A F100 Financial Services company recognized an opportunity to reimagine their future in the face of unprecedented market change by exploring emerging trends and generating strategies to create value in new ways. And, they knew they needed to build the “muscle” for Lean Innovation among some of their top young leaders in order to continue to propel innovation across the enterprise.
They needed to move faster and more boldly than ever before and they were looking for the right process to get to great strategy quickly.
Approach
Strong supporters from senior leadership assigned five dedicated “sprinters” (top talent from various parts of the organization) to dedicate five weeks to deeply explore five divergent trend spaces, and to learn Lean Innovation skills and approaches by working with our team from The Garage Group. The first few weeks of the Bootcamp were dedicated to exploring each trend space by looking for consumer pain-points and Jobs to be Done. Sprinters were equipped with tools and skills via training from our Lean Growth Playbook on topics ranging from defining opportunities and Jobs to be Done, to building entrepreneurial leadership competencies via our Hustle Handbook.
With our coaching and guidance, sprinters worked through several iterative rounds of learning via quick bursts of qualitative research that allowed them to continually build and test their assumptions surrounding their trend spaces. Custom “hustle” missions forced them to think and act like entrepreneurs to build out their learning — talking to consumers, thought leaders, knowledge holders, and stakeholders. Their confidence, comfort, and ability to make quick, informed decisions grew with every interaction.
Next, we equipped the sprinters with the tools to validate and prioritize the Jobs to be Done to drive the right focus (translating Jobs to be Done (JTBD) from Pain Points/Insights, Prediction Markets, Competitive Advantage Assessment, and Trend Sizing). They identified the top 1-2 JTBD within their trend space by using a combination of quantitative consumer prediction market, a customized internal assessment and opportunity sizing tool we created.
Armed with the right focus areas, the sprinters were ready to develop real business-building ideas against each trend space as a way of evidencing how “ripe” each trend space was for the client company to focus on going forward.
Through training— Storytelling 101, How to Pitch your Idea (led by our partner, Neal Hoffmann (of Shark Tank fame), and Truths & Hacks (How BigCos are adopting truths and hacks from the Startup world)— they applied their learning to prepare pitches for their trend spaces. They presented the pitches during a Shark Tank pitch competition engaging key senior stakeholders who gave investment nods to the trend spaces that felt most attractive.
Then, the sprinters, joined by an extended team, dove into an intense day of idea generation and development. We shared inspiration through trends and analogs and introduced them to an interactive digital platform to capture over 400 ideas they developed in just over five hours. Overnight, consumer input enabled the team to identify the top 10 ideas.
The next morning, they developed the top 10 ideas for another lively Shark Tank pitch competition with senior leaders in attendance. During final presentations, the sprinters each shared a compelling video capturing the opportunity they uncovered in their trend space, along with the ideas that had been developed that the company could put immediately into development.
Impact
Condensing 18 months worth of work into five weeks set a new standard for the company for exploring potential sources of growth, started the process of building Lean Innovation capability, and resulted in a strong recommendation to senior leaders for trend space investment. Within a week after the final Shark Tank pitches, management had already committed additional resources to two trend spaces based on the output of this process. Coming out of Bootcamp, the sprinters not only moved the business forward in emerging areas, but were also enabled with the real-world experience and confidence to apply Lean Innovation approaches in the context of their day jobs, and with their teams.
"TGG knows how to take what works well for the startup world and apply it to large organizations with unique methods and approaches. Our five-week sprint with them as partners was a wild success." - AVP Innovation, Trends, and Insights, F100 Insurance Company
