Hi there -
Here is this week’s “1 principle, 2 strategies, and 3 actionable tactics” for running lean…
1 Universal Principle
“Avoid the curse of specialization.”
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When faced with a problem, we can often devise a dozen possible solutions.
It’s not atypical to find:
- builders proposing build solutions,
- designers proposing design solutions and
- marketers proposing marketing solutions.
This is another variant of the Innovator’s Bias manifested as a curse of specialization.
The Curse of Specialization: When you’re trained to use a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
We often lack the resources to test every possible solution exhaustively, so we need a way to shortlist the most promising solutions.
Today, I’ll outline a simple 3-step process for doing this.
2 Underlying Strategies at Play
I. Good ideas can come from anywhere.
The way to fight the curse of specialization isn’t to limit yourself to a few ideas but to source a diversity of ideas.
It goes without saying that you’ll need to lean on a multidisciplinary “team” of core and extended members (advisors, investors, domain experts) to pull this off.
This is especially important if you’re a solo founder or have a small team of like-minded co-founders.
II. Separate problems from solutions.
A common mistake most founders make is revealing (pitching) their solution too quickly. This prematurely spotlights a single solution, which can stifle independent thinking.
Instead, practice divergent and convergent thinking.
Psychologist J.P. Guildford coined these terms in the 1950s. Alex Osborn, who wrote about them in his 1953 book Applied Imagination, turned them into a creative problem-solving technique still used today. It is more popularly known as the “double-diamond” design or problem-solving technique.
The shorter version:
Be comfortable saying: "I don't know." Then, seek answers.
3 Actionable Tactics
When confronted with a problem,
I. Source a diversity of ideas.
Meet with your core and extended teams (converge step) to share the problem context. Aim to align around goals, assumptions, and constraints without getting into solutions.
Challenge your team to go away for a day or two (diverge step) to independently think, analyze, and formulate possible solutions to the problem (proposals).
II. Rank your proposals.
Converge again to compile and rank these proposals. Your goal is to find a shortlist of just one or two ideas that could potentially deliver the greatest impact for the least effort.
III. Test and double down on ideas that work.
Break up these proposals into small and fast experiments (think 2-week sprints) that prioritize the riskiest assumptions first.
Double down on ideas that work. Quickly discard those that don’t and pivot to other ideas on your list until your constraint is broken.
Rinse and repeat the steps above.
Here’s what the full process looks like:
That's all for today. See you next week.
Ash
Author of Running Lean and creator of Lean Canvas