Insight leader guides

Bite-sized best practice for members

Whether you want to develop your Insight team's effectiveness, write an Insight strategy for your company, or transform your organisation's commercial success through Insight, the IMA can now provide you with bite-sized best practice in the form of a series of Insight leader guides.

The guides are each 10 pages long, and new titles are published every month.

Recent topics include:

If your organisation has a corporate membership with the IMA, and you have an online account to access member content, then you can read the guides now by clicking on the links below. Please remember that you will need to log in before you can access member content.

If you're not sure whether your employer is a member, or if you would like to arrange to have online access, please contact us and we will be able to help you.

The latest Insight leader guides

An introduction to successful Insight management

IMP001: An introduction to all areas of Insight management and the first Insight leader guide to be published. You might want to read this before looking at the more detailed best practice available on individual subjects.

An introduction to Insight strategy

IMP501: If you want Insight to transform your organisation's performance, you first have to transform your Insight team, but very few companies have a comprehensive plan for making this happen. The first of 5 IMA bite-sized guides on the topic of Insight strategy.

An introduction to developing successful Insight people

IMP601: Insight teams are heavily reliant on the talent and behaviour of their people, yet very few Insight leaders take a really comprehensive approach to managing them. This guide outlines the 5 key areas for all Insight leaders to consider.

An introduction to Insight commerciality

IMP801: Rather than debating whether Insight teams should be more commercial, the question is rather how can Insight improve your organisation’s commercial understanding? The first of 5 IMA bite-sized guides on the topic of Insight commerciality.

How to build a commercial foundation for Insight

IMP802: Insight teams need a commercial foundation in order to help improve their organisation’s performance. This guide explores the 4 corner stones crucial to establishing a solid commercial foundation for all the work the Insight function does.

How to identify commercial value

IMP803: If Insight is to have the influence it should with decision-makers, Insight teams need to become “fluent in finance” – even in not-for-profit and public sector organisations. This guide lays out simple valuation techniques to help Insight teams to analyse and think in commercial terms.

How to apply commercial thinking in Insight

IMP804: To really make an ongoing difference, an Insight team has to adopt a commercial mindset in its everyday activities, applying the understanding it has developed to the way it operates. This guide lays out the 3 key ways in which Insight teams make this business as usual.

An introduction to Insight return on investment

IMP805: Putting a value to Insight has been a kind of Holy Grail for the industry for a long time, with the view that it can’t really be done. However, the IMA strongly believes that you can, and this guide will show you why the IMA believes so, as well as how to go about it.

How to identify the opportunity for Insight

IMP502: Part of having a successful Insight strategy is having a well-articulated vision for how Insight will make a difference within your organisation. This guide outlines the 6 key steps that will help you to first understand the lie of the land.

How to define your ambition for Insight

IMP503: To develop an Insight strategy you need to understand the lie of the land, but then it is time to reflect on your ambition for Insight to change your organisation. The IMA's Insight Participation Matrix will help frame your vision for the role you want Insight to play in your company.

How to identify options for your Insight team

IMP504: Like any other department, an Insight team will operate within certain parameters, for example carrying out work of a certain type, within a certain budget. This guide lays out the 7 key choices that effective Insight teams make explicitly to define those parameters.

How to execute an Insight strategy

IMP505: This is where the rubber hits the road - you can formulate a brilliant strategy, but unless you can execute it, you might as well not have bothered. This guide shares best practice for what is essentially organisational change management.

How to lead an Insight team

IMP602: To successfully lead an Insight team, Insight Leaders need to approach leadership like a small business owner. In this guide, we examine the three hats Insight leaders need to wear and present a tool which can help to ensure that they give each the attention it deserves.

How to identify key Insight skills and attributes

IMP603: Are the right people on the bus? Successful Insight leaders make this their primary concern as for an Insight team to perform well, the calibre of its people is crucial. This guide outlines the four main categories of skills and attributes required in an Insight team.

How to develop an Insight perspective

IMP604: According to Hans Rosling, "People constantly and intuitively refer to their worldview when thinking, guessing or learning. If your worldview is wrong, you will systematically make the wrong guesses". So how can we develop an Insight perspective to improve our organisations' worldview?

How to recruit and develop an Insight team

IMP605: If Insight is to deliver competitive advantage, then our organisation must be at least as able as its competitors to recruit, develop and retain really good Insight people. This guides sets out the approaches which Insight leaders have found effective.

How to develop successful Insight teamwork

IMP606: What matters most - how well you perform as an individual within an Insight team or how well the Insight team performs overall? In this guide we focus on what excellence looks like in terms of how the individual members of an Insight team work together to maximise their collective impact.

An introduction to influencing decision-makers

IMP301: To change your companies’ behaviour, and for the Insight your team produces to really make a difference, you need to transform your Insight team's ability to influence. This guide outlines the 5 key aspects to consider.

How to understand decision-makers

IMP302: We cannot influence if we don't understand, and yet many Insight teams have relatively little insight on the audience for their own insight. In this 10-page guide we explore what it feels like to be a senior decision-maker in today's corporate environment.

How to improve stakeholder relationships

IMP303: In this guide, we distill the skills involved in becoming a trusted adviser. We look at how these skills can be applied in practice in order to move from transactional and service-based relationships with decision-makers towards more trust-based relationships.

Influencing skills for introverts

IMP304: Most Insight teams have a mix of introverts and extroverts, but our workplaces tend be designed to suit extroverts. How can can Insight leaders make the most of introverts' strengths, and make sure they are not inadvertently discriminating against them?

Behavioural economics for Insight teams

IMP305: Behavioural economics represents a fantastic opportunity for Insight teams over the coming decade. This guide explores the core essentials Insight teams need to know in order to influence both consumer decisions and internal corporate decisions.

How to nudge decision-makers

IMP306: A key challenge for Insight teams is how to effectively influence their internal stakeholders. This guide provides hints and tips on how to use behavioural economics to engage decision-makers with insights, providing a greater opportunity to ‘nudge’ their behaviour.

How to nail the business issue

IMP102: In this guide, we take you through the IMA's three-step RED process designed to ensure that Insight teams nail the underlying business issue with much greater consistency - Reflect, Engage, Diagnose.

An introduction to successful Insight communication

IMP401: In this guide we introduce you to the 6 characters of Insight communication - professionals from whom Insight teams can learn if we want to share knowledge and ideas more effectively.

An introduction to successful Insight positioning

IMP701: Most Insight teams have to work hard to secure a strong position in the hearts, minds and processes of the wider organisation. This guide introduces the key areas upon which Insight teams can exert influence to ensure they occupy the best spot.