Digital Evolution

Category: Lean Startup

  • The Culture Map in action

    The Culture Map in action

    This is what I learned using the Culture Map tool with a corporate team.

    First a bit of context: I have been following Dave Gray’s and Alexander Osterwalder’s work for the past years and got really excited when Alex presented the Culture Map back in 2015 at the Lean Startup Conference in San Francisco.

    Since then I’d been looking for an opportunity to use the tool. I recently met Dave Gray who gave me a 30mins run down on how he uses the Culture Map. I complemented my research with Best Practices: How To Use The Culture Map and was ready to go!

    Frame culture map

    Sitting down with the team, we took about 2.5 hours together to map out their culture. After explaining the tool and what to expect from it, the participants had about 10 mins to fill out the map individually. We then had a conversation about different inputs each person had and aimed at creating a collective Culture Map. Here are my takeaways.

    The Culture Map created and framed the conversation

    For me, this is the main benefit of the tool. The topics discussed would not be talked about or analysed as a team otherwise. For instance, the team highlighted the freedom they have in their work hours and the tools they can use. Asking why does the team have such freedom (the enabler) and what this freedom allowed them to achieve (the outcomes) gave them a better understanding of what’s going on.

    Behaviours have positive and negative outcomes

    When talking about the outcome of a specific behaviour, we found for each positive outcome, there was also a negative outcome. For instance the team could move fast and make some decisions on their own. The downside of this was that it created a disconnected with to the rest of the business that couldn’t behave that way. Bringing this to light now allows the team to see it and think whether to continue with or adjust the behaviour. It becomes now a conscious decision.

    Identify behaviours as things We do…

    The best practices suggest to start by mapping out behaviours. This worked well for us. To help define team behaviours, I found it useful to start the phrase with We + some verb. “We release code before it’s perfect”. “We have lunch together as a team”. For each behaviour, each team member had a story to tell. This supported the collective understanding of the team culture.

    Don’t include the boss?

    This is more of a question then a takeaway. The session worked well as the team talked openly and exposed how they work in a non-judgemental way. I imagine the exercise might not run smoothly for some teams if the boss is around. It can prevent a frank and honest conversation, leading to an unremarkable result.

    As a bonus we used the Culture Map to map the “want to have” culture. Here again, fundamental conversation emerged, questioning the purpose and ambitions of the team.

    So was it worth the 2.5 hours? Absolutely. The tool is great to frame the conservation and bring the invisible to light. Do you know how your team behaves? Why do they behave the way they do, does this have a positive or negative impact?

    If you want to learn more about how to think and innovate like a startup, contact me on Tango.

  • Starting on the right track with the Innovation Canvas

    Starting on the right track with the Innovation Canvas

    Over the past years, I have used both the Business Model Canvas and the Lean Canvas on hundreds of projects. Those canvases have helped me structure my thinking and really understand the mechanics of business models and innovation. Those powerful models played a key role in my understanding of value creation and businesses today. However, while I found some components in those canvases are very useful, some others tend to shift the conversation away from what matters most in innovation: the customers and their problems.

    As a result, I started testing various evolutions of those canvases on innovation project and startups. Removing what was in the way and magnifying what was useful. Iteration after iteration, I finally arrived at this canvas which I call simply the Innovation Canvas.

    Here is how it looks like:

    Innovation Canva

    Download the canvas here

    The logic behind the Innovation Canvas

    This canvas very simply includes the key questions you need to answer when starting an innovation project. Each element fits into a block. Here is the order to address them:

    1. Who are your customers
    2. What problem are you solving for them
    3. What is your value proposition
    4. What is your solution

    The top two blocks are about the problem space and the two blocks at the bottom are about the solution space. The problem space and the solution space are connected in the middle by the problem and the value proposition. The value proposition is often mirroring the problem. When the value proposition is accepted by the customer, he uses your product or service.

    The 4 secondary blocks are:

    From your customer, you identify the early adopters.

    From the problem, you learn the existing solutions.

    From the value proposition, find the channels to reach your customers and test your value proposition.

    From the solution, think of the revenues, based on the value you are creating for your customers.

    How to fill the Innovation Lean Canvas

    Start from left to right and fill in the blocks as precisely as possible. Here is what every block means:

    1. Customer Segments: What are the different customer segments that are going to use or buy your solution? You want to be as precise as possible and define segments not by demographics (ex: 20–25-year-old living in the suburbs) but by behaviors (ex: backpackers traveling twice a year).
    2. Early Adopters: Who will be the first customers to use your product? This is directly connected to who suffers the most from the problems identified. Later you can make a persona of your early adopters.
    3. Problems: What problems do you want to solve for those customers? List them all. Then, you can focus on the one that looks more important. Stay away from problems such as “no time” or “too expensive”.
    4. Existing Solutions: Today, how are customers solving the problems you want to solve? What other products or solutions are they using? These are the competitors of your solution. Are your potential customers happy with the existing solutions?
    5. Value Proposition: The message to the customers on the value you will deliver them. I found that it helps to frame the value proposition as the opposite of the problem. If the problem you are solving is “Small businesses having a hard time finding reliable local designers”, your value proposition might be: “Find a reliable local designer for your business”. Customers should be able to quickly know if this is something they are interested in or not.
    6. Channels: How will you get your first customers? Via which channel? You know you need to talk to customers but where to find them, how to reach them? In this block, list the channels you can use.
    7. Your Solution: How your solution is solving the customer’s problems? You can describe your solution and list the features.
    8. Revenue: How will you make money? A percentage of the transaction. A monthly fee? Use this to estimate how many customers or transactions it will take to make the first millions in turnover. This will give you a sense of the viability of your idea.

    Once you have those key elements identified, you can start testing the different parts of your ideas. How? Well, this is another story that we can cover later 🙂

    You can download the Innovation Canvas on Tango’s website. If you give it a try, please let me know how it works for you. Contact me on Linkedin

    If you are in Paris, you can join +10.000 innovators in the Lean Startup Experience community on Meetup where we discuss and explore those topics.

  • When to focus on growth?

    So, at the Lean Startup Unconference in San Francisco, David Binetti was holding a session on How to know when to step on the gas and focus on growth.

    He repositionned the question, using the growth curve and the 3 horizons model and asking: how can you measure if you have product-market fit or how do you know you can move a product from H3 to H2.

    All users or customers of your product come either from PROM: promotion activities or WOM: Word of mouth. PROM activities gives you linear growth but WOM activities gives you exponential growth. Which makes sense when you think about it for a second. Vitality is exponential.

    Looking at the growth curve, PROM only brings the curve forward in time but does not impact its shape.

    In the real world, your growth curve is messy and looks like this.

    If split your source of new customer into PROM and WOM you have a different read the signal.

    And when the number of users that comes from WOM is superior to the number of users that comes from PROM, that’s when to step on the gas.

    So on the early stage of this growth curve, work on WOM.

    Customers are your best source of customers. -David Binetti

    How WOM happens? On the iPod, the white earphone told everyone looking this was someone using an a iPod. You joined Facebook because friends asked you to. People started buying flatscreen TV because they could see flat screen TV boxes thrown in the garbage, and neighbours and friends getting flat screen TV.

    This is what got the “early majority” to buy the product. This is how you know you are ready to step on the gas, when WOM > PROM.

    Thank you for this David.

  • Le Lean Startup en 5 citations

    Le Lean Startup en 5 citations

    Voici 5 citations choisies d’Eric Ries pour capturer les idées derrière le concept de Lean Startup. Ces citations sont du extraite du livre, “Lean Startup“.

    Le succès, ce n’est pas livrer une fonctionnalité. Le succès, c’est apprendre comment résoudre le problème du client.

    On célébre quand une fonctionnalité sort car elle représente le travail d’une équipe. Mais c’est pas pour autant que le client va l’utilisée. Comprendre si elle apporte une solution au problème du client, ca c’est a célébrer.

    La seule façon de réussir est d’apprendre plus vite que les autres

    Une startup réussi lorsque elle a trouvé un business modèle qui lui permet de créer, livrer et capturer de la valeur chez ces clients. Pour trouver ce business modèle, il faut chercher, explorer et apprendre ce qui marche et ce qui ne marche pas. Plus on apprend vite, plus on a des chances de trouver ce business modèle. Et et donc… la seule façon de réussir et d’apprendre plus vite que les autres.

    Si tu ne peux pas te planter, tu ne peux pas apprendre.

    Pour apprendre ce qui marche, il faut essayer ce qui marche pas. Se tromper, encore et encore jusqu’à ce que en s’améliorant à chaque tentative, on arrive ce qui marche. Cet apprentissage est au coeur du modèle Lean Startup.

    Un bon design est celui qui change pour le mieux le comportement des clients

    Face a un design on a très vite des options et des préférences. On aime ou pas. Mais la seule vérité c’est celle du client et de son comportement. Est-ce que fasse a ce nouveau design, les comportements des clients. Cela se test sur internet simplement avec des tests A/B.

    En cas de doute, simplifier.

    What else?

    Je vous recommande la lecture du livre complet, disponible chez amazon.

  • How the Lean Startup is transforming GE

    How the Lean Startup is transforming GE

    The Lean Startup started as smarter way for startups to build product. Today, the Lean Startup ideas transforms how people think, work and operate together inside organization. The perfect example of such transformation is happening at GE (General Electric).

    Janice Semper who is leading an effort to drive a cultural transformation to make GE a simpler, faster and more customer-centric organization shared that story on stage at the Lean Startup Conference in San Francisco last November.

    GE recognized that in a rapidly changing world and a companies that strive have the ability to learn, react and adapt faster. In a quest to achieve this, GE tried to re-organise by removing some of the middle management functions. But this had no impact on their ability to react faster.

    Interested by the Lean Startup concept, they asked Eric Ries to come-in for a week and work with a few team to show this approach to build new products. After a week of work, the team feedback was very positive. They felt more productive, that they achieved more, collaborated more and had more fun.

    But that’s when the teams went back into the organisation problems started. The rest of the organisation didn’t understand how those teams operated. “It as basically like an organ reject.” said Janice. Although the benefits of working in this new way were clear. “So, we took the tools of the Lean Startup and made FastWork”. FastWorks is GE version of the Lean Startup. Renaming it allow GE to make the ideas their own.

    To deploy FastWorks, GE trained coaches to the Lean Startup tools and to change management technics. Janice explains GE started using FastWork on projects in its Heath Care division, because it was the most regulated. “If we can make it work in highly regulated industry then we can make it anywhere.”. And it worked. The teams using FastWork managed to work with regulation to find out what was acceptable or not and define a safe framework to run experiments.

    Rolling out FastWork to the other divisions helped get new leads and bigger orders, leading to better outcomes. Even in the aviation division where the command book is already full for the next 10 years. People in the company started to apply FastWorks on everything, for instance for before making a powerpoint presentation, they would ask: who is it for? what is the expected outcome? how can I measure it?

    Focusing on being fast, agile and customer centric, slowly transformed GE.

    As more and more project used FastWorks, the discrepancy between this new way of working and the historical style of leadership became a problem. GE leadership style was about command and control (Six Sigma), prescribing what should be done and valuing perfection.

    Realising the problem caused by this discrepancy, GE promoted a new style of leadership and shifting from:

    command and control – we tell, you do, we check
    ⤷ empowerment – your lead, we help you

    prescription – we know what needs to be done
    ⤷ discovery – let’s find out what should be done

    measuring activities – this what you did today
    ⤷ measuring impact – this is the impact your activity had

    perfection
    ⤷ iterations – make in imperfect and then improve it

    This transformation pushed GE to question the company core value. This lead to the creation of 5 GE Beliefs, explains Janice. As you can see they are strongly inspired by the Lean Startup principles.

    ge-beliefs

    GE Beliefs:
    1. Customers Determine Our Success
    2. Stay Lean to Go Fast
    3. Learn and Adapt to Win
    4. Empower and Inspire Each Other
    5. Deliver Results in an Uncertain World

    Read more about GE Lean Startup transformation:

  • Pourquoi lire Lean Startup d’Eric Ries?

    Pourquoi lire Lean Startup d’Eric Ries?

    Le livre Lean Startup d’Eric Ries a transformé l’entrepreneuriat et l’innovation.

    Eric Ries, entrepreneur de la Silicon Valley, tire les leçons des échecs et réussites des startups. Il en extrait les principes fondamentaux qui permettent aux startups de réussir. En les nommant et en les codifiant, ses principes deviennent tangibles, compréhensibles et transmissibles.

    Concrètement, le Lean Startup explique comment penser son produit avec le minimum de fonctionnalités pour éviter de construire un produit inutile, et comment, à partir de ce point de départ, itérer rapidement : c’est à dire construire et tester de nouvelles fonctionnalités pour comprendre ce que les clients utilisent vraiment.

    Le Lean Startup transpose les concepts du lean management au contexte d’incertitude extrême dans lequel se trouve une startup. Dans un processus d’innovation, où est le gaspillage ? Comment faire de l’amélioration continue et être sûr que l’on concentre ses efforts sur de la création de valeur pour le client ? Le Lean Startup prend son sens lorsque l’on cherche à découvrir ce que l’on doit construire pour répondre aux besoins des clients.

    Pour les entrepreneurs, le Lean Startup, c’est une approche scientifique et des outils pratiques pour développer leur projet.

    Pour les responsables produits et marketing de grandes entreprises, le Lean Startup permet de concevoir et tester de nouvelles offres, avec des données concrètes du terrain.

    Dans son livre, Eric illustre ses principes par des exemples vécus personnellement, mais aussi par d’autres entreprises de la Silicon Valley.

    Ce livre est devenu maintenant une référence; à l’origine d’un véritable mouvement de fond dans le monde du business. L’approche Lean Startup a transformé plusieurs entreprises en les rendant plus rapides, agiles et centrées sur le client, comme entre autre General Electric à travers son programme FastWorks.

    Eric Ries entre en 2015 dans le top Thinker 50 au côtés de Michael Porter et Clayton Christensen.

  • Comment Neopost innove grâce au Lean Startup

    Depuis plusieurs années, l’envoi de courrier baisse. Malgré cette baisse, l’un des principaux équipementiers du secteur, Neopost (1,1 milliard de CA en 2014) continue de croître. En effet, l’entreprise a su compléter ses offres courrier par des offres autour de la communication digitale et de l’envoi de colis. Pour créer de nouvelles offres, Neopost organise entre autres un Challenge Innovation qui incite les employés à présenter de nouvelles idées de services. Cette année les participants ont été accompagnés par des experts Lean Startup.

    Les 12 projets, coachés par les experts Lean Startup ont en premier décomposé leur idées en hypothèses et puis par des itérations ultra-courtes ont cherché à vérifier chacune de ces hypothèses.

    Ils ont interrogé les clients pour comprendre leurs réels besoins, testé et dé-risqué leur proposition de valeur et construit leur MVP. Ces retours leur ont permis de tirer des apprentissages concrets pour faire évoluer leur idée.

    Un des projets proposés visait à modifier un dérouleur de ruban adhésif pour poser simplement une poignée sur un colis. Cas typique de l’invention qui cherche son public. Le porteur du projet ayant pris conscience de l’importance de comprendre le besoin du client a vérifié sur le terrain si son idée présentait un intérêt concret pour les commerçants. C’est en interrogeant les cavistes qu’il a réalisé leur besoin de faciliter le transport des caisses pour leur clients.

    Neopost-Lean-Startup

    Suite a cet accompagnement, les équipes ont présenté leurs résultats au Comité de Direction, puis à l’ensemble du personnel. Par rapport aux années précédentes la différence était marquante, avec notamment :

    • des projets plus matures, plus complets et plus cohérents
    • des business cases plus solides, grâce à une validation poussée des hypothèses.

    Ces améliorations a permis un engagement plus grand du management ce qui a eu un impact direct sur la mise en œuvre de certains projets. Parmi eux, un « carnet de santé numérique » qui permet de mieux planifier les interventions et mises à jour des machines sur le terrain. Cet outil s’appuie sur une infrastructure big data récemment mise en place chez Neopost. Le fameux dérouleur de poignée, quand a lui est en phase d’industrialisation. Il a été présenté au concours Lépine 2015 où il a remporté une médaille d’argent.

    Laurent Farlotti, Directeur Innovation et Brevets, a observé : “Les projets sont plus matures, avec plus d’éléments business. Les participants étaient très motivées et il y a eu une très bonne réaction du management. Sans Lean Startup, ces projets seraient restés au stade de l’idée et n’auraient probablement jamais eu de suite.”

    Le Lean Startup a été introduit en 2013 à Neopost par Philippe Boulanger, CTO du groupe. 80 employés ont été formés à la méthode à ce jour.

  • Lean Startup: Impact pour nos Grandes Entreprises

    ladefense-une

    Venu de l’ingénierie de la Silicon Valley, le Lean Startup est en train de révolutionner la façon de créer les startups. Mais pas que. Cette approche pratique et systématique commence à faire son chemin dans nos grandes entreprises françaises.

    Le Lean Startup reconnait que la réussite d’un produit passe simplement par son adoption par le marché. Les clients et utilisateurs sont au centre de la démarche dont le but est de comprendre comment créer, livrer et capturer de la valeur pour ses clients.

    Face à la planification de développements souvent sans fin, elle prone des itérations rapides sur une version minimal du produit (MVP = Minimum Viable Product) qui permette de mesurer les comportements des clients et à terme de mieux comprendre leur besoins et attentes. Partir d’une idée de service, construire un premier proto avec le minimum d’efforts, mesurer les comportements des utilisateurs, apprendre ce qui marche et qui ne marche pas et itérer. C’est le cœur du Lean Startup, la boucle build-measure-learn.

    Le principe est simple : comme la voie du succès est ponctuée d’erreurs, autant les faire le plus vite et à moindre coût afin de pouvoir réorienter ou faire « pivoter » le concept autant de fois que nécessaires.

    Aujourd’hui leadées par quelques spécialistes visionnaires (peut-être même illuminés aux yeux de certains), les grandes entreprises en France adoptent le Lean Startup.

      Dans l’entreprise le Lean Startup sert:

    • aux directeurs innovation qui cherchent à équiper leurs équipes de méthodes
    • aux product managers qui utilisent ces outils pour comprendre les besoins clients et faire évoluer leur produit en fonction
    • aux départements marketing qui comprennent les limites des études de marchés et cherchent à renouer le contact direct avec leurs clients

    Dans ce monde en constante évolution, le Lean Startup émerge comme l’approche business adapté à notre temps.

  • C’est quoi le Lean Startup ?

    Screen Shot 2015-03-16 at 11.29.20

    Une startup a environ 9 chances sur 10 de se planter. Et la majorité se plante non pas parce qu’elles n’arrivent pas a construire le produit qu’elles voulaient construire, mais parce qu’elles ont construit un produit que personne n’utilise et qui ne répond a aucun besoin.

    Le Lean Startup renverse l’approche et remet le client au centre du processus d’innovation. On cherche à prouver la demande pour un produit avant de le construire.

    Il faut vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué…

    Un participant à l’une de mes formations me dit que pour l’approche Lean Startup, il faut vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué… C’est exactement ca. Si personne veux acheter de peau d’ours alors la peau ne sert a rien. Il faut trouver le client avant de partir à la chasse.

    Donc, ne rien construire rien sans preuve de demande. On veux vérifier le plus rapidement possible si une idée est faisable desirable et rentable. Pour cela, on pose les différentes hypothèses sur lesquelles cette idée repose sur un Business model Canvas ou Lean Canvas. Ensuite on les testes méthodiquement une à une, en construisant des MVP (Minimum Viable Product) par iteration rapide (build-measure-learn). Si le processus est un success, on termine avec un business model validé, prêt à la croissance.

    Cette approche est simple à comprendre mais difficile à mettre en application car souvent contre intuitive. Et c’est par la pratique que l’on se perfectionne.

    Pour vous entrainer, vous pouvez venir aux atelier et conference organisé par Lean Startup Experience ou Lean Startup Workshop.

  • How to use surveys to learn from your customers

    Too often I have seen entrepreneur trying to understand their customer need by sending them … a survey.

    “Please rank those feature in order of preference”

    Because surveys capture what people say – which is different from how they behave – they don’t provide insightful data.
    Worst, they provides data that too is easily misinterpreted and lead wrong insights…
    The most useless survey question I have ever seen:

    How much will you pay for a service that does such and such…

    Whatever the answer, make sure you ignore it.

    no_more_surveys
    I have seen 2 rare occasions of useful surveys:

    1. to (scientifically) pick the best domain name
    2. to measure the customer pain. An entrepreneur sent a very long and boring survey his potential early adopters. When the results came back, he did not look at the actual answers but at how many people actually finished the survey. A direct measure of how much trouble they are will go through to get a closer to the solution to their problem. A measure of their pain. He then identifies the most eager early adopters.

    Both of those examples are about validation, not discovery.

    What do you think ? Do you have other examples of survey that worked ?