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Rita McGrath

Author. Speaker. Consultant.

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May 22, 2016

Discovery Driven Planning: Conquering Death By Spreadsheet

You have what you think is a great idea to pursue an attractive new opportunity. Before you can make progress, though, you are hit with a barrage of questions that you have no way of answering.  “What will the ROI of this venture be?”; “how long will it take to launch”; “how will it affect our existing product lines?”.  If you’re like people in many organizations, you will dutifully put together a conventional business plan, with details about the idea, spreadsheets that project what the financials could look like and GANTT or similar charts laying out the project timeline.  And even as you are doing all this, you know in your heart of hearts that this is more a quantification of fantasy than it is likely to bring your idea to life.  There is a better way.

In the seminal work that formed the basis for the Lean Startup movement, McGrath describes how to create a plan for a new venture that gets you to early answers fast, by focusing on the most critical assumptions that you need to convert to facts.  It’s disciplined, but it’s a discipline that comes straight out of the entrepreneurial mindset.

Harvard Business Review article

“…some of the most important tools of management and strategy that have ever been developed.  Managers who use these methods will be able to navigate the uncertainties of growth ventures with confidence.”

Clayton Christensen, Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School and author of The Innovator’s Dilemma.

“…an inspiration for the customer discovery process.”

Steve Blank, famed entrepreneur and educator

You will learn:

  • Why people make so many costly mistakes in high-uncertainty situations
  • How to define success so that you can specify what must be true to achieve it
  • How to avoid being unrealistic about what your venture might be able to achieve
  • How to break a large, complex, project down into manageable checkpoints
  • How to compare different potential business models
  • How to think in terms of cost to learn rather than total project budgeting

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Rita McGrath Group
P.O. Box 7286
Princeton, NJ 08543

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