Leanconf 2014: field notes- applying lean startup to consulting - martina hodges-schell
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Lean Startup works well at helping entrepreneurs get new ideas to market. Enterprises are figuring out how to innovate more like start-ups. How can you successfully adopt collaborative Lean Startup principles in a consultancy context? How does it differ to the way agencies used to work with their clients? Does it make sense? What type of projects lend themselves to this way of working? In this session Martina shares her experience from applying Lean Startup practices to her consulting work. Expect lessons learned on what has and hasn’t worked.
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Leanconf 2014: field notes- applying lean startup to consulting - martina hodges-schell
- 1. Field notes: Applying Lean Startup to Design Consulting Martina Hodges-Schell ~ @polaroidgrrl Leanconf 2014, Manchester
- 3. “A startup is a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.” Photo by Jason Rodman: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jrodmanjr/2775877760/ ~ @ericries
- 5. Setup
- 6. Problem/Solution Fit Product/Market Fit Scale Adapted from Ash Maurya, ‘Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works’
- 7. Photo by Adam Fagen: http://www.flickr.com/photos/afagen/3362070803/
- 8. Founder?
- 10. Photo by Anders Zakrisson http://www.flickr.com/photos/anders-zakrisson/4982281184/
- 11. Minimum Viable Product this not this not this emotional design usable reliable functional Photo by Anders Zakrisson http://www.flickr.com/photos/anders-zakrisson/4982281184/ emotional design usable reliable functional emotional design usable reliable functional
- 12. Make
- 14. ImaCgCe bImy hatgtpe: /c/raeddaitm: tssa svmagaell. com/images/pix/mythbusters.jpg
- 15. Photo by Thomas Hawk http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/155918164/
- 18. Photo by Pat00139 http://www.flickr.com/photos/pat00139/5773953057/
- 19. Finish
- 20. Photo by Jack Canfield:http://http://ww Andrew Burrows:http://www.fwlic.fklric.ckor.mco/mph/opthoost/oasn/djareckwcbaunrfireolwd/s4/728575794359543758/0/
- 21. Photo by Jack Canfield:http://http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackcanfield/4787745535/
- 23. Thinking about things as business changes everything.
- 24. My role as a consultant is to help my client learn.
- 25. What’s your experience? Photo by: http://http://www.flickr.com/photos/66979950@N07/7336583866/
- 26. @polaroidgrrl
Editor's Notes
- I’ve worked with a lot of startups full-time and as an external advisor, and I am really passionate about bringing some of their working practices into a design consulting context. Today I want to share what I’ve learned introducing lean startup principles to design consulting. This talk is based on a collaboration with my friend Johanna Kollmann, who sadly can’t be here today. Some of the insights I am sharing are based on her experience, and conversations we’ve been having with friends across the industry.
- I work at a place called Pivotal Labs. in London. I’ve been working with entrepreneurs to bring their startup vision to life and also large corporates who want to work in a lean and collaborative way.
- I want to remind us of Eric Ries’ definition of what a startup is: “A startup is a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.” Extreme uncertainty in real life is actually a serious challenge for most people, particularly our clients. - I hear a lot of talk of wanting to ‘innovate like a startup’ or references to Eric’s book, the Lean Startup, but I rarely speak to a client who is comfortable with extreme uncertainty. Lean Startup is good when you’re doing something new. And from our experience, works best when it’s understood as an innovation process by our clients. They need to be comfortable with uncertainty. They need to understand they are buying a process, not pre-defined outcomes. It’s essential to define what value is to us and them from the start. In reality the first hurdle happens when it comes to procuring this kind of project - what ‘deliverables’ are we going to make in a set time frame? How can our way of working be compared to creative pitch teams with shiny solutions? Innovation is very difficult to procure. It’s counter to many of our clients’ culture and processes. What we often hear is “Can we take a lean startup approach and launch in March”. ——————————————————————————————————————- “Three central principles to Lean Startup are - the goal of minimising waste, - the culture of continuous improvement and - the importance of measuring the big picture. “~ Salim Virani @saintsal
- I’ve structured our insights through three project phases: setup > make > finish
- At the beginning, ask yourself, which phase is client in? problem/solution fit (do i have a problem worth solving?) -> product/market fit (have I built something people want?) > scale (how do I accelerate growth?) (credit: Ash Maurya’s book) We tend to work with people who are in the first two stages. Lean Startup offers strategies to solve the client’s problems.
- How do you go about getting to work on these fun early-stage things with entrepreneurial people? Who are these types of clients? It’s important that they have a strong vision and are clear on their values - why does their idea matter to them? It’s important to understand the context of why the project is happening. Who’s budget it is and who is going to evaluate the success of the project. For a successful engagement they need to understand - no pre-defined outcomes - to be successful you need a product owner who’s empowered to make decisions - create a shared understanding of vocabulary. How do we use the words correctly? - help the client understand the roles of the team (I’ll come back to that) and you need to come to a shared vision of what value we create for the client. Be clear on what clients think they are buying and we think we are selling. A successful product is a superb outcome, but possibly we’ll shortcut learning that this idea has no legs, and we need to put it out of its misery. A pitch with a proposed solution and a plan how to build it won’t work, as you just don’t know. You are selling a mindset, and a process. How do you sell it? Most of our competitors pitch traditional agency projects with a predefined glossy outcome. We believe in what we do. To help customers take the plunge to work in a different way we set up an initial engagement of 4-6 weeks to show what value we can create and how we work, then times & materials.
- Things to agree with the client up-front: What’s the relationship? is he a co-founder, or a funder? time commitments: we want to make with, not make for We request that there is one point of contact who is empowered to make decisions and who is available throughout the process to act in a timely fashion. Too often design by committee. But even when clients do appoint a product manager that person usually doesn’t have the agreed decision making power, or often isn’t available often enough to keep up pace. =both sides giving the people involved the power to make decisions This can be very difficult with a client’s upward stakerholder management They often operate in a culture that makes it very hard to give authority to one person. Ideally Your skills + client’s skills = should make for well-rounded startup skills. We need to be prepared to facilitate internal and external change with clients. ——————————————— one project first engagement 30 stakeholders second engagement 1 empowered stakeholder ——————————————— Founder/Funder, what works better? Funder works well. Enable us to be the product owner and run the service, but it expects from the client to transfer that freedom and authority to us. Co-Founder works better to share, create buy in and collaborate throughout.
- Whether the client is a founder of a funder - It is absolutely critical that you can be passionate about their vision. You need to act as a founder for this product or company. If you lack deep passion for the goals of the company you won’t be as effective as a founder.
- customer development help: client *needs* to have access to potential customers, be prepared to reach out, need for pace/speeds We need permission to serve / deliver to customers with something half finished that is not in line with the brand. Eric Ries’ moniker of “you should be so lucky if someone looks at your startup” doesn’t apply here. Question of brand reputation. Can be a huge risk for established clients concerned with their brand integrity, and some brands are exposing themselves to people who want to potentially harm their brand or business. Governance, IT, Security Many clients can’t be as open and nimble as lean startups One example: Client needed to spend $1m and took three months to create a sandbox that was deemed safe enough for us to experiment within They can’t risk putting any data out into the open They don’t have a legal framework that supports this open way of hacking forward Always under attack from hackers This brings unnecessary amount of baggage, fear and red tape to using any online services
- Set the right expectations We all know that a Minimum Viable Product might be a tired buzz-word, but I’ve seen it most often bantered around in design agencies meaning we’ll do the whole she-bang of a design project, we’ll just call it something else and now we’re lean. It’s a small slice of the experience, not an un-usable scramble to the bottom rung of the product value pyramid. And it’s certainly not the whole thing, we’ll just do it in weekly sprints.
- Apart from selling a process, you are selling a team. It’s a challenge to get the right, balanced team together. We want everyone to be on board from the beginning. This requires people who can step out of their speciality. Challenge of a business model where you can plan that in. Especially if the technology is uncertain. How senior does the team need to be? Need to feel comfortable moving forward surrounded by extreme uncertainty. It helps to draw from a wealth of experience and a big toolkit. You are responsible for making this venture a success. This is quite a mindset shift from being assigned a designated, and well defined, role on a project and working to a well defined brief. This shift is not to be underestimated. We are excited and passionate about a different way of working, But we are selling the cliff jump to other designers We need to support our team is dipping their toes in the water Try new tools and processes out in smaller chunks. Help them get up to speed Even if they are bought into the process and think they understand, there is a lot of room for misinterpretation, misunderstanding and miscommunication. Build the product and process around people Improve it over time You cannot be purist
- When you’re a scientist thinking in experiments is easy, for the rest of us it can be challenge and changes the way we work. How low fidelity can you go to quickly prove/disprove your hypothesis with customer feedback? It’s important to learn fast and move forward, but not to get stuck on vanity progress-where we tick arbitrary boxes, but the learning doesn’t improve the business. Right now it might not be important if people like your green sign up button better than a blue one, if they don’t want to engage with your product in the first place. When you are creating your experiments, remember that If you cannot fail, you cannot learn. Above all: We are changing the way we work to NOT WASTE TIME. A limited budget, and being responsible for it, makes you inventive. It’s fun to channel your inner mythbuster and come up with new ways for finding out if an assumption is true. What you are testing will change throughout the project phases. At the problem/solution stage you won’t be testing design concepts, but likely the business model, value proposition or customer acquisition. This gives us the opportunity to broaden our skill sets and get nifty with experiments. Add to that your expertise: Trust your gut + decide - use your intuition to put a stake in the ground. Design used for customer development shouldn’t have any rookie mistakes in it. You should always start with your best guess, to neither end up with research paralysis, or on the other hand not test your assumptions.
- Even if the client has already done some customer development themselves, your team will need to do some. Lean Startup pushes the need for research and helps us sell it. In a balanced team every team member is responsible for finding potential customers and speaking to them. I have to say, startups are kicking us UXers in the research Butt. So get out of the building! One thing that was important for me to learn: Customers, unlike design research participants, are scarce when you start out. We are used to a captive audience when we do design research with specially recruited participants on tap, delivered to our lab in convenient time slots. So I jump at every opportunity you have to talk to them, even if that’s at 2AM. And always hassle people for more contacts. You ask if they know anyone else who might be interested.
- When you’re working in a startup team, all the learning is in all your heads. This adds a challenge for consultants. We are used to measuring our output in what we make, not what we learn. Especially when the client is acting as a funder, and isn’t part of your daily team, you need to share what you’re learning really well, e.g. in a learning log. Apply rigor to your documentation so decisions can be followed and backed up. A big challenge with a funder-client is to teach them about the process as you go, help them create a vision, if they don't already have one, and make sure you still share the same vision as you go along. It’s quite difficult as they are not as involved in the day-to-day process. This also helps bring them along in the process to give context to where you got to since they last saw the progress. Even with ‘co-founder’ clients, working alongside you, expect that you need to mentor them throughout the process. Show them how you make decisions and share your toolkit. A founder I worked with wanted to know why I was using a certain tool, so it’s important to be able to explain your process really well. As consultants we always say this is important, but in a business startup context this becomes even more vital. You’re only going to be there for the birth of the child, they will have to get on without you soon. There’s a risk that clients can get too focused on customer feedback, or look at the wrong metrics. Here is where vision comes in.
- When you’re working in a startup team, all the learning is in all your heads. This adds a challenge for consultants. We are used to measuring our output in what we make, not what we learn. Especially when the client is acting as a funder, and isn’t part of your daily team, you need to share what you’re learning really well, e.g. in a learning log. Apply rigor to your documentation so decisions can be followed and backed up. A big challenge with a funder-client is to teach them about the process as you go, help them create a vision, if they don't already have one, and make sure you still share the same vision as you go along. It’s quite difficult as they are not as involved in the day-to-day process. This also helps bring them along in the process to give context to where you got to since they last saw the progress. Even with ‘co-founder’ clients, working alongside you, expect that you need to mentor them throughout the process. Show them how you make decisions and share your toolkit. A founder I worked with wanted to know why I was using a certain tool, so it’s important to be able to explain your process really well. As consultants we always say this is important, but in a business startup context this becomes even more vital. You’re only going to be there for the birth of the child, they will have to get on without you soon. There’s a risk that clients can get too focused on customer feedback, or look at the wrong metrics. Here is where vision comes in.
- You are there to help the founder make decisions. Ultimately it’s their decision. You can support that with research, insights. If you keep a learning log and you are honest with your customer feedback, you can better decide to pivot or persevere. One of the most difficult things to embrace for the team is to let go of an idea. Sometimes you might discover that not your initial customer segment, but a different one has a bigger need for your product [customer segment pivot], or you realise that the initial customer journey is too wide/too narrow to be of value [zoom out/zoom in pivot]. As consultants we help our clients with all the information to make the best decisions for their business. Ultimately, only they can make the call to pivot or persevere. With a strong vision, and measuring the big picture as well as the detail you will find your path.
- Reality check: What value have you created for your client? What value do they think you are generating for them? Have you met their expectations? In reality clients can’t cope with less features MVP = fully featured, glossy product How do you need to support your client to socialise the project with different stakeholders in their business? Moving forward who would lead the business, do they have resources to continue? Where will the money come from? Do you need them to help raise funding (internal or external investors)?
- How do you support your client in taking over from you? A key difference for Lean Startup in a consultancy context is that your engagement will end, that this is a project, not an internal team running a business. Some clients will get infected with the lean startup bug, and educate themselves. Ideally, you will have someone (the future product or tech lead, or the ‘guy with the idea’) working with you as often as they can. The most challenging clients are subject-matter experts who know their market and will make the business work, but lack product and tech understanding and skills. Do you need to help them? Support? Coaching! We underestimate the time it takes to coach a client properly. This is not the finish, it’s the start.
- The final challenge: as a consultancy, you need to succeed. Case studies and references/referrals from happy clients are your bread and butter. Lean Startup might lead you to saving the client money by figuring out that their initial plan doesn’t work and by coming up with a better business model. If you can do this with building only a very focused product, that’s ace. But it might look to an outsider like you’ve done nothing.
- As designers we want to sit at the business and strategy table. This is an opportunity. But do we have the right skills to succeed? Develop a Business instinct Learn from the innovators, the entrepreneurs
- what they need to learn as soon as possible Need communications skills to communicate ‘learnings’ Mindset shift: Success = Customer response doesn’t equal perfectly designed/engineered feature figuring out if it’s for you as it’s so broad
- So what does it take to ride into the sunset? I’d love to hear from all of you.