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Back to The Compass ArchitectureThe Compass Architecture · 02 of 07

FTB 80/20

Front-to-Back 80/20 (FTB): focus the business end to end, from customers and products to operations: examine where value is created and where attention is diluted. Use an 80/20 lens to identify the few priorities that deserve disproportionate focus.

Where does the business create disproportionate value?

View as

The situation · Advisor / Coach

Without a front-to-back read, simplification work risks improving activities that do not serve the customers and products creating the value.

Desired outcomes

  • A consistent 80/20 read before any redesign
  • Evidence-based focus conversations with the client
  • A clear handoff into FOUNDATION and SIMPLIFY

Next step

Prepare for client discovery with the full FTB 80/20 reading.

Read the full Front to Back 80/20 stream
In the Architecture

What FTB 80/20 creates

Value created
A clearer view of the markets, products, and customers that deserve disproportionate attention.
Informs the next discipline
Gives FOUNDATION the value priorities around which roles, decision rights, and capabilities can be designed.

Does strategic intent survive the journey to the daily work?

One line of sight from strategic intent through market, customer, product and every internal function — held in place by daily 80/20 management.

80/20 Front-to-Back determines where action will create the greatest value and routes the resulting work into change, project execution or both.

Read the full Front to Back 80/20 stream
Suppliers · Inputs · Process · Outputs · Customers

The FTB 80/20 SIPOC

Suppliers

  • Owner, board and executive team — strategic intent
  • Market, competitive and customer sources
  • Commercial, product and operations leadership
  • Function leaders — finance, supply chain, HR, IT, service

Inputs

  • Stated strategic intent and time horizon
  • Market and segment data, win/loss evidence
  • Customer, product and service profitability
  • Function-level cost, capacity and process data
  • Current measures, targets and daily routines

Process

  • Confirm strategic intent and the few objectives that carry it
  • Read the market front to back — where value concentrates
  • Read the customer — which relationships earn and which consume
  • Read the product and service line — the vital few and the long tail
  • Turn inward: apply 80/20 inside each function
  • Set the measures and the decision rights that follow the concentration
  • Install daily 80/20 management — priorities, schedule and review

Outputs

  • A written concentration decision — where the enterprise will and will not compete
  • Customer, product and function 80/20 reads
  • Reallocated capacity, cost and attention
  • A daily 80/20 management rhythm at every level
  • A scorecard that reports the concentration, not everything

Customers

  • Ownership and the board
  • The executive team and every function leader
  • Front-line managers who run the day
  • The other two value streams, which inherit the concentration
Insights