The Executive’s Playbook for Decision Model Innovation (Part 5)

Where Customer Centricity meets Decision Intelligence

The Six-Step DMI Playbook

In this chapter, we introduce a practical six-step playbook for Decision Model Innovation (DMI). This playbook guides you through mapping your customer’s decision journey, pinpointing where commoditization is biting, designing a decision-centric value proposition, engineering how you capture value, building the delivery capabilities, and integrating the data and analytics that power it all. The tone is business-casual – think of a conversation with a Harvard Business Review author – and the focus is on actionable insight for product managers, innovation leads, and executives. Each step is explained clearly, addresses key guiding questions, and is illustrated with real examples from across industries and continents. At the end of each step, you’ll find a short summary and a readiness checklist before moving on.

Step 1: Map the Customer Decision Journey

Core concept: Every innovative solution begins with understanding the customer’s decision process. Step 1 is about mapping out the journey a customer goes through when making the critical decision your offering will support. Rather than the traditional customer journey (which charts touchpoints with your product), this is a customer decision journey – focusing on the choices, trade-offs, and mental steps the customer takes. We need to pinpoint what exact decision the customer struggles with, where cognitive friction is highest, and what data signals can reveal hidden parts of that decision path​. The goal is to see the decision through the customer’s eyes: from the first inkling of a need, through information gathering and comparisons, to the final choice and beyond (including post-decision feelings).