Going ‘Lean’ is strategic for any organization

    Eric Ries – Lean Startup founder

I finally took a deep dive into ‘Lean Startup’, a practice founded by Eric Ries that blends customer development, design thinking, agile engineering, and lean manufacturing into an all-purpose entrepreneurial strategy that can be practiced by any team in any organization large or small, private or public, new or established. It’s for modern companies looking to create better products and services for their customer, and/or transform their way of doing business, faster, better and more cost-effectively. Practitioners brainstorm using the tear-away Business Model Canvas, check in constantly with customers, experiment with Minimum Viable Product solutions, and iterate like crazy while incorporating feedback and learnings throughout.

The Lean Startup practice dovetails beautifully into Bootstrapping Brilliance, a strategy originally pioneered by Doug Engelbart and further distilled in recent years. Bootstrapping Brilliance adds five strategic accelerators for enhanced leverage, alignment, and vision.

Lean Startup Basics

What is Lean Startup

Lean Startup playlist – my top pick video shorts for learning the basics

The Lean Startup – official website with links to resources

Key Players

Eric Ries – founder Lean Startup, author Lean Startup, coach

Alex Osterlander – founder Strategyzer, coach

Steve Blank – professor, author of Customer Development, mentor

And More – it’s an open source movement, an international community

Examples

Case Studies Playlist – quick run thru of key examples

Case Studies – on main website

Try It Yourself

Business Model Canvas (pdf)
– print and use your post-its to fill in

Business Model Canvas Tool (googledoc)
– do it online

Business Model Canvas Tutorial
– simple step by step instructions

Try mapping your current project(s) onto the Canvas, use it to brainstorm ideas for a new or improved product or service.

Educators, Non-Profits, Government Innovators – see tips for mapping a mission-driven initiative.

Go deeper with the Value Proposition Canvas and the Culture Map.

Learn More

Startup Lessons Learned – Blogposts by Eric Ries and guests

Lean Startup Community – Join meetups, forum, wiki, …

Add Accelerators

Take Lean to the next level with Bootstrapping Brilliance.

See also the complementary Galbraith Star Model.

Calls to Action

Eric Ries – A call to action to the Lean community

~*~

Doug Engelbart – A call to action Augmenting Society’s IQs

Further Reading

• Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything, by Steve Blank for Harvard Business Review

More

Chart your organization’s initiatives using this Pioneers-Migrators-Settlers chart. Doug Engelbart used a similar “Frontier Map”.

The Pioneer-Migrator-Settler Map – Blue Ocean Strategy