Causal and Effectual Thinking in the Consulting Industry Francisco Saavedra Technology Ventures

CAUSAL AND EFFECTUAL THINKING IN THE CONSULTING INDUSTRY"

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Abstract This paper proposes activities to include effectual thinking concepts into the formal consulting process. The paper presents the current project selling and definition process as a pure casual / predictive process, where the goal is usually given by the client / customer and means need to be defined by the project team. Later, several activities are proposed, with the objective of influence this process with effectual thinking concepts.

CAUSAL AND EFFECTUAL THINKING IN THE CONSULTING INDUSTRY"

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CONTEXT Currently, the question to solve for every enterprise is to develop or to drown. Those who don´t innovate and fail to watch and listen to the signs provided by the market and allies and competition alike face an uncertain future. Now, the question was: How can I reduce this uncertainty? To answer that question we will consider 2 different but not exclusive approaches: Causation and Effectuation. Causal reasoning begins with a pre- determined goal and a given set of means, and seeks to identify the optimal — fastest, cheapest, most efficient, etc. — alternative to achieve that goal This is the world of exhaustive business plans, microscopic ROI calculations, and portfolio diversification. Effectual reasoning, on the other hand, does not begin with a specific goal. Instead, it begins with a given set of means and allows goals to emerge contingently over time from the varied imagination and diverse aspirations of the founders and the people they interact with. This is the world of bootstrapping, rapid prototyping, and guerrilla marketing. Whereas causation predicts on the base of given premises, effectuation creates new premises and is eager to discover what they will result in. Effectuation is a must