This article is taken from MovesTheNeedle site https://www.movestheneedle.com/blog, by Brant Cooper

The Lean Startup Model is a set of principles that help answer the question “Should this idea be brought to fruition”.
The process for determining this is based up on the framework known as the build, measure, learn loop.
Build something that proves the viability of the “riskiest assumption”, measure the results, decide where to test next based on the results.

While design thinking focuses on empathy, Lean Startup takes it a step further into the realm of testing assumptions through rapid experimentation (the second “E” in the 3 Es of Lean Innovation).
The idea was conceived by Eric Ries and brought to life in his book The Lean Startup back in 2011.
Since then, his methodology has gained popularity among startups and large organizations alike by giving companies a process for reducing production waste and bringing products to market faster than ever before.

As they relate to lean innovation, the Lean Startup principles are applied to instill rigor around testing the riskiest assumptions of bringing a product to market.
In other words, it’s not just about the product, but testing throughout the business model, including marketing and sales activities.

This involves brainstorming and prioritizing business model assumptions, creating a hypothesis, defining a key metric and running a specific experiment to validate or invalidate the hypothesis.
The data derived from these tests, plus the insights gleaned from ongoing empathy work form the evidence (evidence – the third and final “E” in the 3 Es of Lean Innovation) that informs and helps guide the entire decision making process.

A company deploying these processes continuously looks at evidence to determine whether to continue experimenting, move on to the next assumption, or to kill the entire idea. In this way, organizations don’t end up relying on the HiPPO in the room, or biases, or turf wars, and so on.

Why are Enterprises Thinking About Lean Startup Now?

Some organizations are adopting lean startup now because they need to create new growth. In many companies, older products are coming to end of life and they need to make way for new ideas.
Others are being disrupted. Competition is now global.

But, arguably, the biggest and most relevant change is that customers have more information now than ever before and can change direction more quickly.
Reviews, social media, mobile devices and so on mean that the quantity of information customers have on products, services, support issues, and ethical behavior makes them agile than the companies who serve them.

This has had an astounding effect on the concept of brand loyalty. Nowadays, there isn’t much, unless businesses directly attempt to create passionate customers.
In an article from Cabforward.com, Ash Maurya of LeanStack talks about the synergy between Lean and Agile like this:

“Lean is the agile mindset applied for business where the business model, not just the solution, is the product. While agile focuses on build velocity, lean focuses on customer traction velocity.”
The fact is, companies need to be way closer to their customers than they have been in the past.
And as you can guess, it doesn’t stop with lean startup.
There has to be the component of agility to match that of the customer baked in to the company strategy.

To be continued …