Tag Archive | Lean

Two different solution spaces

Oct10

 

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As a part of School of Startups, Toni Perämäki from Valohai wanted to show us a structured way of finding customers via Lean Startup method. The one way of ideating is to build, measure and learn in a cycle. The key question in Lean Startup is: Do I have a problem worth solving? One idea is to make a list of problems (3-5) that your idea would be solving. You need to think many sectors in the beginning of the process. These include reviewing the customer pain, considering the size of the market and is it reachable. Also you need to think technical feasibility: are you able to build your product/service?

Even though Toni was telling about customer discovery through Lean Startup methology, I was able to find a lot of similarity to Design Thinking. First of all, they both are used in innovation processes to create something new. Iteration is a key action in both methods. Design process is always about iteration when building products or services. The Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop in Learn Startup is operating solemnly in the solution space in order to create Minimum Viable Products. That loop is very similar to Design Thinking prototypes and testing. They both collect feedback.

Understanding customers is crucial in both points of views. Who are the customers that the idea would help? In this part Toni urged us used user personas and value proposition canvas to help you understand the motivation and also the gain and pain of customers. These both are methods used in Design Thinking. User personas are based on fictional characters whose profile gathers up the features of an existing social group. In this way the personas assume the attributes of the groups they represent: from their social and demographic characteristics, to their own goals, challenges, behaviour and backgrounds. Value Proposition Canvas is a simple way to understand your customers needs, and design products and services they want. It works in conjunction with the Business Model Canvas and other strategic management and execution tools and processes.

 

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Value Proposition Canvas

 

In order of validating your concept Toni adviced us to think of ways of testing idea before prototyping or having a ready product. Good ways are storytelling and demos. Also used in Design Thinking.

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About customer understanding

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toni introduced us to few (many) rules that I find useful when trying to understand customers. When gathering information, don’t use surveys. Surveys are too structured and it’s not a dialog. Also don’t use focus groups. People tend to change their opinion due to external influence. You don’t want people to follow some strongheahed persons ideas under group pressure.

Don’t ask what they want. The idea is to experience and understand the problem. Don’t go in alone. You get more insight of the problem at hand when comparing gathered information. Select neutral location. People need to feel comfortable. Use pen and paper to make notes. It it important to document results but having a lapotop between you and customer is not a good idea.

 

More info and ideas:

https://valohai.com

http://www.servicedesigntools.org

https://strategyzer.com/canvas/value-proposition-canvas

https://www.boardofinnovation.com/blog/2017/07/18/lean-startup-versus-design-thinking/

 

The author Siru Sirén is MBA student in Futures Studies and Customer-Oriented Services in Laurea UAS// Licenced social service professional

Design Thinking For Business Innovation

Sep12

Innovation has always be seen as a myth, where genius is the main ingredient for it. Unfortunately this is not the reality!

Innovation can be a systematic process. The key to successful innovations is to understand where the process starts. The process starts by first understanding the current needs, the current obstacles the target audience want to overcome and then formulating insights that can guide the thinking about potential solutions.

This is against to what most of us think and do today, where we try to provide solutions without understanding the real problems. So, probably by passion, we try to jump to a future that we envision for our customers without involving them or trying to understand what are there needs.

The argument can be raised that “Customers don’t know what they want” as Steve Jobs said or following what Henry Ford said “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”. This can be partially true when it comes to what customers express literally, but the key takeaway from this is to see what customers don’t see by sensing, observing and noticing the signals than predict the future like “faster” (but not the horses) in Henry Ford quote.


Design Thinking: a means for innovation!

Design Thinking is a mindset and methodology to help businesses in problem solving, finding possibilities and securing innovations that are desirables by humans at first, viable as business offering second and finally feasible as an implementation.

In few words, Design Thinking is all about starting with the human and ending with the human. Design thinking is about the people but first you need to change your mindset for this shift.

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Adapt Lean and take a step ahead and see the difference

Feb17

Sundell explains the essence of lean thinking.The Day starts with Lean Market Entry Lecture by Olla sundell CEO of Hub Helsinki. LeanThinking being the agenda of the day everything around was supposed to be Lean. Lean methodology is what I have learnt after being part of this service design industry. This topic has been one of my personal favorites. Lean is a unique concept used in these days young entrepreneur for creating andmanaging their product or business.

The lecture started with discussion about lean methodology principle / Lean Thinking –There is certain mindset that we have to adaptadapt for being in lean like instead of focusing on single processes or technology we should focus on the entire organization as a flow to your customer or process. Focusing on the problem rather than on the solution when planning for a product or service. And build your product to lean maximum out of it. The first and foremost step to adapt to lean is that before you start analyzing your system, it’s always necessary to determine what you customer is exactly looking for and this is what it called identifying value for the customer and then building the product .

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Attitude matters in lean thinking: learn to fail fast for success!

Jan31
“Focus on the problem, not solution. You cannot quantify your way to the big max.” – Ola Sundell

I still remember when ‘lean’ was a buzzword in manufacturing industry years and years ago. Lean concept was originally based on production process optimisation principles invented in Toyota for automotive industry back in early seventies. Now the idea of lean has been turned into a workable philosophy in general management and other business arenas. Some time ago I was listening Ola Sundell, the CEO of Hub Helsinki, telling about the logic behind the lean market strategy. He gave a presentation in Laurea University of Applied Science based on the ideas of lean startup as an innovation method developed by Steve Blank and Eric Ries and his own experiences as lean entrepreneur.

Ola Sundell is explaining the essence of lean start-up methodology.

Ola Sundell is explaining the essence of lean philosophy.

‘Lean’ is  maximising value and minimising waste

The lean business culture have been evolving since view years aiming at solving business problems in the early phase of business set-up by using a service design approach. According to Sundell the startups mostly fail due lack of market and customers or because of a wrong mindset. Now lean thinking is challenging the old ways of thinking and doing. Lean startup methodology has evolved from customer development method highlighting the lean aspects of both product/service design and customer development. It focuses on customer value creation: everything that does not provide value for customer is considered as waste. By using lean startup methodology it is possible to maximise value and minimise waste.

As startups are considered being temporary project organisations creating new products and services under extreme uncertainty, it is learning that matters – and learning fast.

The process applied in lean startup methodology is based on a build-measure-learn cycle with six steps: What is built it based on a problem or solution hypothesis. Testing the idea is the intended learning step requiring the testing metrics to be defined. For generating metrics and testing hypothesis, the experiment has to be built.

The six step cycle of lean development process.

What does it mean to go for lean?

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Lean market entry – From startup to growth company successfully

Dec8

Ola Sundell, CEO of Hub Helsinki, introduced lean startup practices for SID students in November 2013 and gave a few hands-on tips and advices on how to increase your odds on building a successful business. Ola Sundell’s message for startup entrepreneurs was to build the minimum to learn the maximum and hit the markets as early as possible. This can be achieved by following Lean thinking and Lean startup practices.

Ola Sundell explained to us that on today’s markets good ideas alone don’t matter anymore. It’s all about creating value for your customers by solving their problems. If you want to be a successful startup you have to concentrate on entering the markets fast and finding your customers.

“If there aren’t a market for you, you have to fail. And you have to fail fast!”
– Ola Sundell

Ola Sundell at Laurea

Lean thinking

The term lean was first introduced by a research team headed by Jim Womack, Ph.D., at MIT’s International Motor Vehicle Program to describe Toyota’s business during the late 1980s. Toyota’s production system (TPS) is well-known for its focus on reduction of the original Toyota “seven wastes” to improve overall customer value. Since the lean thinking is based on lean manner of manufacturing has caused some to think that lean thinking can’t be utilized with product or service development but isn’t true. Lean thinking can be adopted into any type of business or process.

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Cut your time to market at half by lean service development

Dec3

Lean thinking

On 10 November 2013, Ola Sundell, CEO of Hub Helsinki, talked at Laurea University of Applied Sciences about one of the hottest topics of service design today: the concept of lean thinking. The basic idea of lean thinking is to produce maximum value to the customer with minimum waste. Ola gave us some guidelines on how to build up a start-up company by using this new approach.

Ola Sundell

Lean market entry and innovation paradigm change

In lean innovation the key to success is to find the right markets with the help of customers. The best way to enter the market is to start working with innovators and early adapters. Instead of expensive marketing campaigns, you can validate your ideas by using innovators and early adapters as a runway to the market. Ola Sundell even advised us to forget the open innovation paradigm where the keys to success are new ideas flowing in and out of the companies. Ideas are worth nothing if they aren’t selling.

A lean launch is a new way to enter the markets. In contrast to the traditional waterfall model, where you have different development phases from concept, development and testing to launching, lean launch means that you enter the markets right away with your product idea, targeting the customer with a minimum viable product.

Customer development methods – Learning is the core!

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