[9-HI™ Advanced Concepts] 16 Use Cases: M&A, Organizational Improvement, Business Growth, etc.
9-HI Applied to Specific Use Cases
Due to the expansive holistic scope of 9-HI’s two tier powerset structure, 9-HI can be applied in a wide variety of manners. A traditional 9-HI project will seek to analyze risks and build a success factor execution plan that addresses all three tier one lanes. However, a user team may have a desire to focus on a more narrowly defined project. Caution should be taken and it is generally not recommended to run a project for a single tier1 lane. When a single tier one lane project is executed, changes in one of the three lanes can potentially cause harm or have other deleterious effects on the other two lanes. Generally, the score of any of the nine FPM categories reflects that perspective of readiness or maturity of its Tier one category and thus the higher the score, the more likely that this strength will support successful ability to meet project objectives. This premise holds true for projects with all three tier one lanes and less so with projects only targeting a single lane. Below are use case examples of project types that can be managed within 9-HI.
At what stage can 9-HI be applied to the below project use cases?
The short answer is “the sooner the better”. It’s always preferred and wise to start new projects by first considering a new application need then brainstorming and analyzing potential technology solutions, followed by running a proper selection or investment project and then proceeding to a development project.
But what if you have existing projects that have already started and already have scopes of effort budgeted and locked in with commitments?
If you want the confidence of having a 9-HI review and want assistance from the 9-HI guided process and 9-HI AI Agents input, then you should model your current state and current plans. Just do it. There’s really no reason not to, and it’s simpler to model an existing project than a future project. As a matter of fact, 9-HI may help your team identify alternatives for your plan based on new decision guidance that is recommended. It may provide alternative actions that either help to reduce risk, change the priorities within your development or mitigation plans, or offers efficiency or cost reduction efforts. Generally, it’s good to have options and to have a solid plan to mitigate future risks before stumbling upon those risks. The 9-HIprocess has been used for over 15 years mainly to trouble shoot existing customer development projects that had run into trouble. By systematically analyzing a project that has already encountered failure, 9-HI users can diagnose where the risks reside and what root causes exist. They can also categorize those risks as either gaps, barriers or vulnerabilities and then they can properly identify success factor(s) for a gap or vulnerability that needs to be overcome. Moreover, the priority of Success Factors can be re-established so that more immediate Success Factors (those with the lowest scores) are addressed as apriority. Another benefit to running a9-HI analysis as soon as possible is that it may highlight current risks that require additional budgets or resources, and there may be savings in future stages that can be used to offset costs of more immediate risk resolution needs. The right answer is always, “the sooner the better”. Some brief use case scenarios are explained below. Those with a “*” are use cases that will always be “already underway” when initial 9-HI analysis is started. Almost one half of the total use cases are initiated while the activity is “already underway”.
A. Technology solution review for application problems: This is a great activity to do before a formal acquisition or development activity takes place. It can be run as an IE project with multiple competing technology options as topics.
B. Expansion of technology/product family for new applications: This has the opposite flow of the above use case and is where a group wants to evaluate and decide how a technology or product or family of similar products can be applied to multiple applications or adjacent market segments. This kind of activity is normally done to enrich business growth or to standardize a product or technology design for improved market application volume benefits.
C. *Supply chain issues This use case evaluates a specific existing supplier or prospective supplier for Risks that exist that can result in poor supply health or reduced maturity of a supplier/ vendor. It starts off typically after an existing or potential supplier has been illuminated (ex. use of Exiger illumination technology) for potential supply issues such as Foreign Ownership (FOCI), Environmental, Social & Governance, Criminal & Regulatory, Operational, Financial, Product shipment, Cybersecurity. After analysis a complete mitigation plan can be built in the 9-HI Development module to provide guidance as the Risks are mitigated.
D. Selection or acquisition of technologies and/or suppliers This is typically used by Government organizations or medium to large enterprises. It begins with an IE project to determine potential Application, Product Technology and Team & Stakeholder Risks and Success Factors. Then Success Factors are exported through the 9-HI Wizard process to a Selection Project where the Success Factors are used as quantitative Selection/Evaluation Criteria for all proposed RFIs/RWPs/RFPs/Pitches. Down selection, to next stage or award is accomplished with SMEs and AI Agents in the 9-HI Selection Project.
E. *Evaluation and improvement of existing development projects: Start with an IE project just to confirm that the existing development project has in fact covered all of the high priority Risks that may face your project. Don’t just model what you are currently planning todo. This is where you need the AI Agents and additional human SMEs to propose addition Risks, Success Factors and Evidence needed to improve readiness and maturity right through deployment or meeting your completion TRL targets.
F. *Evaluation and improvement of current businesses and government operations: If you are managing or in leadership of a commercial business or government organization, you can use9-HI to evaluate how well your existing baseline organization is aligned to the technologies and products you have and the applications that you are involved with or intend to engage with.
G. Interest group collaboration: Typically for broad industry problems or to establish guidelines, standards, safety protocols, specifications or broad industry objectives. Ex. an engineering society may want to determine safety standards for a new technology or a group of greenfield thinkers may want to have a think tank style project that sets direction for future industry investments.
H. Investments: Similar to D, but typically these have a unique set of Risks and Success Factors for each potential company seeking investment (CSI). An IE project should be initiated by the target investment company that can be supplemented by requirements and evidence needed by the Investor. The CSI will perform a self-evaluation and provide evidence as a proposal to the investor this significantly aligns and simplifies the due diligence and funding cycle.
I. Education & Training: There are multiple Training touchpoints with 9-HI. Less experienced SMEs can be integrated into teams with seasoned SMEs to learn first-hand and grow as a SME. Also, deployment and acceptance of new technologies to customers and users as well as channel partners and other stakeholders is heavily reliant on successful education and training. More novel technologies often need education of entire sectors of customers and users before they can understand and become proficient.
J. User/customer feedback for new innovation requirements: This is a significant portion of the “Access” Fundamental Prime Metric (FPM).This feedback is dome at all lifecycle stages whether developing at medium to lower TRLs, preparing for sales or transition or well after launch or deployment in order to know when improvements are needed.
K. *Mergers & Acquisitions: After modelling your own government organization or business. You can then model potential acquisition targets to see and understand Growth from the perspectives of Risk and Reward.
L. *Business partnerships & Joint ventures: This is very similar to K above, except that after modelling is completed, the actions taken are often a subset of the actions of K.
M. Proposal opportunities: Both Solicited and unsolicited proposals are structured in a 9-HI IE project and Selection project. A proposing company can run their own 9-HI project in order to determine how well they align to a proposed customer or if they have multiple offerings, which of their offerings will best benefit the customer. Even if a proposal is unsolicited, a proposal that is quantitative and evidence based can be very powerful to win over a new customer or investor.
N. Managing system development with multiple innovations: 9-HI is structured with IE projects that can have multiple topics. If a system is being developed with multiple component developments required, it’s recommended to start with a single system level IE project and create multiple topics for each component needed development. Keep in mind that each development project only has one topic. So, the export wizard from the IE project will be used multiple times to set up a development project for each topic after the IE project has determined Risks and Success Factors.
O. *Improving manufacturing and production processes and capabilities: Many organizations rely heavily on products and technologies that are already mature and in production. Whether a technology is mechanical, chemical, electronic or software, or a combination of these, innovations of production and manufacturing should always be pursued. Quality, volume, cost reduction and efficiency are often objectives of these activities and can be modelled in an IE project with likely candidates exported to a development project for innovation and continuous improvement activities.
P. Developing services vs products: Very simply put, a service is modelled very similarly to a product in 9-HI. Users will want to evaluate whether innovative products or services can be combined to create benefits or add profits to the Group of Team and Stakeholders.