Peter Lierni of Solutioneering joins us on the second episode of Season 18. The Solution Engineering Tool (SET) is a framework that takes an engineering-based approach to win competitive deals.

The Solution Engineering Tool

As a Navy officer, Peter lived on a ship, which he described as a system of systems. After leaving the Navy, he started consulting in the Pentagon, assessing complex weapons systems. Peter connected building a complex system and doing business development and capture and proposal planning. Peter began using different mental models he developed from his experiences to win deals. He was eventually encouraged to develop this into a framework, and the Solution Engineering Tool (SET) was born. SET is a tool of tools, holding sixty-one tools that companies of all sizes can use and for deals of all sizes and timeframes.

The Importance of Critical Thinking

Innovators often fail to think enough about their innovation's value critically. This critical thinking failure is where SET comes into play. SET starts with an issue and key factor analysis. The goal is to understand the problem, why it's a problem, and identify the critical problems and why they are problems. After that, it's a matter of showing the value your innovation offers.

The Engineering Behind the Framework

When SET is used, it stores a data lake of competitive intelligence. SET provides a digital and visual blueprint that federates all the thinking behind how you got to a win. Many companies can't repeat successes because they didn't document the process behind them. SET collects strategies behind wins to be built upon and repeated in the future. SET's root cause analysis helps identify areas of success and areas that need improvement. In the case of a loss, the compiled data can see where things went wrong. Peter says no matter what innovation tool you use, it's not the tool that makes you successful. It is how you use it. SET is meant to facilitate collaborative analysis to help you make decisions on strategies you apply, potential teams to partner with, who you should hire, and give reasons as to why your company should win a deal.