Glossary

Identify the real problem before reaching for a solution. Name the madness clearly in your own business before you try to fix it.

Design the workflow before building the pieces. Map the journey from where you are to where you want to be before you start building.

Create and refine the product through iteration. Shape your tools around the work, not the other way around.

Define what success looks like before you test. Know what done looks like before you start checking.

Test the real journeys end to end. Proof comes from doing the real thing, not from assuming it will work.

Operate and maintain the system you built. Build to maintain, not just to launch.

The business understanding, judgement, experience and purpose. Understanding what matters, why it matters and what you want to achieve. The direction comes before the tools.

The technical capabilities, tools and digital capabilities that make execution possible.

The disciplined methodology that connects KnowWhy™ and KnowHow. It turns understanding into dependable working systems.

A framework for holding the full span of a business problem in mind before narrowing to a solution.

A shift in focus from the tools available to the outcome the business actually needs to reach.

The principles that govern how a business engine actually runs. Not restrictions, but rules that work whether you follow them or not.

The conversational approach to shaping working screens, processes and business logic. Used during AppShaping™ to turn operational thinking into a working engine through dialogue, iteration and refinement.

Understand the problem. Better technology cannot compensate for poorly understood problems. Before deciding what to build, establish what is happening, why it happens and what needs to change.

Fix the system. Recurring problems often reveal weaknesses in the way work is organised. Better results come from improving the flow of information, responsibilities, decisions and activities, rather than relying indefinitely on people to compensate.

Learn through shaping. Understanding develops when ideas become tangible. Good systems are shaped through purposeful cycles of discussion, experience and improvement.

Make correction possible. No business operates entirely according to plan. Dependable systems make problems visible, allow appropriate corrections, support recovery and help the organisation learn when circumstances change.

A fool with a tool is still a fool. Powerful technology amplifies the quality of the thinking behind it. Better business outcomes come from understanding the problem, choosing appropriate tools and resisting the temptation to confuse sophistication with improvement.

Know what has changed. Delivering a system and improving a business are different achievements. Before making a change, understand the starting position and decide how you will recognise whether the intended benefit has been achieved.

The old barrier that forced businesses to adapt their operations to suit the software available to them. It has fallen.

The accumulated workarounds, disconnected systems and manual administration a business has accepted as normal.

The four patterns that keep a business stuck in operational chaos: Manual work, Over-reliance on people, Lost information and Disconnected systems. Recognising M.O.L.D. is the first step toward taking back the wheel.

A connected system of information, rules and workflows that runs the business without the owner holding every lever.

The findings produced by Show Me the Madness™. The mapped reality of how the business currently works.

The output of Solution Mapping™. The designed shape of how the business should operate.

A focused diagnostic for businesses ready to move from understanding to action.

The book and its central invitation. Stop letting the business drive you. Get back time, control and sleep.

The discipline behind every page of the book. Understanding before technology. Transformation as the result.

The intensive two-day Business EngineSmithing™ workshop where participants learn the complete methodology and develop a real business challenge into a bounded working prototype.