The Innovator's Method: Bringing the Lean Startup into Your Organization

The Innovator's Method: Bringing the Lean Startup into Your Organization Nathan Furr and Jeff Dyer (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press)In The Innovator's Method, respected innovation researchers Nathan Furr and Jeff Dyer outline a process for reducing the risks associated with moving new ideas from concept to commercialization in large companies. Such a is necessary, they argue, because traditional management techniques, designed to solve large-company management problems, often kill novel ideas and impede innovation. These practices are, Furr and Dyer contend, incompatible with the uncertainty that characterizes true innovation. New methods are needed if corporations are to innovate successfully and remain competitive.The innovator's method Furr and Dyer recommend consists of four phases: 1) insight, 2) problem defi nition, 3) solution prototyping, and 4) business model creation. Born out of the authors' extensive research with hundreds of established companies and startups, the integrates many popular concepts related to innovation and entrepreneurship, including Eric Ries's Lean Startup, the business model canvas from Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur's Business Model Generation, and the Net Promoter Score developed by Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company, and Satmetrix. What makes this book unique is the seamless integration of these concepts and into one cohesive, actionable system.After an introductory chapter that makes the case for a new method, the bulk of the book is devoted to detailed explanations of the four phases of the model. Each chapter includes extensive cases, concrete tools and test, and defined outcomes to be achieved. The authors make extensive use of case studies and diagrams to illustrate key concepts; detailed examples demonstrate the steps managers can use to the commercial viability of new ideas.In the insight phase, the authors describe four key actions that generate insight that leads to problems worth solving: questioning, observing, networking, and experimenting. They make a convincing case for searching broadly versus taking a narrower approach. Expanding the range of possibilities and opening up the process, Furr and Dyer argue, will increase the likelihood of uncovering breakthrough insights. Next, the authors provide advice on how companies can narrow down the field of ideas to select the most promising ones. For example, the test asks customers to vote for the idea or problem they would like the company to pursue-a crowdsourcing form of market research. Another asks employees to indicate which idea they would volunteer their time to pursue.Identifying the problem, the authors assert, begins with finding a job-a need or problem experienced by a large group of people who are willing and able to pay for a solution. Here, the authors introduce the practice of pain-storming to build a deep understanding of the problem and the customer, as well as the use of customer profiles (also known as personas), root-cause analysis tools, and interviewing techniques. Cold-call and smoke tests help determine whether a monetizable job has been identified. Each of these and techniques is explained in detail, with specifi c actionable steps and examples. …