Sprints & Validation
The most important and most challenging part of the innovation journey is the phase we call "Sprints & Validation". Why? Because this phase often represents the opposite of the work culture found in traditional organisations, which focus on perfectionism, risk prevention, and exploitation of existing assets.
Purpose
The purpose of the phase is to reduce uncertainties as much as possible through a seemingly contradictory combination of entrepreneurial pragmatism and scientific precision. We never rely on gut feeling or experience when evaluating new ideas. We need facts! And for this, we turn ideas into holistic business models, identify success-critical hypotheses and start testing them with highly effective but lightweight experiments. These experiments usually require models and prototypes as simplified representations of our business model. They are never perfect but optimised for a certain purpose.
Elements
1
Setup
High-performance team consisting of 3-5 experts with a diverse background and productive social "interplay", combined with a committed sponsorship from top management.
2
Agile learning process
Systematic implementation and learning process with short iterations (of 10 weeks each) that guides teams through the troubled waters of design and validation.
3
Guiding tools & templates
A range of well-thought-out tools and templates supports team members on every phase of the process to ask the right questions at the "right altitude".
4
Hypotheses & experiments
Experiments as means to generate facts required for decision-making, usually based on hypotheses that are most uncertain and success critical.
5
Decision-making
Decisions made by sponsors at the end of each iteration: Kill the idea ("red"), improve ("yellow") or execute ("green") it.