Every few weeks the facial recognition on my iPhoneX (humble brag) stops working.
This inability of my phone to recognise me baffled and offended me for a long time, but eventually I figured it out. It means I need a haircut!
Now, I have issues with getting a haircut. I have been to many different barbers over the years, from a posh city centre place – 25 quid a go, to my current local guy 8 quid a time.
The common theme is, I never get quite the haircut I ask for. I give detailed and clear instructions and they then give me the haircut they want to give me. It usually ends up ok a couple of weeks later, just in time for my phone to forget who I am.
This got me thinking. Developing a financial model for a client is infinitely more complex than giving them a haircut.
So how on earth do you get it right?
There are a few things we do at Gridlines which seem to work.
- Spend time up front understanding the broader requirement and agree an outline structure in diagram form.
- Iterate often, check in with clients regularly sharing draft versions of the model and changing course as necessary.
- Work on a modular basis so that our models are easy to change as the requirement evolves.
- Don’t stop until the client is happy. Unlike a haircut, a model is a 2 way process, you can add as well as subtract. You can keep going until it’s right.
Please let me know if you have any thoughts, or know a good barber in the Manchester area…..
