Solvable

Chapter One: Def ine your quest – Create an initial frame

you can adapt innovative ideas you’ve seen elsewhere to that new problem. On the other hand, if you learn to recognise commonalities across problems – in their structure or in the solution process – you will drastically improve your abilities to solve even problems you know nothing about. So there is value in framing problems in a consistent manner to make similarities more noticeable. One way to do that is to formulate your quests with a consistent structure: ‘How should [the hero] get [the treasure], given [the dragon]?’ 21 At this stage, you might want to take a crack at framing your problem. Below is a template to fill out your Hero-Treasure-Dragon-Quest (HTDQ) sequence. You can use it here, or head over to the Dragon Master™ app (accessible at dragonmaster.imd.org) and frame your problem there.

Substance:

Hero

Treasure

Dragon

All the important information needed to specify the part of the universe of interest.

The hero’s aspiration

The one problem separating the hero from the treasure. Start it with “however”

[To be filled]

[To be filled]

[To be filled]

Example: XYZ provides marketing services to the US health care industry; its revenues have been constant for the last 5 years. I am the CEO of XYZ.

Example: I want to increase XYZ’s revenues by 10% annually over the next 5 years.

Example: However, XYZ’s current sales force doesn’t have enough people.

Quest

The overarching question that your e ort answers, phrased as: How should [ the hero ] get [ the treasure ], given [ the dragon ]?

[To be filled]

Example: How should I increase XYZ’s revenues by 10% annually over the next 5 years, given that XYZ’s current sales force doesn’t have enough people?

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