Lean Acceleration
The goal of our Accelerator program is to drive innovation by nurturing ingenuity. If you are an intrapreneur or entrepreneur, the next two chapters will provide you with a structure you can use to give your idea the best opportunity to succeed in spite o
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3 Lean Acceleration A Repeatable Framework for Incubation “Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” —Helen Keller, Helen Keller’s Journal: 1936-1937, Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc. 1938 The goal of our Accelerator program is to drive innovation by nurturing ingenuity. If you are an intrapreneur or entrepreneur, the next two chapters will provide you with a structure you can use to give your idea the best opportunity to succeed in spite of the challenges we have covered thus far. You can evaluate your progress using these techniques and use these tools to decide whether you should pivot, persist, or pause your own idea. For those of you establishing a program of your own, we will also share our framework, structure, ceremonies, and tools. Whether you are pursuing your own innovative idea or creating an incubation program, we believe a brief discussion of how we developed our program will greatly enhance your understanding of it. So let’s begin there…
© CA 2019 G. Watt and H. Abrams, Lean Entrepreneurship, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3942-1_3
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Chapter 3 | Lean Acceleration
Our Journey It was clear to us that the status quo was not a path to success. That was no surprise to most. There had been many ineffective attempts to improve innovation both within individual teams and companywide. We knew something had to change, but nobody had successfully figured out which specific changes would make a difference. Until now. Through both our primary and secondary research we had a much more detailed understanding of why innovation fails in established businesses. We knew that in order to succeed we needed to establish an independently funded and governed program. That program needed to apply the appropriate level of rigor at each stage of each business idea’s maturity to ensure each business focused on what mattered most at that stage. It also needed to ensure teams were not burdened by unnecessary and inappropriate process for process’ sake; especially early on. We also knew we needed to provide innovators with access to the resources and skills required for successful execution of their current stage. So that was it. Simple, right? We wish it had been that straightforward. While we had identified the key impediments to incubating new business ideas in an established organization, and some of the cultural impact and unhealthy behavior that resulted from them, we still had to figure out how to address those impediments. Of course, many of us had our own hypotheses regarding what would work. Some of us were happy to share those with anyone who wanted to listen—and also with those who did not. Frequently. By the time we had concluded our research, a couple of new innovation programs had just commenced or were about to launch. Those programs showed promise, and they needed to be given a fair chance to succeed. About a year and a half later circumstances would generate an opportunity for some of us to put our research—and our careers—wher
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