Conversation transcript
Tony Hughes: Where did the labels come from? So we got S-P-I-N. It's not obvious right from the start, is it? It should be an SPI, but certainly the N isn't obvious.
Neil Rackham: Well the S-P-I were fairly straightforward. The nice thing is, whether French or German, S-P-I are understood. Problème, problem. Implication. Situation, Situation. In most languages, because they're derived from the classical languages, situation, problem and implication are clearly understood.
It's those things about creating value that aren't so well understood and I really wanted to call them value questions. Need-payoff questions what a horribly ugly thing there. The problem with value questions was, particularly if you came from the London area, in those days SPIV was the colloquial word for a guy who comes up to you in the street and says "Do you want to buy a stolen watch?" and it was a bit down market and so in almost every language, except in Britain, we could have done it and I think it would have been a better acronym.
Tony Hughes: Absolutely.
