Every problem I've ever solved started the same way. An empty whiteboard. A marker. One question.
"What game are we actually playing?"
Why whiteboards
A whiteboard has no template. No deck format. No slide hierarchy. It's a blank surface that lets the problem take its real shape instead of the shape of whatever software you opened.
The process
- Write the question in the center
- Let the mess happen. Connections, contradictions, dead ends
- Stare at it until a structure emerges
- The structure is the strategy
The rule
If I can't explain it on a whiteboard, I don't understand it. If I can't draw the competitive landscape, I haven't mapped it. If I can't sketch the micro-monopoly, I haven't found it.
The whiteboard is the test. The simplicity is the standard.
You have a business problem. I have a whiteboard. Let's go.