Ten years ago, Guillermo Ortiz de Zárate and I co-authored Innovate the Lean Way, a free monograph designed to introduce lean startup methodology to the association industry, explain why we think it’s a good fit for us, and share some stories of associations using it successfully to test out and develop their ideas for non-dues revenue programs, products, and services.
Last fall, with the paper’s 10 year anniversary approaching, G and I thought it might be fun to revisit the topic, this time with a focus on what we’ve learned in the past decade of working with concepts, tools, and techniques of lean startup (which we still think is a very useful tool to assist associations’ non-dues revenue efforts).
That new monograph, Lean at 10: Culture Eats Methodology for Lunch, is ready and available for download at https://bit.ly/LeanAt10.
As you might guess from the title of this post, one of the main things we’ve learned (spoiler alert) is that it’s not the concepts, tools, and techniques that are the hard part – with a little time and effort, your team can learn them and become proficient. The hard part is the culture change, which explains why, in this iteration, we worked with Jamie Notter, who you may know for his excellent work on culture and culture change, to explore what you need to know and do to create a culture that will support and encourage innovation as a practice, enable you to take effective action, provide organizational clarity, and develop the courage to engage difficult conversations.
The whitepaper also includes:
- Case studies with the American Association of Veterinary State Boards, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, and the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians.
- A sidebar of lean startup methodology tools.
- A series of thought questions for you to use to spark discussion with your team.
- An extensive list of resources in case you want to dig deeper on any of the topics addressed.
As is always the case with the Spark collaborative whitepapers, it’s 100% free, and you don’t even have to provide any information to download it – you can just have it, no landing on a mailing list you didn’t ask for or having to dodge calls from us.