Steve Blank @ 1776: A Recap from the DoD Perspective

A chief architect of the Lean Startup movement, Steve Blank recently spoke with the audience at the 1776 accelerator. Below are bullet point recaps of the relevant points, as determined by an innovation-minded Marine Corps captain.

• Innovation From the Ruins: Many successful innovators must be adept at creating order from chaos and finding patterns within the seemingly random. Unfortunately, this skill is commonly built as a result of broken homes and tattered childhoods. However, it does present an optimistic case for those of us that have been trained in how to handle these situations (USMC anyone?)
• There’s No New Facts In Your Building (Only Opinions): Steve highlighted the Customer-Development mantra of “Get Out of the Building!” in order to work with your customers and generate data. This data represents facts that will provide invaluable insight into the value created by your offering.
• ‘Lean’ing Government: Steve discussed his work with the National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and National Security Agency. He is seeing promise in their ability to incorporate Lean Startup principles within their large organizations.
• Innovating From Crisis: Though many think of the DoD as non-innovative, Steve discussed the many innovative successes throughout history. Unfortunately, these often only come in times of war and crisis and not peacetime.
• Government Must Understand Innovation First: Steve brought up the common 3 Horizons framework for innovation. Government, specifically DoD, does Horizon 1 very well, but often fails at H2 or H3. They must become ambidextrous, able to do all 3 well. But they must first understand what they mean, and then look to methods to implement. Innovation cannot be pasted on top of government.
• Race to Experiment: Government should be racing to rapidly test and fail new ideas. By creating ‘more shots on the target’, they will inevitably hit the target more often than they have in the past.

I look forward to writing more on these ideas after some necessary rumination.