VARIETYPORTAL
Route My Problem

The Variety Routing Protocol™

From a complaint you can say out loud to a move you can defend.

Seven stages. The first four exist to stop you buying the wrong thing. The last three exist to make sure the right thing actually happens, and that you can tell whether it worked.

  1. Symptom

    Capture what the buyer sees, what changed, where it appears and why it matters. We take the complaint in ordinary language — translating it is our job, not yours.

  2. Decomposition

    Separate objects, conditions, actions, tools, resources, stakeholders, dependencies and desired outcomes. Most misdiagnosis happens here, by treating a bundle of things as one thing.

  3. Variety

    Run the 6 interrogatives × 6 relational modifiers × 6 quantitative scales to produce alternative explanations and pathways — including the ones your current framing excludes.

  4. Elimination

    Filter paths using evidence, strategic fit, urgency, reversibility, cost, capacity, risk and time to useful evidence. A killed path is documented negative space, not wasted work.

  5. Prescription

    Identify the smallest sufficient intervention and what must happen first. Not the largest scope we could justify — the smallest one capable of producing evidence.

  6. Routing

    Recommend an affiliated company, a combination of providers, an external specialist, an internal action, or a deliberate no-purchase path. All four are real outcomes.

  7. Review

    Check whether the intervention changed the constraint or merely moved it. A constraint that relocated is not a constraint that was solved.

Stage four in detail

Eight filters kill most of the 216.

Elimination is where the method earns its keep. Every surviving path has passed all eight — and every path that failed is recorded with the reason it failed.

Evidence
Can this explanation be confirmed or killed with records you can actually obtain?
Strategic fit
Does acting on it move the business toward where it is trying to go?
Urgency
Does the timing of the decision permit this path at all?
Reversibility
If this turns out wrong, what does it cost to undo?
Cost
What does the intervention consume in money, attention and political capital?
Capacity
Is there anyone available to implement it, and do they have the authority?
Risk
What is exposed if this is attempted and fails publicly?
Time to useful evidence
How long before you know whether it worked? Shorter usually wins.

What routing can conclude

Four honest outcomes, not one.

  • An affiliated company

    Recommended only when the analysis supports the fit, with the relationship disclosed before engagement.

  • A combination of providers

    Sequenced, with a named owner and an explicit order of operations.

  • An outside specialist

    When nobody in the portfolio is the right fit, we say so and can help source someone who is.

  • No purchase yet

    Sometimes the correct recommendation is an internal action, more evidence, or nothing at all. We will tell you when that is the case.

Start at stage one.

Tell us what is happening. Five minutes, no obligation, no instant sales pitch.

Start the Problem Route Scan