Whitepapers

NEW from Spark!

Lean at 10: Culture Eats Methodology for Lunch, June 2025

Association execs are always on the lookout for good ideas for new programs, products, and services, and once we think we have one, we want to build it as quickly and efficiently as possible.

  • What are the challenges associations face in developing their ideas?
  • How can lean startup methodology help?
  • How do you effectively harness your team’s creativity and resourcefulness to ensure that you’re delivering a solution your audiences will need, use, and pay for?
  • What is the role of organizational culture in working in new ways to gain new insights?
  • What tools exist to help association execs guide their teams through the culture change they’ll need to embrace to be effective?

In Lean at 10: Culture Eats Methodology for Lunch, Jamie Notter and I provide a brief overview of lean startup and design thinking concepts and then turn our focus to what we’ve learned in ten years of working with these methodologies. Turns out, it’s not the tools and techniques that are the hard part – it’s the culture change. Association executives often want to use an organized, tested methodology to help you answer critical questions about your ideas for non-dues revenue:

  1. Did you correctly identify the audience?
  2. Is the problem that you’re trying to solve actually a real, significant problem for them? Is it a problem worth solving?
  3. Does your solution work for them, and at a price they’re willing to pay?

But the culture you’ve created won’t let you.

Don’t worry, though! We’ve identified culture patterns and practices you can start addressing with your team TODAY to start changing your culture into one that values innovation practices, not just concepts, readies you to take effective action, provides organizational clarity, and promotes engaging, rather than shying away from, difficult conversations.

Culture change is too hard? That’s a myth, and this monograph will help show you the way.

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.

Download your FREE copy now!

As always with 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.

While you’re at it, check out the other Spark whitepapers, too. Remember, they’re free, and you don’t even have to give me your name, email, and firstborn child to get them.

I usually immediately delete any [Collaborate] post that begins with “I’m excited to share” because it almost always leads to a self-serving advertisement.

But when I saw my friend Guillermo Ortiz Zarate and then saw that Elizabeth Engel was  involved as well (full disclosure – I don’t really know Elizabeth but believe she is one of the brightest minds in our community), I had to download and read their white paper [Innovate the Lean Way].

I really recommend every CEO and program director find the time to read it. I think the approach described is elegant and practical.

Glenn Tecker, Tecker International LLC

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