What Problem are You Trying to Solve?

The other day, I met a young entrepreneur who is just starting his company with a product that he has a great passion for and thinks will perform very well in the market (due to confidentiality, I won’t mention its name).  He was telling me all about how great it was, how he already had a sales channel set up through a friend, so on and so on….

What if the Technology Just Isn’t Good Enough?

I was watching a show the other day about the making of The Beatles album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and one of the things that struck me about the show was the mention of one of the reasons why The Beatles stopped touring: “We couldn’t hear ourselves onstage.”  Ringo mentioned he was just hoping he was playing the right notes as he couldn’t hear the music and was trying to play by reading John and Paul’s lips.  The sound amplification technology of the day just wasn’t good enough to allow The Beatles to keep touring.

Design Thinking and The Lean Start Up

Editors note: While some may consider Design Thinking and the Lean Start Up methodology competing, in my view they compliment each other quite well.  This post is my view on how they can be integrated to help organizations succeed.

The importance of design cannot be understated.  It is a premise that most readily accept, especially when it comes to product design; but when we take an honest assessment of the results of our projects (or initiatives), in retrospect, many of our designs – system designs – are poor.  Problems and opportunities are identified, and a solution is visualized, but at the end of the day, the vision rarely materializes as originally seen.

Design Thinking incorporating the Lean Start Up can help.