Lean Innovation

In the complexity of the globally-connected digital world, uncertainties and the assumptions on how to overcome them, hinder organizations from achieving their objectives. Enter rapid experimentation – a dynamic process that allows businesses to test ideas, challenge assumptions, and reduce the risk of failing. Rapid experimentation holds immense value in generating evidence to support decision-making, inform strategies, and propel businesses toward success.

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The debate that has raged on since the pandemic; personal productivity. Brant would argue that being in the office does not make someone more productive than working from home. In this podcast from a recent LinkedIn Audio event, Brant Cooper will go over how to maximize personal productivity by the use of a KANBAN board.

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The transformation of support functions from mere cost centers to strategic partners requires a fundamental shift in perspective. Moving beyond a myopic focus on cost efficiency, these functions need to adopt a forward-looking stance. Embracing a customer-centric approach is paramount — support functions must treat internal colleagues as customers. In this way, they foster innovation, facilitate timely resource allocation, and collaborate with revenue-generating units to optimize desired business outcomes. By embracing innovation, nurturing collaboration, and aligning with strategic objectives, support functions can shed the cloak of the traditional “cost center” image and emerge as essential catalysts for organizational success in the digital era.

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Brant Cooper discusses what it takes to complete rapid experiments and how it can be the fast track to overcoming uncertainty.

The goal is to separate what customers will do vs. what they say they’ll do. Too many entrepreneurs and corporate product people rely on “positive feedback” to make decisions. Countless hours and dollars are wasted assuming they know what their customers want based on little to no evidence. With rapid experimentation, customer behavior is a key part of the process.

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Innovation is a powerful force that can drive organizations forward and make a meaningful impact in the world. But it is not a one-size-fits-all concept. Every organization must define innovation within its unique context and aspirations. Understanding the multi-faceted nature of innovation can provide a framework for organizations to define and pursue innovation in a purposeful and strategic manner. By defining innovation beyond mere technology and patents, and embracing an innovation mindset everywhere, organizations can embrace a broader perspective that encompasses problem-solving and value creation.

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Whether discovering a new value stream for a still-to-be-launched product or seeking to improve existing value creation in the face of new uncertainty, the task may seem daunting. The Value Stream Discovery Loop and Moves the Needle is available to help. The tool provides an intuitive progression to enable both value stream discovery and optimization.

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A product’s value stream provides an opportunity for organizations to identify inefficiencies, redundancy, bottlenecks, and other types of waste in their processes. Unlike most company cost-cutting efforts, mapping, analyzing, and improving the value stream leads to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, reduced costs, and increased profitability, without sacrificing value creation.

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Value streams are all the activities an organization does to create value for customers and other stakeholders (usually within a specific product). “Lean” practitioners help you map your workflows, so you can see how to improve them while maintaining value creation. But what if the value isn’t there? Or you’re creating a new product? Or “innovating?”

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The Value Stream Discovery Loop is a customer-centric approach to value creation. It helps businesses understand what their customers need and how they can provide value to them in an efficient, value-enhancing way. At its core, this is accomplished by looking at a customer’s lifecycle journey from their perspective.

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Dividing your company into execution (delivery) mode vs exploration (discovery) mode, as recommended by the multi-named mythology of “ambidextrous organizations,” “dual operating systems,” or “dual innovation,” will prevent you from competing efficiently in the digital age. There are 4 simple steps to create operating mechanisms for dual track teams, i.e., teams that are responsible for execution also explore.

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Opportunity Discovery phase helps you determine the different needs that exist for each customer persona within your sandbox. There are 4 steps that can help you identify the opportunity by figuring out all of the actions that are being taken in the journey of a particular job, then you hypothesize where you might make an impact leveraging your company’s existing competitive advantages. You test whether these ideas positively impact the job, if the customer cares, and whether there’s a viable business model using rapid experimentation, e.g. Lean Startup.

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