You’ve probably heard or used a variation of this classic problem. It’s designed to evaluate how people approach complex problems.
Though there are many ways to approach this question, technical people try to solve it using some variation of empirically supported mode of analysis and estimation: Market descriptions, data science, estimates based on the number of musicians that create the demand, or the presence and use of pianos. All of these approaches employ some variation of empiricism, or knowledge from after-the-fact observation to estimate the number of piano tuners.
Here’s a more strategic create/measure approach, that produces a more exact estimate than any means of empirical analysis.
The basic idea is to actively employ the #business #ecosystem to generate the answer.
Here’s how it works:
Step 1.) Define the question. Why do we care about the answer? What is a “piano tuner”? Someone who owns a tuning fork and a tuning wrench, a professional pianist that can tune, or a professional tuner with a business? By exactly defining the question, we create the context for the next step. In this example, let’s assume “piano tuner” means someone who professionally offers piano tuning services to paying customers.
Step 2.) Because we know why we care about the answer and have defined a piano tuner as a profession, we can move on to mapping the business processes of the practitioners. This will allow us to use the business ecosystem to generate the number of piano tuners in it.
Step 3.) Create #digital #businessservices for piano tuners that when used create a measurable and impactful competitive advantage over piano tuners that don’t use the services. By so doing, we not only have brought an analogue profession into the digital world, but created the environment in which piano tuners can be recognized, operate in and measurably thrive.
Because of the competitive advantage created by the services, there will be no piano tuners (as we have defined them) outside the newly innovated business ecosystem, thereby producing exact metrics per region, allowing us to know exactly how many piano tuners there really are in Chicago.
Can you think of a better approach? Let me know in the comments below.
