The Lean Enterprise

#1 Amazon Bestseller in Lean Management

Even in a tough economic climate, the startup business community has found a way to create innovative, game-changing products in shockingly short timeframes. So why should larger, more established companies take notice? Because they have everything to gain when they examine and adopt the strategies, tools, and attitudes of these smaller competitors. The Lean Enterprise presents a groundbreaking design for revolutionizing larger organizations, one that draws on the ingenious tenets and practices espoused by the startup community. The guidelines in this book will help companies shake the lethargy, bureaucracy, and power struggles that plague large organizations and hold them back from true innovation.

At the heart of this resource is a comprehensive, practical approach based on methods, timetables, compensation, financial investment, and case studies that reveal the startup mentality. Respected thought leaders in lean startup methodologies, the authors cover successful enterprise development, development innovation labs, corporate venture arms, and acquisition and integration of startups.

• Essential reading for entrepreneurs, product managers, executives and directors in Forbes 2000 organizations, and board members
• Presents the tools and methodologies large businesses need to compete with a new generation of highly-empowered entrepreneurs
• Covers lean startup culture and principles and identifies the behaviors that arestunting growth at large enterprises
• Offers a comprehensive, practical approach for developing exciting products and services and opening vast new markets

Don't be mystified by the success of startups. Master the methods of this new generation of entrepreneurs and compete on a level playing field.

Introduction vii

Chapter 1 Roadmap: Introducing the Lean Enterprise 1

Chapter 2 Strategy 19

Chapter 3 Corporate Structure 39

Chapter 4 Compensation 59

Chapter 5 Vision: The Innovation Thesis 71

Chapter 6 Lean Enterprise Process 83

Chapter 7 Experimental Methods 109

Chapter 8 Innovation Accounting 131

Chapter 9 Incubate Internally 149

Chapter 10 Acquire Early 167

Chapter 11 Invest When You Can’t Acquire 185

Chapter 12 Innovation Flow 201

Conclusion 211

About the Author 221

Index 223

TREVOR OWENS is an entrepreneur and thought leader in Lean Startup methodologies. He is the Founder and CEO of Javelin.com, an innovation training and software company known for its Lean Startup Machine workshop that has helped tens of thousands of innovators, including those from Google, Salesforce, News Corp, Intuit, and others, start thousands of new businesses across six continents.

http://leanenterprisebook.com

http://javelin.com

OBIE FERNANDEZ is an avid writer and technology enthusiast. He works with Owens as the Co-Founder and CTO of Javelin.com. Fernandez is also author of the best selling technology book The Rails Way and the founder of multiple successful companies, including one of the world’s best known Ruby on Rails web design and development agencies, Hashrocket.

http://obiefernandez.com

Opportunities and new markets appear unpredictably, and reacting to them quickly and aggressively is more important than ever for large enterprises. The monolithic nature of the enterprise, however, is quite often directly at odds with the notions of innovation and the lean methodology. For the leaders of such enterprises, a complete rethinking of strategy is in order.

Enter The Lean Enterprise, which provides enterprise leaders a detailed examination of the motivations that drive innovative individuals and the support structures they need to deliver breakthrough products and services within an enterprise context. More notably, the book points out examples of the many failures of corporate leadership to empower the very innovators within their walls. Spectacularly successful startups, such as Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram, were founded after corporate employees became fed up with the stifling nature of corporate bureaucracy and decided it was easier, and more profitable, to venture out on their own.

Authors and Lean Startup experts Trevor Owens and Obie Fernandez will take you through methods, time tables, compensation, and financial investment related to successful enterprise innovation. They discuss the limitations of traditional innovation structures including skunk works, innovation labs, and intrepreneurship programs while introducing their own solution—the innovation colony. These concepts are illustrated further through a series of case studies and interviews that indicate real-world examples within large enterprises.

With the largest organizations in the world taking note of the obvious advantages of the lean approach, it is only a matter of time before enterprises level the innovation playing field. The Lean Enterprise: How Corporations Can Innovate Like Startups shows you how to unlock the hidden potential within your organization, today.

“Owens and Fernandez show us how corporations can leverage lean startup methods and drive innovation through internal incubation, acqui-hires, and strategic investment. The Lean Enterprise provides savvy insights on the organizational structures, systems, and processes that will maximize success odds with corporate entrepreneurship."
—Thomas Eisenmann, Harvard Business School, Howard H. Stevenson Professor of Business Administration