Nmblr Pathfinder Step 3: Conditions for Success
Purpose of this step: To make the assumptions behind each option explicit, assess how confident you are in them, and use that to narrow the field. This turns attractive ideas into a few, confidence-tested strategic bets and defines the learning needed to de-risk them.
Guidance: what you do in this step
- Make sure everyone in the team understands each strategic option in the same way.
- Brainstorm the “What would have to be true?” conditions for each option.
- Ask: “For this option to succeed, what would have to be true…?”
- Capture conditions across a few dimensions, for example:
- Competitor - e.g. competitive intensity.
- Stakeholder – e.g. openness to change, unmet needs, decision drivers.
- Company [or asset/brand] – e.g. ability to generate evidence, field capability, partnerships.
- Aim for a short list of specific, testable statements, not vague hopes.
- Make each condition crisp and checkable
- Phrase conditions so they can reasonably be judged true or false over time (even if you don’t know today).
- Avoid woolly wording like “HCPs love our brand”; prefer “Key specialists believe [X] is the most effective option for [defined patients].”
- Assess confidence, individually then categorise as drivers or barriers, together
- Ask each participant to rate their confidence in each condition (e.g. low / medium / high) based on current evidence.
- Be able to support why: what data, experience or insight they’re drawing on.
- Then discuss as a group:
- Where assumptions are strong and well-supported.
- Where confidence is low or opinions diverge.
- Categorise the conditions as drivers or barriers
- Compare options using their conditions
- Collaborate across options:
- How attractive the outcome would be if it worked.
- How plausible the “would have to be true” conditions feel today.
- Identify conditions that are both very fragile and hard to influence, or where another option wins with fewer / less demanding conditions.
- Highlight options, using the alignment tool, that are both attractive and plausibly makeable true.
- Collaborate across options:
By the end of Step 3, you should have narrowed down to a small number of strategic options that are attractive, insight-led and better understood in terms of risk.