Why can I never get a good haircut?

Every few weeks the facial recognition on my iPhoneX (humble brag) stops working.

This inability of my phone to recognise me baffled and offended me for a long time, but eventually I figured it out. It means I need a haircut!

Now, I have issues with getting a haircut. I have been to many different barbers over the years, from a posh city centre place – 25 quid a go, to my current local guy 8 quid a time.

The common theme is, I never get quite the haircut I ask for. I give detailed and clear instructions and they then give me the haircut they want to give me. It usually ends up ok a couple of weeks later, just in time for my phone to forget who I am.

This got me thinking. Developing a financial model for a client is infinitely more complex than giving them a haircut.

So how on earth do you get it right?

There are a few things we do at Gridlines which seem to work.

1. Spend time up front understanding the broader requirement and agree an outline structure in diagram form.
2. Iterate often, check in with clients regularly sharing draft versions of the model and changing course as necessary.
3. Work on a modular basis so that our models are easy to change as the requirement evolves.
4. Don’t stop until the client is happy. Unlike a haircut, a model is a 2 way process, you can add as well as subtract. You can keep going until it’s right.

Please let me know if you have any thoughts, or know a good barber in the Manchester area…..