We're joined once again by Jim Euchner, author of Lean Startup in Large Organizations. This week we discuss how the pioneers/settlers/town-planners model applies to large organisations and how to involve all three types to ensure you combine product experimentation with financial stability and avoid cannibalising your existing business.

Transcript: https://agileconversations.com/blog/lean-startup-large-organizations-pt2/
 
SHOW LINKS:
- Jim’s website: https://jimeuchner.com
- Book url: https://leanstartup.biz
- Pioneers, Settlers, and Town Planners: https://wardleypedia.org/mediawiki/index.php/Pioneers_settlers_town_planners
- Double Loop Learning: https://infed.org/mobi/chris-argyris-theories-of-action-double-loop-learning-and-organizational-learning/#_Single-loop_and_double-loop
 
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Lean Startup in Large Organizations Part II

What motivates big firms to start VC arms? Jim's surprising answer is that (strategically) their goal often is to learn rather than to get lucky on a big bet like an independent VC. But this sometimes backfires as the VC function becomes beholden to finance, who demand an unrealistic bottom-line return.

- Jim's journal, Research Technology Management: https://www.jstor.org/journal/resetechmana

Find us at http://jimeuchner.com/ and http://douglassquirrel.com.

Corporate Venture

We consider how startups look at IP protection (usually pretty haphazard) and how big companies do (usually much more carefully). We consider "moats" for your innovation and the varying value of patents - depending strongly on your ability to stay alive long enough to win in court.

- IP and innovation paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08956308.2010.11657627
- Joel Spolsky on schlep businesses: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2007/12/06/where-theres-muck-theres-brass/

Find us at http://jimeuchner.com/ and http://douglassquirrel.com

Intellectual Property Big and Small

Jim shares the steps a large company might go through to evaluate an innovative idea and create a business model around it. Squirrel reflects on how these steps play out in a startup - often in the reverse order, i.e. shoot first, then aim!

SHOW LINKS
- Paper on the Business Model Pyramid: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Abhijit_Ganguly5/publication/295560198_Business_Model_Innovation_in_Practice/links/5aec64cfa6fdcc8508b77852/Business-Model-Innovation-in-Practice.pdf
- Paul Graham on doing things that don't scale: http://paulgraham.com/ds.html

Find us at http://jimeuchner.com/ and http://douglassquirrel.com

The Business Model Pyramid

How many business models are there really? Jim reckons there are only 40 or 45 that actually work—plus a lot of Frankenstein models that aren't coherent. We look at a few favourites, some only available to big companies like the growth share matrix model, and some that apply to startups too, like time profit.

- Growth share matrix model: https://www.bcg.com/publications/2014/growth-share-matrix-bcg-classics-revisited
- Experience curve model: https://hbr.org/1985/03/building-strategy-on-the-experience-curve
- Time Profit model: https://artofprofitability.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/model-5-time-profit-model/

Find us at http://jimeuchner.com/ and http://douglassquirrel.com

Business Model Archetypes

It turns out that "open" means very different things at big and small companies. We focus on the large ones this week, where "open" means actively gathering ideas and prototypes from people outside the company, often through explicit requests or competitions.

SHOW LINKS:
- Competition platforms: https://www.innocentive.com/ , https://www.ninesigma.com/ , https://www.yet2.com/ , https://www.kaggle.com/ , https://www.topcoder.com/
- Henry Chesbrough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Chesbrough

- Open Innovation articles: https://jimeuchner.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/two-flavors-of-innovation.pdf and https://jimeuchner.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/limits-of-crowds.pdf

Find us at http://jimeuchner.com/ and http://douglassquirrel.com

What Is Open? Part I

After considering open innovation at large companies last week, we now look at open *source* innovation, a pattern that has led to huge advances for startups, as they begin with a huge array of software infrastructure freely available to them and therefore can in most cases focus on their business idea rather than technical invention. We also note the trend toward open-source hardware which is even helping patients innovate in their own treatment.

SHOW LINKS:
- Dexcom: https://www.dexcom.com/
- MIT Innovation Lab: https://innovation.mit.edu/
- Coloplast: https://www.coloplast.co.uk/

Find us at http://jimeuchner.com/ and http://douglassquirrel.com

What Is Open? Part II

We reflect on Schumacher's Small is Beautiful and how it applies to startups - a small minority aim for profitable, slow growth - and large firms, who may create small autonomous units to reap the benefits of small organisations.

SHOW LINKS:
- Small is Beautiful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful

Find us at http://jimeuchner.com/ and http://douglassquirrel.com.

Small is Beautiful

Jim and Squirrel reflect on a recent panel discussion led by Jim on how big (and small!) companies can either destroy engagement or create it through automation.

See Jim's article at https://verisei.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Automation-Manifesto-Verisei.pdf

Find us at http://jimeuchner.com/ and http://douglassquirrel.com

Centaurs - The Future of Work?

We take two different views of AI: first, that it's here and ready to go, and second, that we're going to need humans in the loop—"centaurs" that combine humans and computer—for a long time to come. 

SHOW LINKS:
https://jimeuchner.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Little-ai-Big-AI-Good-AI-Bad-AI.pdf

Find us at http://jimeuchner.com/ and http://douglassquirrel.com

AI Big and Small

Troubleshooting Agile is a problem-solving session for agile teams. Jeffrey Fredrick and Douglas Squirrel look at common problems agile teams face and provide practical, immediately useful advice for getting back on track.

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