Lean Startup Notes - Part 2: Techniques
“If we stopped wasting people’s time, what would they do with it?”
—Eric Ries
This is the second part of my The Lean Startup notes. Enjoy!
Waste Not!
- Pull, don’t push.
- “…our hypothesis about the customer, that pulls work from product development and other functions. Any other work is waste.”
- Kanban makes non-techies accountable for their decisions.
- Small batches.
- One Piece Flow versus Mass Production.
- Errors in larger batches cost more.
- Cross-functional teams.
- Incentivize achievement of bottom-line goals instead of optimization of individual productivity.
- Accountability as a team.
- Related; Open Allocation
- An MVP doesn’t necessarily have a growth model to test leap-of-faith
assumptions.
- Video as a MVP.
- Concierge MVP.
- Personally cater each customer.
- Little to no automation.
- “Startup productivity is not about cranking out more widgets or features. It is about aligning our efforts with a business and product that are working to create value and drive growth. In other words, successful pivots put us on a path toward growing a sustainable business.”
Effective Learning
- Genchi gembutsu: go and see for yourself.
- Root cause analysis.
- Five Why’s.
- “Make a proportional investment at each of five levels of the hierarchy.”
- Avoid five blames – get everyone affected in the same room.
- Prefer cohort analysis over gross measurements (vanity metrics).
First part is here.
If you have any questions, suggestions or corrections feel free to drop me a line.