Lean Startup for Executives -- Nurturing Green Shoots

There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all. -Peter Drucker

When we're trying innovation, when we are trying to create new things, the first step is to guess. When we don't allow our employees or executives guess, instead of creating the asymmetric payoffs we hope for out of innovation efforts, we end up in a cycle of sustaining innovation, doubling down on what we know works and shying away from anything less than assured success. This is a process that ends up trampling the green shoots of future possibilities, as we race around chasing the most recent trends and implementing our side of the latest feature wars. Nurturing these guesses... these green shoots, requires a different kind of management and a different set of cultural assumptions.

You’ve probably had a chance to read The Lean Startup, and maybe even try out the ideas. Now you may be wondering, what does it take to nurture and extend the Lean Startup in the enterprise?

At The Library Corporation, our employees have been engaged in using the Lean Startup methodology to create significant new value for the company. This has required a change in their processes and the way that they think, but that isn’t all.

Using traditional measurements of success to define goals and targets in the face of uncertainty only increases the odds that we will, as Eric Ries likes to say, “Achieve Failure.” It looks like we're going to be successful all the way along, all our classic project management concerns: on time, on budget, classic software engineering concerns, very high quality code, classic design concerns, most beautiful design... All of these markers will not prevent you from “Achieving Failure.”

Lean Startup has required the management team at TLC to change their perspectives and cultural assumptions about success, failure, leadership and authority.

Come listen to TLC CTO and TLCLabs cofounder Jabe Bloom as he explores beyond the basics of Lean Startup and talks about how shifts in executive mindsets are critical steps towards nurturing green shoots and avoiding achieving failure.

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About Jabe:

Jabe Bloom, CTO, The Library Corporation/TLCLabs is a creative technologist who specializes in managing innovation. He has been leading teams and companies, as well as developing software and products, for nearly 20 years. His deep practical experience and extensive theoretical research inform his public speaking and provide a foundation for his mentorship to a diverse group of colleagues, clients and entrepreneurs. He is an award-winning international speaker on Lean Software and Product Development, Agile, Lean Management, and Lean Startup.

Most recently, Jabe has been exploring and experimenting with, how the co-evolution of systems and individuals impacts innovation.

Find him blogging at tlclabs.co and blog.jabebloom.com; Jabe tweets at @cyetain.