explore a new market, then scaling the most promising ones.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Startup Product Pivot
A tech startup initially builds a social media platform for pet owners, but user feedback indicates stronger interest in a pet health tracking feature. The startup quickly pivots its focus, launching a minimum viable product for pet health tracking and discontinuing the original platform.
Corporate Innovation Lab
A large corporation sets up a portfolio of five small, low-cost projects exploring different new technologies. After three months, two show traction in market tests. The company kills the other three and allocates more resources to the promising ones, pivoting its innovation strategy based on early signals.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
What core aspect (value proposition, customer segment, or relationship) are you pivoting around in your current strategy?
How can you structure a rapidly parallel, safe-to-fail portfolio to test multiple pivot options simultaneously?
When facing a sudden market shift, how do you decide whether to pivot or persevere, and what signals would trigger a pivot?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Cynefin - Weaving Sense-Making into the Fabric of Our World ED02 (Dave Snowden Sonja Blignaut Zhen Goh)