
If Lean Works, Prove It - rucx
http://edwardaten.posterous.com/if-lean-works-prove-it
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DanielBMarkham
Yes, you're missing something, because you are reasoning backwards.

Lean shouldn't be a way of doing business where you pick the method first,
then magic happens. Nope. You look for the magic, then adapt the method. The
results drive the choice of activities, not the other way around. That's the
entire idea. That's why it's different.

So if your reasoning is "show me other people who use this method and do well"
then you've already started on the wrong foot. A better question would be
"what do startups that are successful do that we can copy?" Some of that might
fit under the marketing term "lean". Some might not. Don't sweat it.

Lean is about copying what works and stripping out what isn't helpful. That's
it. Yes, there are some general things that generally work better than others,
but those things are just templates for you to take and adapt as you see fit.
Lean is about nothing if not adapting.

I would never look at a lean practice and say "This practice will make me
successful" because that's whacked. In a startup situation even if you were
"perfect" you will probably fail. Instead, I would look at a successful team
and say something like "Cool. There's a lean practice I can test in my
situation"

We don't know all the answers when we talk about how lean applies to startups.
Hell, we don't even know the questions. But it looks like there are some
useful concepts we can copy and experiment with. That's what so cool about it.

~~~
melvinram
Sounds to me like a hollow, bullshit term when you put it that way. If that's
what "lean" is, then we should just call it learning best practices.

From what I understand, "lean" as Eric Ries & Steve Blank describes it has a
very specific meaning and it's mostly a collection of activities that is
suppose to lead to fast, customer-driven product development and better ROI on
marketing dollars, while reducing wasteful activities that suck up time and
money.

Coming from this perspective, I find Edward's query worth exploring.

I'm no "lean" expert so I might be wrong. I've been looking forward to Eric's
upcoming book to read and get a better grasp of what he's talking about. :D

Update: This presentation provides some real insight into how Steve Blank and
Eric Ries define lean startup: [http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/customer-
development-past-p...](http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/customer-development-
past-present-future-steve-blank-111909)

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Lean is taking a process and stripping out everything that is not necessary --
thereby making it lean.

Practitioners will take that a step farther and claim that there is some
irreducible set of activities that somehow guarantee results.

It's been my experience that such practitioners commonly overstate their case,
thereby creating an opportunity for dissapointment with folks like the article
author.

This is a never-ending treadmill: some great guy jumps into agile or lean, has
a few good projects, and suddenly is an expert on it. So he writes a book with
his "prescriptions" Some folks buy, some folks balk. There are videos,
seminars, folks who "get it", folks who do not, etc. It just goes on and on.

Please don't take that as cynicism on my part, because it's not meant that
way. I think it's up to the people who are serious about this to decide if
they want to work at a meta level -- understanding the concepts that are being
applied and feeling free to include or toss things -- or if they simply want a
recipe book.

If you want a recipe book, good luck to you. There are a lot of them out
there, and more will be coming in the decades ahead.

I don't mean that in a snarky way. I am eagerly looking forward to where the
agile startup movement is going because I think it's going to have an
immensely positive impact on all kinds of things. But if you don't understand
which questions to ask, as this author did not, you will never be happy with
the answers. This author had a poor model of the problem he was trying to
solve. This model will continue to prevent him from being satisfied until he
changes it.

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sudonim
I spent all of yesterday attending the Lean Startup track at SXSW. It was
great, I felt awesome after it and ready to go back to new york and change
things around...

This morning I found myself wondering if the job of the talking head, is to
inspire people to take action and feel empowered? Or to execute and prove the
methods they preach?

How different is Lean from Tim Ferriss, or "The Game"? Or any other self-help
religions? And when does it become dangerous to believe what they say?

~~~
damoncali
This. I was also there most of the day, but felt less than inspired. There was
so much hype in that room, building throughout the day, that by the end of it
I was starting to feel like I was being sold something. Sure, some of the
ideas seem to have some merit, but then why all the selling?

For those not there, somebody was pitching a book on "The Lean Way" pretty
much every 45 minutes or so. It had a very Tim-Ferriss like feel.

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nbashaw
What's the acid test that qualifies startups as lean or not-lean?

I think lean startup advocates would argue that lots of household names
(google, facebook, youtube, etc) utilized lean methods, even if they weren't
consciously doing so. Not sure if I'd agree with them, but they probably would
say that.

Consciously promoting lean startup ideals != doing things the lean way. The
lean startup movement is more about a label and a tribe than it is a set of
behaviors (not that this is necessarily a bad thing).

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shin_lao
Toyota is the origin of lean, and they're pretty successful.

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mbesto
Hmmm, in the context of modern day tech companies, you could only come up with
37signals?

Facebook, Groupon, Google, Dropbox, Mint, Heroku...dare I go on?

The methodology goes beyond just web tech companies and I'm afraid us in the
tech industry fail to see that. Xerox once was a "lean startup".[0]

[0] - [http://tbmdb.blogspot.com/2009/12/business-model-example-
xer...](http://tbmdb.blogspot.com/2009/12/business-model-example-xerox-
business.html)

~~~
6ren
"Disruption" often involves a low-cost business model, which fits with lean.

I'm intrigued by the Xerox example, because it seems like a disruption, but in
fact it was much higher performing than the incumbent technology. It reminds
me of how the iPhone beat the Nokia with a better product (instead of a worse
one, which is usually how disruptions start).

~~~
ippisl
Apple's disruptive path started with the ipod. they gained control a great
supply chain , the itunes(and some basis for the app store) and it's users , a
great mobile brand , and a lot of experience , which enabled them to execute
well on the iphone.

In short , the path from the first mp3 , via the ipod to the iphone is a
disruptive path. there's no motivation for nokia to compete , until it's too
late.

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leegonzales
The realization which the proponents of lean products and software have had is
that there are many strategies which have proven incredibly effective in other
domains and that they can also be used to make products, business models and
ultimately organizations better, faster and cheaper.

Simply put lean startups result from the combination of lean manufacturing
principals and maneuver warfare (agility) principals combined and used in
business. Which if you want to boil it down further could be thought of as
using the scientific method as quickly and efficiently as possible to create
organizations and products where teams have fully adopted a culture of
continuos improvement.

Lean is probably best known for its ability to enable Toyota to be the amazing
manufacturing organization they have been (ignoring recent growth related
fuckups). See the book Lean Thinking or the many Lean Software books to see
the ways in which people have translated Lean concepts to software
development. Of course if you want to really grok lean in the context of
making products you should study [http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Product-
Development-Flow-Ge...](http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Product-Development-
Flow-Generation/dp/1935401009)

Agile principals as codified by the god father of agile strategic thinking,
John Boyd would be the other crucial element to lean startups. He is famous
for driving maneuver warfare doctrine into the US military establishment and
codifying some of the most advanced strategies and concepts regarding the
nature of competition, agility and strategy. If you have seen the OODA loop or
heard the phrase operating inside the enemies decision cycle then you have
seen his work in action. See the book Certain to Win by Chet Richards for a
good primer on Boyds work.

These concepts rigorously and intentionally applied to developing products,
teams and companies are IMO what makes a startup lean.

And of course if you are interested, you can also read Eric Ries or Steve
Blanks blogs.

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avree
The beauty of 'lean' methodology is that it can be applied on a variety of
different levels. There's no litmus test for 'lean-ness'—I would argue that
_every_ successful company has employed lean principles to some degree.

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tomkarlo
I don't follow the logic here: evaluate a startup methodology by looking at
how many public companies it's generated? Creating a public company is not the
only success path for a startup.

It's like evaluating a basketball camp for kids by seeing how many make it to
the NBA.

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amorphid
I define lean as knowing how to experiment cheaply and have a sense of when
you are pissing money away. The idea is to conserve cash long enough to find
your business model.

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Vitaly
I'd be more interested in another question. What startups failed while using
lean approach and why?

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zyfo
I don't see why anyone following a lean approach would have to "prove" that it
works. Prove it for whom? To what purpose?

I thought the point of lean development was to fail fast and try again.

