Formulating insights: turning data into shared understanding

Why isn't the analysis enough?

Because data doesn't speak for itself. Two people can look at the same report and reach opposite conclusions without either of them being wrong.

Creating a shared understanding of the status quo is therefore a leadership task in its own right, not a byproduct of the analysis. It happens in the workshop, with everyone who will later be part of the decision.

The test is simple: have every person in the room independently write down the three most important findings. If you end up with six different lists, that's exactly the work still ahead of you.

For your agenda, that means reserving a dedicated block in the workshop, with its own time slot and its own facilitation. Anything squeezed in between two other topics gets the rigor that fits in between.

This step sits between two others that both get plenty of attention: the analysis before it and the decision after it. It gets overlooked because it produces nothing new. It only creates order.

How does the module run in the workshop?

First, the results of the situation analysis are presented, module by module, quantitative and qualitative side by side. This combination shows where numbers and statements align and where they contradict each other. The contradictions are the interesting parts.

Next, the team translates the findings into its own sentences. The group splits up, and each small group works on one or two modules.

Finally, the insights go to the full group, where they are discussed, expanded and ranked. Whatever ends up at the top moves on to the next step.

There's a simple rule for forming the small groups: put people together who rarely work with each other day to day. When sales and production work on the same module, you get wording both sides can live with, and that's exactly what holds up later.

The facilitator transfers the final wording onto the module cards. With that, the situation analysis is complete and in a form you can keep working with.

What is the 6-3-5 method?

A procedure that gets every person writing before anyone speaks. That's the whole trick: whoever discusses first adopts the wording of the loudest voice in the room.

With six people, that means six rounds. Plan on roughly 45 minutes per module, and that's a tight estimate.

The side effect matters more than the procedure: by the end, every person in the room has helped write every insight. That's the difference between agreement and ownership.

How do you recognize a usable insight?

By four characteristics. They sound obvious and still get missed regularly.

• It contains a cause or a consequence. "Revenue is falling" is a metric. "We're losing market share because competitors are strengthening their cost position" is an insight.
• It works without jargon. Someone who doesn't work at your company has to be able to understand it.
• It's precise. No wording that can be read two ways.
• It's uncomfortable enough to move something. A statement everyone agrees with instantly was usually already clear to everyone.

This is what sentences that hold up sound like: "Customers increasingly expect customization." "The days of the full product range are over." "Our B2B customers are extending their own value creation and taking over what used to be our core business."

This is what sentences that don't hold up sound like: "Room for improvement at the customer interface." That's a headline without a statement, and in the workshop everyone nods without meaning the same thing.

How many insights make sense?

Two to four per module, so roughly twelve to twenty in total. Any more than that can't be weighed against each other in a single workshop.

Plan on about 45 minutes per module if you run the method properly. With six modules, that's four and a half hours, effectively a full workshop day for this step alone. That's the price of everyone signing off on the same thing at the end.

The limit is itself a decision. If you carry three findings out of every analysis, you end up with forty items and no ranking, and the discussion shifts from content to sorting.

Voting with sticky dots is more than a ritual here. It forces every person to commit, and it makes it visible when the team splits into two camps. That's exactly where a separate conversation pays off afterward.

A second reason for the limit is communication. What actually reaches the organization is three to five sentences. Formulate twenty, and you're not deciding which five survive, you're leaving the selection to chance.

Don't take the insights that received no dots off the table right away. Record them somewhere you'll revisit in the second workshop. Some findings need a few weeks before their significance becomes visible.

What happens to the insights?

They form the first part of the chain of reasoning you'll later use to explain your strategy. Read one after another, they should add up to a coherent picture and make the urgency clear.

To check that, read the insights aloud in sequence at the end of the day. Anything that stumbles or repeats itself isn't finished yet. This test takes five minutes and reliably finds the spots where two modules say the same thing.

Together, they should answer five guiding questions: Why do we have to change? Why right now? Which external factors force us to make decisions? Which internal homework is due? And what can we build on?

If the chain carries those five questions, you have more than an analysis. You have the beginning of a story that also works outside the leadership circle.

To test the chain, read it to someone who wasn't there. If that person can say at the end why you need to change, it holds. If they start asking questions, a link is missing.

That's exactly the payoff of this module. The sentences created here show up a year later in company meetings, performance reviews and customer presentations, usually word for word.