The Needs First Approach

Small businesses (fewer than 50 employees) account for 97% of the total number of enterprises in Europe and generate 50% of Europe’s employment.[1] These businesses want to grow but for a complex mix of reasons often fail to achieve their potential. Many are applying ‘Lean’ operational processes, and most are extremely cautious as a direct result of the global recession and its continuous ripples and market uncertainties. Yet they all desire some level of growth with profitability. These companies are stuck and unable to ‘cross the chasm’. (Crossing the Chasm is a term coined by Geoffrey Moore in his best selling book of the same name).

LeanDisruptor is a journey to help companies cross the chasm; Ensuring they find ways to disrupt, engage and convert main stream markets. LeanDisruptor looks at integrating design tools with a set of lean tools to help our clients build better products and reduce their risk of failure.

LeanDisruptor is a structured process with a disciplined approach to identify, verify and validate better business models, processes, services and products based on ‘outcomes’ that the customers desire. This method will change a company’s mind-set and delivers a lean approach on how to reduce the uncertainties and risks around creating better services and products that will leapfrog the current competitive options.

As part of the process we use a set of tools to identify met, undermet, overmet or unmet needs with the current solutions, and communicate these visually and instantly. Our aim is to identify if there is a problem worth solving and whether there is a repeatable scalable business opportunity that will enable the business to cross the chasm.

It is a very practical approach that includes exploring your business model and developing appropriate product strategies on how to GET, KEEP and GROW those customers.

The LeanDisruptor was developed off well proven ‘Design Thinking’ methodologies, alongside well established practical tools that have delivered repeatable ‘aha’ moments for us from experts including: Steve Blank, Alex Osterwelder, Tim Ogilvie, Clayton Christenson and Tim Brown. The process was additionally aligned with the CEN/TS 389’s ‘Innovation Management System’.

The diagram below outlines the six steps in this process and the purpose of each:

1. Investigation
2. Generating Solutions
3. Rapid Learning
4. Validation
5. Syntheses of Outputs
6. Outcomes

This creates a new framework and structure that motivates fresh thinking, focused on outcomes desired by customers in the major markets. It helps to deliver significantly better solutions and leap frog the competitive options.

This process will help to lead a mind-set change where the value of lean and design thinking becomes entrenched in the organisation.

http://leandisruptor.com/