Practice Management Dashboard
Challenge
Only half of [Broker Management Company]’s advisor base had more than $5M in assets under management, a sign of low-level production. These poor performers had become an operational burden and were about to lose their contracts. Business Development believed production levels correlated to practice management. My role involved identifying codifiable tactics of high producers that might form an application to help struggling low producers.
Approach
Research
To set a reference point, I surveyed high, medium, and low-production advisors based on an established scorecard for practice management competency. But, results showed no correlation between production and competency — even the high producers scored poorly.
In follow-up interviews, I discovered that advisors receive no business training and only learn to run their practice through trial and error. Many had sought a coach or taken seminars, and nearly all clung to the company’s internal business consultants (BCs) for direction.
Interviewing the BCs, I found that, unless an advisor knew how to track their production, they depended on the BCs for a quarterly report that explained their performance. The BCs also met with advisors to discuss production improvement strategies, creating untenable demand.
Synthesis
To the BCs, improving production only required tracking KPIs and responding appropriately, something easily taught. But, if this were true, advisors would eventually learn how to track their production, and the dependency on the BCs would decrease, which was not happening.
Returning to the advisor interview data, I discovered that large producers were advisories that had more bandwidth to focus on customer relationships. These advisors relied on the BCs not out of incompetence but time-savings.
I brought the BCs and the design team together, presented the research, and led them through a series of opportunity-framing exercises. By the session’s end, we identified an objective of solving for a semi-competent advisor requiring a way to understand production but not having enough time to learn.
Exploration
I brought the groups together again for a workshop, along with the data lake team. We reviewed the BCs’ quarterly production report. I then challenged the group to imagine what the advisor interaction might be like if K.I.T.T. (the intelligent car from the TV series Knight Rider) had been a business consultant — since the BCs’ charts informed advisors in the same manner as car gauges.
The group brought back a trove of ideas. The designers’ concepts revolved around information presentation. The BCs’ concepts focused on conveying management advice, and the data team suggested ways to calculate the KPIs on the backend.
I guided the teams in prioritizing the concepts. A question of feasibility arose, but the BCs felt the logic behind their advice was codifiable, and the data team was confident they could code an algorithm for it.
I facilitated working sessions with the design team and consolidated the ideas into a vision for an interactive dashboard that dynamically displayed improvement tips. The BCs grew more excited as the solution came into focus.
Evaluation
With the final visuals assembled, I concept-tested the design with advisors of varying production levels. It received mixed reactions. Advisors who liked the dashboard knew something about the production and saw the immense potential and time-savings. Less competent advisors couldn’t see its purpose.
Considering the size of the test sample, it wasn’t a good gauge of marketability, so I developed a questionnaire that included a self-guided tour of the prototype. The results from this test were more indicative, showing great interest, with some advisors demanding the dashboard immediately.
Outcome
The Practice Management Dashboard, as it became known, gained product funding and implementation. Advisors scrambled to subscribe to this tool, and the results were noticeable as many shifted from low to mid-level production and from mid to high.
Early on, I asked the BCs if they worried this project might automate them out of a job. They were enthusiastic about this possibility. If I solved the demand for their time, they could concentrate on delivering an exclusive management service. After the launch of the Practice Management Dashboard, the BCs were able to develop a virtual consultant offering, which is now part of [the company]’s turnkey Office of the Future.