- Our Sensel example showed the value
of not adhering to a prescribed process
but instead seeking and exploiting
opportunities to move further faster.
By jumping ahead we accelerated and improved
our impact on the business.
As we discussed before, typical design process
has for decades followed a logical sequence of steps
from identifying a need to delivering a product
or service that attends to that need.
Through a discovery phase, we move from analysis
to insights, in the design phase we move
from insights to concepts, and in the delivery phase
from concepts to products and services.
Often we'll represent this in a way that highlights
that we're continually tapering down from many
possibilities to the one ultimate solution, neat and clean.
Of course, when you step inside the factory,
that's to at all how the sausage gets made.
And of course, this is iterative,
both at the micro and macro scale.
So how do you actually manage the chaos
and move forward as productively as possible?
Here's a popular view of the lean methodology
that you've likely heard of, nice and tidy once again.
This represents the build, measure, learn
iterative cycle that's at the core of the approach.
I pulled this and the next few images
from a Google Ventures blog post that I like.
In the post they point out that the actual experience
that many people have is a bit more like this,
you start with a bad idea, building it takes forever,
then you're too far down the path to turn back.
You launch it and get inconclusive results,
so you jump to the next shiny idea.
And here is why I like this post.
Google Ventures is proposing short-circuiting the process.
Rather than building and launching a product,
this is just cranking out a just-good-enough prototype
and testing it with a light, fast research sprint.
They're effectively hacking the process
to get to the necessary and sufficient results
with less work and less time.
The proposal acknowledges that there is nothing sacred
about a process, even one with as many adherents
as lean, and that it's all about
making progress by any means necessary.
We need to remember who works for whom.
A process is just a tool that we wield
when it serves us to do so.
The process serves us, not the other way around.
Tying this back to our earlier discussion,
Rita McGrath points out that transient advantage leaders
recognize the need for speed, in her words,
"Fast and roughly right decision making will replace
"deliberations that are often precise but slow."
Prioritizing progress over process
is a reflection of our bias for action and gets us
to the fast and roughly right decisions we need to make.
Rather than adhering to a rigid process, we're always
on the lookout for opportunities to move further faster.
New venture teams should jump ahead whenever possible.