21) Explaining my research to someone that has never heard of CRM

Last night, a friend of mine asked me to explain my research into "The CRM Dilemma." My friend builds houses for a living, rarely uses a computer, and has never heard of CRM. I used the following analogy:

We want to know how many cuts you are making each day, to ensure you are building houses efficiently. By understanding how many cuts you are making, we will be able to help you streamline some of the processes and help you make more profit by reducing waste.
Please begin to record each cut, the size of wood, and where the board is going.

"What if I make a mistake in cutting a board?" he asked.

I told him he should record that too, so we can help him minimize those mistakes in the future.

Then I asked my friend what he thought would happen.
Interestingly, he didn't talk about the time it would take to record each cut and how that would interfere with the amount of time he spent, actually building.

He was more concerned that he would feel very uncomfortable with having efficiency reports run on his activities. Although my friend is one of the most honest people I know, he said he would probably not record most errors he made. He said he would use the boards cut in error in other places (As he does now) but find ways to report it in such a way, that we wouldn't know it was actually a bad cut. I explained that this would mean the reports would not be valid and we would not be able to help him improve if he didn't tell the truth. He said he simply wasn't going to tell us every mistake he made, or every detail, so that we could figure out how many mistakes he made.
I had turned my highly skilled, honest friend into a gamer and a liar.

My friend now understands "The CRM Dilemma" perfectly!

PACT explained to my friend using the same analogy:
Instead of recording each cut, we want to help you plan your cuts, before you build a house. You can select from various reports that will provide each suggested cut, and also suggest where the end piece can be used. If a mistake cut is made, the software will allow you to search for the best place to put the board, without registering it as a bad cut. At the end of the project, you can evaluate how using this model improved your profit.

The software will also allow you to quickly pass "Next steps" onto your sub contractors so everyone will know what they need to do to complete the job.

My friend thought this was much better than monitoring his cuts and he said the second system is one he would actually use.