Steve Blank Lean LaunchPad

The Woodstock of K-12 Education

Posted on September 23, 2014 by steve blank

Describing something as the “Woodstock of…” has taken to mean a one-of-a-kind historic gathering. It happened recently when a group of educators came to the ranch to learn how to teach Lean entrepreneurship to K-12 students.

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We Can Do Better than Teaching Students How to Run a Lemonade Stand
Over the last few years it’s become clear that the days of teaching “how to write a business plan” as the cornerstone of university entrepreneurship are over. We now understand the distinction between startups – who search for a business model – versus existing companies – that execute a business plan. Learning how to keep track of inventory and cash flow and creating an income statement and a balance sheet are great skills to learn for managing existing businesses.

But to teach startup entrepreneurship we need to teach students new skills. They need to learn to find answers to questions like: who are my customers, what product features match customer needs, how do I create demand and what metrics matter? Learning these skills requires a very different type of entrepreneurship class, best taught through a hands-on, team-based, experiential approach. (The Lean LaunchPad/I-Corps class is the canonical model of such a class, with versions now taught in hundreds of colleges and universities.)

In addition, most programs fail to teach students the distinction between a lifestyle business, small business and scalable startup. While the core principles of lean work the same for building a small business versus a scalable startup, there is a big difference between size, scaling, risk, financing, decision-making, uncertainty, teams, etc.

Entrepreneurial education in grades K-12, if it exists at all still focuses on teaching potential entrepreneurs small business entrepreneurship – the equivalent of “how to run a lemonade stand.” This is fine if what we want to do is prepare our 21^st-century students to run small businesses (a valid option), but it does real damage when students leave entrepreneurship classes thinking they’ve learned something about how entrepreneurs who build scalable startups think and operate.

On Fire With A Vision
In 2013, after taking the 2½-day “Lean LaunchPad for Educators” seminar, a few brave educators from Hawken School, a K-12 school in Cleveland, Ohio, decided to change the status quo. They returned to Hawken on fire with a vision of building a completely different sort of entrepreneurship course in their school. They saw the future was a course where students would learn by working on actual problems in the real world instead of sitting in a lecture hall. They adopted the Lean LaunchPad methodology because, as they said, it provides a framework for the chaos of a startup, where nothing is predictable. They found that they could approach teaching entrepreneurship like the scientific method. They ask their students to develop hypotheses and then get out of the classroom to conduct interviews to test them. They learn techniques for innovation, analytical approaches to research, and evidence-based systems for decision-making and problem-solving.

Teaching Other K-12 Educators
I had blogged about what Hawken learned implementing something this radical in High School here, and in middle school here. (Take a minute to look at the posts for context.) Honestly, I had never expected the Lean LaunchPad class to work so well in high school. But an even bigger surprise was when Doris Korda, Hawken’s program director, told me she was getting calls and emails from K-12 teachers across the country asking her to hold a “Hawken Lean LaunchPad for K-12 Educators” workshop.

So the Hawken teaching team took a deep breath and they offered this class – here at the K&S Ranch – so other educators could learn what Hawken is doing and how they’re doing it. Here’s what they were trying to accomplish.

If you can’t see the video click here

Thirty educators from 19 public and private schools throughout the U.S. attended their inaugural workshop.

These educators arrived at the ranch with a palpable sense of urgency, eager for the tools needed to build their own classes. There are no established Lean K-12 curricula, textbooks or handbooks for entrepreneurship programs. The class offered the first set of Lean educators’ materials anywhere. It took the attendees through the basics of Lean and how to build the class at their own schools.

The Hawken folks knew that in the back of the minds of other educators there was going to be the question, “Will this really work with my students? Can I really get them out of the classroom and expect real learning?” In what I thought was a stroke of genius, the Hawken team brought seven Hawken students who had taken the lean entrepreneurship class to help teach this educators course. These students told the attendees real world stories of how the class changed their lives and offered input and advice about what worked and didn’t for them.

The energy at the ranch was off the charts. Every minute was filled with talk about how to build this new model of learning and how to use LLP to encourage students to think creatively and analytically.

The attendees went back to their schools armed with a methodology and sample curriculum to develop their own entrepreneurship courses and put what they learned into practice. Some will take what they learned and apply Lean entrepreneurial principles to create innovate STEM programs and/or to encourage the growth of entrepreneurial ecosystems beyond school walls.

Here’s what some of them had to say about the experience:

If you can’t see the video click here

Jeremy Wickenheiser, a high school teacher with the Denver School of Science and Technology, a STEM public school serving 6,500 students, summed up the remarks we heard again and again: “This is the beginning of a movement to change how students learn.”

What’s Next
Encouraged by the attendees, Hawken is developing a comprehensive educational program for educators, with workshops on the East and West coasts, an educator’s handbook, and codified systems to help educators build their own experiential, LLP-based K-12 programs.

To learn about the workshops and sign up, click here.

Lessons Learned

The old ways of teaching entrepreneurship prepared students for small businesses

We needed a new educational approach to prepare them for scalable startups

Using the Lean LaunchPad, the Hawken School developed a successful entrepreneurship program for middle and high school students to do just that

Now they are teaching other educators how to do the same

Filed under: Lean LaunchPad, Teaching | 6 Comments »

Why Translational Medicine Will Never be The Same

Posted on September 12, 2014 by steve blank

There have been 2 or 3 courses in my entire education that have changed
the way I think. This is one of those.
Hobart Harris Professor and Chief, Division of General Surgery at UCSF

For the past three years the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps has been teaching our nations best scientists how to build a Lean Startup. Close to 400 teams in robotics, computer science, materials science, geoscience, etc. have learned how to use business models, get out of the building to test their hypotheses and minimum viable product.

However, business models in the Life Sciences are a bit more complicated than those in software, web/mobile or hardware. Startups in the Life Sciences (therapeutics, diagnostics, devices, digital health, etc.) also have to understand the complexities of reimbursement, regulation, intellectual property and clinical trials.

Last fall we prototyped an I-Corps class for life sciences at UCSF with 25 teams. Hobart Harris led one of the teams.

What Hobart learned and how he learned it is why we’re about to launch the I-Corps @ NIH on Oct 6th.

If you can’t see the video click here

Translational medicine will never be the same.

Filed under: Lean LaunchPad, Life Sciences (NIH), NIH (National Institutes of Health) | 6 Comments »

Getting Lean in Education – By Getting Out of the Classroom

Posted on July 23, 2014 by steve blank

This week the National Science Foundation goes Lean on education by providing $1.2 million to educators who want to bring their classroom innovations to a wider audience.

shutterstock_157439453 ——–

The I-Corps program started when the U.S. National Science Foundation adopted my Lean LaunchPad class. Their goal was to train University scientists and researchers to use Lean Startup methods (business model design, customer development and agile engineering) to commercialize their science. Earlier this month the National Institutes of Health announced I-Corps @ NIH, to help scientists doing medical research take their innovations from the lab-bench to the bedside and accelerate translational medicine.

This week, the NSF is announcing the next step in the I-Corps program– I-Corps for Learning (I-Corps L). This version of I-Corps is for STEM educators – anyone who teaches Science, Technology, Engineering and Math from kindergarten to graduate school, and wants to learn how to bring an innovative teaching strategy, technology, or set of curriculum materials to a wider audience. Following a successful pilot program, the NSF is backing the class with $1.2 million to fund the next 24 teams.

The Problem in the Classroom
A frustration common to both educators and policymakers is how difficult it has been to get new, innovative, education approaches into widespread use in classrooms where they can influence large numbers of students. While the federal government and corporations have dumped a ton of money into STEM education research, a disappointing few of these brave new ideas have made it into practice. These classroom innovations often remain effectively a secret – unknown to most STEM educators or the research community at large.

It turns out that on the whole educators are great innovators but have had a hard time translating their ideas into widespread adoption. What we had was a very slow classroom innovation diffusion rate. Was there any was to speed this up?

A year ago Don Millard of the National Science Foundation (who in a previous life had been a STEM Educator) approached me with a hypothesis that possibly could solve this problem. Don observed that educators with innovative ideas who actively got out of their classrooms and tested their innovations with other educators/institutions/students had a much better adoption rate.

Up until now there was no formal way to replicate the skills of the educators who successfully evangelized their new concepts. Don’s insight was that the I-Corps model being rolled out for scientists might work equally well for educators/teachers. He pointed out that there was a close analogy between scientists trying to bring product discoveries to market and educators getting learning innovations into broad practice. Don thought that a formal Lean LaunchPad/I-Corps methodology might be exactly what educators needed to understand how their classroom innovations could be used, how to get other educators and institutions to adopt them, and how to articulate their value to potential investors .

Don then recruited Karl Smith from the University of Minnesota to pilot a class of 9 teams made up of STEM educators. Karl recruited a teaching team (Ann McKenna, Chris Swan, Russ Korte, Shawn Jordan, Micah Lande and Bob MacNeal) and Jerry Engel trained them. The team ran their first I-Corps for Learning class earlier this year.

Karl and his teaching team really nailed it. So much so that the NSF is now rolling out I-Corps for Learning on a larger scale.

I-Corps for Learning Details
NSF will provide up to $1.2 million to support 24 teams. The I-Corps L cohort teams will receive additional support — in the form of mentoring and funding — to accelerate innovation in learning that can be successfully scaled, in a sustainable manner.

To be eligible to pursue funding, applicants must have received a prior award from NSF (in a STEM education field relevant to the proposed innovation) that is currently active or that has been active within five years from the date of the proposal submission. Consideration will be given to projects that address K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral research, as well as learning in informal science education environments.

Each team will consist of:

The principal investigator (who received the prior award);
An entrepreneurial lead (who is committed to investigate the landscape surrounding the innovation); and
A mentor (who understands the evidence concerning promise, e.g., from an institutional education-focused center or commercial background that will help inform the efforts)

The outcomes of the pilot projects are expected to be threefold:

A clear go/no go decision concerning the viability and effectiveness of the learning-oriented resources/products, practices and services,
An implementation “product” and process for potential partners/adopters, and
A transition plan to move the effort forward and bring the innovation to scale

Proposals from potential I-Corps L teams will be accepted through September 30, 2014. Class starts January 2015.

Check out the I-Corps for Learning website here.

Lessons Learned

The diffusion of STEM classroom innovations is excruciatingly slow

The Lean LaunchPad/I-Corps model may accelerate that process

I-Corps for Learning is accepting applications

Filed under: Lean LaunchPad, NSF (National Science Foundation), Teaching | 5 Comments »

Validation: Be Sure Your Startup Vision Isn’t a Hallucination. 2 Minutes to See Why

Posted on July 3, 2014 by steve blank

If you can’t see the video click here

Filed under: 2 Minute Lessons, Business Model versus Business Plan, Customer Development, Lean LaunchPad, Teaching | 7 Comments »

Customer Discovery: The Search for Product/Market Fit. 2 Minutes to See Why

Posted on June 28, 2014 by steve blank

If you can’t see the video click here

Filed under: 2 Minute Lessons, Business Model versus Business Plan, Customer Development, Lean LaunchPad, Teaching | 7 Comments »

I-Corps @ NIH – Pivoting the Curriculum

Posted on June 26, 2014 by steve blank

We’ve pivoted our Lean LaunchPad / I-Corps curriculum. We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. Udacity canvas and value prop

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Over the last three years the Lean LaunchPad class has started to replace the last century’s “how to write a business plan” classes as the foundation for entrepreneurial education. The Lean LaunchPad class uses the three “Lean Startup” principles:

Alexander Osterwalders “business model canvas” to frame hypotheses
“Customer Development” to test the hypotheses outside the building and
“Agile Engineering” to have teams prototype, test, and iterate their idea while discovering if they have a profitable business model.

Teams talk to 10-15 customers a week and make a minimum of 100 customer visits. The Lean LaunchPad is now being taught in over 100 universities. Three years ago the class was adopted by the National Science Foundation and has become their standard for commercializing science. Today the National Institutes of Health announced their I-Corps @ NIH program.

The one constant in all versions of the Lean LaunchPad / I-Corps class has been the order in which we teach the business model canvas.

Value Propositions and Customer Segments are covered in weeks 1 and 2, emphasizing the search for problem/solution and then product/market fit. Next we teach Distribution Channels (how are you going to sell the product) and Customer Relationships (how do you Get/Keep/Grow customers) and Revenue Streams (what’s the Revenue Model strategy and pricing tactics.) Finally we move to the left side of the canvas to teach the supporting elements of Resources, Partners, Activities and Costs.

Teaching the class lectures in this order worked great, it helped the teams understand that the right-side of the canvas was where the action was. The left- hand side had the supporting elements of the business that you needed to test and validate, but only after you made sure the hypotheses on the right were correct.

This lecture order was embedded in the Udacity Lectures, the syllabi and educators guide I open-sourced. Hundreds of teams in the NSF, and my Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia, and UCSF classes learned to search for a repeatable and scalable business model in this way.

It’s consistency was the reason that the NSF was able to scale the I-Corps from 15 to 30 University sites.

So why change something that worked so well?

Rationale
Last fall at UCSF we taught 125 researchers and clinicians in therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices and digital health in a Lean LaunchPad for Life Sciences class. While the teaching team made heroic efforts to adapt their lectures to our “standard” canvas teaching order, it was clear that for therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices the order was wrong. Hypotheses about Intellectual Property, Reimbursement, Regulation and Clinical Trials found on the left side of canvas are as, or more important than those on the right side of the canvas.

I realized we were trying to conform to a lecture order optimized for web, mobile, hardware. We needed to cover Intellectual Property, Reimbursement, Regulation and Clinical Trials a month earlier in the class than in the current format.

The National Institutes of Health has adopted our class for its I-Corps @ NIH program starting this October. Most teams will be in therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. Therefore we’re going to teach the class in the following order:

1) value proposition, 2) customer segments, 3) activities, 4) resources, 5) partners, 6) channel, 7) customer relationships, 8) revenue/costs

I-Corps @ NIH Lecture Order Details
Customer Segments change over time. CROs or Payers may ultimately be a resource, a partner or a revenue source, but until you get them signed up they’re first a customer. Your potential exit partners are also a customer. And most importantly, who reimburses you is a customer. (You get an introduction to reimbursement early here, while the details are described later in the “Revenue” lecture.)

Activities are the key things you need to do to make the rest of the business model (value proposition, distribution channel, revenue) work. Activities cover clinical trials, FDA approvals, Freedom to Operate (IP, Licenses) software development, drug or device design, etc.

Activities are not the product/service described in the value prop, they are the unique expertise that the company needs to deliver the value proposition. In this week we generally describe the business rationale of why you need these. The specifics of who they are and how to work with them are covered in the “Resource” and “Partners” lectures.

Resources – Once you establish what activities you need to do, the next question is, “how do these activities get accomplished?” I.e. what resources do I need to make the activities happen. The answer is what goes in the Resources box (and if necessary, the Partners box.) Resources may be CRO’s, CPT consultants, IP, Financial or Human resources (regardless of whether they’re consultants or employees.)

Partners are external resources necessary to execute the Activities. You’ve identified the “class of partner” in the Resources box. This lecture talks about specifics – who are they, what deals work with them, how to get them, how to work with them.

Customer Relationships is what we think of as traditional sales and marketing; assembling a SAB, getting the KOL’s, conferences, articles, etc. Customer Relationships answers the question, “How will we create demand and drive it to our channel?”

We think we now have a syllabus that will better fit a Life Science audience. Once the syllabus stops moving around we’ll open source it along with the educators guide this fall.

Lessons Learned

The Lean LaunchPad class has started to replace the last century’s “how to write a business plan” classes

The lecture order emphasizes testing the right-side of the canvas first

That works for almost all markets

However, for life sciences hypotheses about Intellectual Property, Reimbursement, Regulation and Clinical Trials are critical to test early

Therefore we created a more effective lecture order for Life Sciences

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/156404645″ params=”show_artwork=false” height=”66″ iframe=”true” /]

Filed under: Customer Development, Lean LaunchPad, Life Sciences (NIH), NIH (National Institutes of Health), Teaching | 12 Comments »

Why Lean May Save Your Life – The I-Corps @ NIH

Posted on June 19, 2014 by steve blank

Today the National Institutes of Health announced they are offering my Lean LaunchPad class (I-Corps @ NIH ) to commercialize Life Science.

There may come a day that one of these teams makes a drug, diagnostic or medical device that saves your life.

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Over the last two and a half years the National Science Foundation I-Corps has taught over 300 teams of scientists how to commercialize their technology and how to fail less, increasing their odds for commercial success.

After seeing the process work so well for scientists and engineers in the NSF, we hypothesized that we could increase productivity and stave the capital flight by helping Life Sciences startups build their companies more efficiently.

So last fall we taught 26 life science and health care teams at UCSF in therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. 110 researchers and clinicians, and Principal Investigators got out of the lab and hospital, and talked to 2,355 customers, tested 947 hypotheses and invalidated 423 of them. The class had 1,145 engagements with instructors and mentors. NIH I Corps logo

The results from the UCSF Lean LaunchPad Life Science class showed us that the future of commercialization in Life Sciences is Lean – it’s fast, it works and it’s unlike anything else ever done. It’s going to get research from the lab to the bedside cheaper and faster.

Translational Medicine
In life sciences the process of moving commercializing research –moving it from the lab bench to the bedside – is called Translational Medicine.

The traditional model of how to turn scientific discovery into a business has been:
1) make a substantive discovery, 2) write a business plan/grant application, 3) raise funding, 4) execute the plan, 5) reap the financial reward.

For example, in therapeutics the implicit assumption has been that the primary focus of the venture was to validate the biological and clinical hypotheses. (i.e. What buttons does this molecule push in target cells and what happens when these buttons are pushed? What biological pathways respond?) and then when these pathways are impacted, why do we believe it will matter to patients and physicians?

We assumed that for commercial hypotheses (clinical utility, who the customer is, data and quality of data, how reimbursement works, what parts of the product are valuable, roles of partners, etc.) if enough knowledge was gathered through proxies or research a positive outcome could be precomputed. And that with sufficient planning successful commercialization was simply an execution problem. This process built a false sense of certainty, in an environment that is fundamentally uncertain.

We now know the traditional translational medicine model of commercialization is wrong.

The reality is that as you validate the commercial hypotheses (i.e. clinical utility, customer, quality of data, reimbursement, what parts of the product are valuable, roles of CRO’s, and partners, etc.,) you make substantive changes to one or more parts of your initial business model, and this new data affects your biological and clinical hypotheses.

We believe that a much more efficient commercialization process recognizes that 1) there needs to be a separate, parallel path to validate the commercial hypotheses and 2) the answers to the key commercialization questions are outside the lab and cannot be done by proxies. The key members of the team CEO, CTO, Principal investigator, need to be actively engaged talking to customers, partners, regulators, etc.

And that’s just what we’re doing at the National Institutes of Health.

Join the I-Corps @ NIH
Today the National Institutes of Health announced the I-Corps at NIH.

It’s a collaboration with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop NIH-specific version of the Innovation-Corps. (Having these two federal research organizations working together is in itself a big deal.) We’re taking the class we taught at UCSF and creating an even better version for the NIH. (I’ll open source the syllabus and teaching guide later this year.)

The National Cancer Institute SBIR Development Center, is leading the pilot, with participation from the SBIR & STTR Programs at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

NIH Uncle Sam small The class provides real world, hands-on learning on how to reduce commercialization risk in early stage therapeutics, diagnostics and device ventures. We do this by helping teams rapidly:

define clinical utility now, before spending millions of dollars
understand the core customers and the sales and marketing process required for initial clinical sales and downstream commercialization
assess intellectual property and regulatory risk before they design and build
gather data essential to customer partnerships/collaboration/purchases before doing the science
identify financing vehicles before you need them

Like my Stanford/Berkeley and NSF classes, the I-Corps @ NIH is a nine-week course. It’s open to NIH SBIR/STTR Phase 1 grantees.

The class is team based. To participate grantees assemble three-member teams that include:

C-Level Corporate Officer: A high-level company executive with decision-making authority;
Industry Expert: An individual with a prior business development background in the target industry; and
Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI): The assigned PD/PI on the SBIR/STTR Phase I award.

Space is limited to 25 of the best teams with NIH Phase 1 grants. Application are due by August 7th (details are here.)

If you’re attending the BIO Conference join our teaching team (me, Karl Handelsman, Todd Morrill and Alan May) at the NIH Booth Wednesday June 25^th at 2pm for more details. Or sign up for the webinar on July 2^nd here.

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This class takes a village: Michael Weingarten and Andrew Kurtz at the NIH, the teaching team: Karl Handelsman, Todd Morrill and Alan May, Babu DasGupat and Don Millard at the NSF, Erik Lium and Stephanie Marrus at UCSF, Jerry Engel and Abhas Gupta, Errol Arkilic at M34 Capital and our secret supporters; Congressman Dan Lipinski and Tom Kalil and Doug Rand at the OSTP and tons more.

Lessons Learned

There needs to be a separate, parallel path to validate the commercial hypotheses

The answers to commercialization questions are outside the lab

They cannot be done by proxies

Commercial validation affects biological and clinical hypotheses

Listen to the blog post here

Filed under: Customer Development, Lean LaunchPad, Life Sciences (NIH), NIH (National Institutes of Health) | Leave a comment »

Innovating Municipal Government Culture

Posted on April 28, 2014 by steve blank

D.R. Widder is the Vice President of Innovation and holds the Steve Blank Innovation Chair at Philadelphia University. He’s helping city government in Philadelphia become more innovative by applying Lean startup methods and Philadelphia University’s innovation curriculum. I asked him to share an update on his work on teaching lean techniques to local governments.

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This February Philadelphia University and the City of Philadelphia founded the Academy for Municipal Innovation (AMI). Our goal is to foster innovation principles and practice in local government by changing the way government employees think about innovation and act on their ideas. We just graduated the inaugural class. Here’s the story of our journey.

Inaugural Class Academy of Innovation Management

The Academy for Municipal Innovation has come out of collaboration between Philadelphia University and the City of Philadelphia. Soon after I came to PhilaU as the chief innovation officer, I met Adel Ebeid, who was newly appointed as Chief Innovation Officer for the City of Philadelphia. We bonded over our similar challenges, as Adel was only the second chief innovation officer in city government and I was one of the first chief innovation officers in higher education.

Building a Government Innovation Curriculum
The Academy for Municipal Innovation curriculum is built on Philadelphia University’s distinctive approach to innovation education – it’s collaborative, multidisciplinary, and engaged in the real world. The curriculum draws from Philadelphia University’s design, engineering, and business disciplines, as all are needed to make innovation relevant in the government.

Philadelphia University Undergraduate Curriculum

The program is built around five core innovation practices that we teach:

Integrated Design Processes – The process of opportunity finding, innovation and problem solving
Business and Operations Models – How to describe, design, challenge, and evaluate innovation
Systems Thinking – Methods for gathering and mapping out all stakeholders and influences surrounding an issue and solution
Research Methods – How to find actionable insights and ask the right questions.
Innovation Leadership – How to develop innovative teams and culture.

We took this these core innovation practices in the form that has worked at the undergraduate level, and adapted the processes and content for the working professional in the government.

The Academy for Municipal Innovation (AMI) curriculum
We deliver the class to government employees in an Executive Ed format comprised of seven 4-hour sessions.

Each class is a mix of theory and practice. A key design principle is that each session includes at least one tool that participants can use the very next day at work, so they can make it real immediately. For example, simple brainstorming techniques like “Yes, And” and “Silent Brainstorming” were put to use the same week they learned them.

We select one common theme that runs through all the classes for continuity, and they build upon it as they go. The theme for the pilot class was “How can the city better communicate and advance innovative ideas”. We built on this theme teaching the students opportunity finding, concept development, stakeholder mapping, systems dynamics, research, and business models perspective, culminating with a capstone workshop where they bring it all together.

The strategy is to take participants from across the full range of city organization chart to seed the culture change. The pilot class (we call them the Pioneers) learned innovation principles and tools, and will bring them back to their groups and spread the word. For example, a subset of the class self organized around how to better service businesses starting and operating in the city. They used the capstone to pilot a process that they plan to take back to their organizations and implement at scale.

Scaling the Academy for Municipal Innovation
We see the Academy for Municipal Innovation scaling in three dimensions:

Culture – graduates become change agents in their home groups, and change their group culture locally, amplifying the impact of each graduate
Depth – The certificate program can be expanded into courses for credit, and ultimate a master’s degree in innovation in government.
Reach – As we move out of pilot, we will offer this program to other city governments (and other levels of government). Success in Philadelphia will make us a flagship for innovation at the city level.

Lessons Learned

The bar is low but the need, and receptiveness is high for government innovation. The students in the Pioneer class have actively challenged ideas and assumptions, and are already applying what they have learned in their work. Today.
Creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking skills transcend context, age, and pre-existing knowledge. These skills are teachable/learnable and no matter how good you are, you can get better.
Leadership buy-in to innovation is that much more critical to success in government contexts.
Government doesn’t get to ‘opt-in’ to problem solving or choose which problems it will tackle. The government innovates with the hand it is dealt to a greater extent than the private sector.
The scale of a city as a building block is compelling for change and social impact. It is less complicated and with less inertia than the state and federal level, making the prospect of change more manageable.
“Municipal Innovation” might be an oxymoron to the cynic, but cities have scope, and levers of influence, that industry does not. Changes in policy, regulations, civic engagement, unique partnerships, social programs, and different funding mechanisms are all tools available for the municipal innovator.
The ‘boot camp’ experience creates a new communication network. Our pioneer class formed strong bonds learning new things together, in a new and intense environment. In addition to traditional communication, the closely bonded students can reach across the silos directly to each other, built on the relationships formed in class.

Working with the City of Philadelphia on Academy for Municipal Innovation has left me exhilarated. The city leadership, and members of this pioneer class, are committed to real innovation in government. They are taking on systems highly resistant to change, with diverse stakeholders in intricate relationships, under public scrutiny and political complexities. The magnitude of the challenge and their commitment is inspiring.

If you would like to find out more, click here

Download the podcast here

Filed under: Customer Development, Lean LaunchPad, Teaching | 3 Comments »

New Lessons Learned from Berkeley & Stanford Lean LaunchPad Classes

Posted on April 15, 2014 by steve blank

Our Stanford and Berkeley Lean LaunchPad classes are over for this year, and as usual we learned as much from teaching the teams as the teams did from us.

Here are a few of the Lessons Learned from these two classes.

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Have each team talk to 10 customers before the class starts
Each year we learn how to move more of the Lean LaunchPad class logistics outside our classroom so teams have more time for in-class learning.

A few years ago, we moved the formation of teams’ to before the class started and in doing so, saved a week of what normally be an in-class time activity. To make this happen, we hold three “information sessions” two weeks apart before the class starts. In these “info sessions” we describe the purpose of the class, and then let students mix, meet and form teams. During this pre-class time we share a Google doc where students who have ideas can find other team members, and students without an idea can find a team that matches their skills and interests. Application and admission to the class is by interview with a fully formed team.

Info session announcement

The next thing we learned is to make applying to the class an integral part of the learning process. Teams apply by filling out both a business model canvas and a “competitive petal slide.” Having the teams do this accomplishes three things. First it forces the students to read and understand “what’s a business model canvas” before they even come to class.

Team Application: Business Model Canvas

Second, the competitive slide enforces a modicum of due diligence on the product and market. (We got tired of knowing more about each team’s market by doing a Google search as they presented. Now it’s their job.)

Team Application: Competitive “Petal” Slide

Finally, having teams spend time on the canvas and competition as part of the application process saves weeks of what would normally be an in-class activity (and as a bonus gives the team a heads-up about the difficulty of the class and shows whether they’re serious about the class or just shopping.)

This year we learned to raise the bar once again. Could we get the teams to come into class having already talked to 10 customers? Instead of using the first class to have teams just present their business model canvas, this time the team’s first presentation would be about what they learned outside the building about their value proposition. (We pointed them to our tutorials on customer discovery and how to conduct customer interviews but didn’t expect them to be experts on week 1.)

1st week team title slide – 11 interviews before class started

We did an A/B test by requiring our teams in one school do this while not requiring it for the teams in the other school. The result? Teams that had to talk to customers before the class hit the ground running. There was a substantive difference in team trajectory and velocity that continued throughout the quarter. The amount of learning between the two felt quite different. While there may have been other factors (team selection bias, team make up, etc.), we’ll now make this an integral part of all the classes.

Have each team put the number of Mentor interactions on their weekly title slide
The second innovation this year involved mentors. Each team is assigned a mentor as a coach. We’ve been trying to figure out how to make mentor engagements with their teams a regular rather an adhoc activity. While we have required the teams to add a summary of any mentor interaction to their LaunchPad Central narrative, we felt we didn’t have sufficient high-level visibility for these essential interactions.

But this year, a seemingly minor change to the teams’ weekly cover slide had an important impact. As teams present each week, their cover slides show the number of customers interviewed for that week (>10) along with the cumulative customers interviewed. This year we added one more metric for their cover slides– the number of mentor interactions for that week (>1) along with the cumulative number of mentor interactions.

This enhanced the visibility of the teams interaction (or lack of) with their mentors and allowed us to proactively intervene early if there wasn’t sufficient interaction.