Master the Innovation Cycle
How to get from
now to next.
To achieve your goals, you must repeatedly execute a portfolio of strategic innovation and change projects using a discovery-driven development process.
The steps of the innovation journey—from assumptions and uncertainty to knowledge and certainty—can be daunting. But it doesn’t need to be.
The route is known, clear stages define it, and critical moments ensure you stay on track.
We call it The Next Cycle. And you can learn to master it through our Leaders of Next Intensive and coaching through the following discovery-driven development sprints.
Foundation
Our Leaders of Next Intensive and Think Wrong Facilitators Intensive equip your innovation executives, managers, and teams with the knowledge, skills, and tools they need to conceive of and execute your innovation strategies. These foundational programs introduce the shared language, frameworks, and competencies your innovators will use to respond to your challenges and move from validated pain hypotheses to fully operating, scalable solutions that produce value and impact in the real world.
Outcomes
Common language, frameworks, processes, tools, and skills that equip your innovation team to:
Navigate the innovation development cycle
Avoid capital leakage—waste of financial, human, intellectual, reputational, and political capital
Improve your innovation readiness
Achieve innovation productivity and satisfaction
Frameworks & Tools
Deflection Point
Certainty Map
Opportunity Horizons
Next Cycle
Next System
Challenge Finder
Super Seven (Decision Making Criteria)
Think Wrong Problem-Solving SystemThink Wrong Lab
Sprint 1.
From Formulate to Incubate
This sprint equips your innovators to quickly acquire and apply the practical know-how to seek, frame, and prioritize challenges and opportunities to address strategic imperatives and generate the most value for your organization, while simultaneously managing risk (because solving the wrong problem well is counterproductive, at best).
Your team will produce a prioritized portfolio of validated pain/need hypotheses for challenges that support your goals and strategies.
Your innovators will learn how to apply a simple question-driven approach to quickly discover real pains/ needs/ opportunities/ challenges that can lead to strategically-aligned innovations that:
Optimize operational performance;
Grow markets and revenue;
Renew your organization for the future;
Maximize the value realized from operations and practices you might exit.
Outcomes
Challenge statements that focus the innovation efforts of your team through the Next Cycle.
Validated and prioritized pain hypotheses for strategic challenges and opportunities.
Frameworks & Tools
Opportunity Horizons
Next Portfolios
Next Board
Next Advocates
Next Cycle
Deflection Point
Challenge Finder Tool
Matters Most Drill
Moments That Matter Drill
Deflection Point Drill
Anchors & Rockets Drill
Pain Tree Drill
5 Whys Drill
Matters Most Redux Drill
Stack It x Horizon Drill
Strategic x Urgent Drill
Certainty Map Framework
Who You Gonna Call Drill
When Drill (Formulate)
Sprint 2.
From Incubate to Accelerate
The sprint equips your innovators with the ability to apply the paradoxical skills of trying to kill new ideas by getting to “No, because…” while conceiving of the next solutions that can drive growth and impact. Solutions that survive this stage have demonstrated reason to have high confidence in their need, doability, and value.
Through this sprint your innovators will produce validated solution and value hypotheses for the pain/need hypotheses that your Next Board promotes from your Formulate Stage.
Outcomes
Solution hypothesis storyboards for customer interviews
Solution interview guides
Solution validation and prioritization
Reverse impact statements for validated solutions
Impact goals
TAM/SAM/MLB
Revenue projections
Cost projections
Value validation and prioritization
Completed customer canvases for each constituent
Option value assessments and prioritization
Frameworks & Tools
Opportunity Horizons
Next Cycle
Next Stack
Next Portfolio & Option Value
Next Board
Next Advocates
GOD
Assumptions Canvas
Customer Canvas
Matters Most Redux Drill
Moonshot Drill
Systemspotting Drill
Brand Takeover Drill
System Hack Drill
Rockets to Anchors Drill
Impact x Adjacency Drill
La Machine Drill
Name It + Scenario
Pecha 3 x 3 Drill
MLB (Most Likely Buyer)
Brandscape Drill
Reverse Impact Statement Drill
Pain Cycle Drill
PAK Lab Drill
New Rules Drill
Sprint 3.
From Accelerate to Operate
This sprint equips your innovators to produce data from live pilots of minimum viable solutions to inform the adjustments, improvements, and investments that must be made before launch.
Outcomes
Minimum Viable Solution (MVS) prototypes
Market-specific insights and validation
MVS launch and execution plan
Next advocacy
Transition rules
New operating princples
Frameworks & Tools
Next Cycle
Next Stack
Next Portfolio & Option Value
Next Board
Next Advocates
GOD
Assumptions Canvas
Customer Canvas
MLB (Most Likely Buyer)
Brandscape Drill
Reverse Impact Statement Drill
PAK Lab Drill
New Rules Drill
Sprint 4.
From Operate to Grow
This sprint equips your innovators to take two parallel paths. One to monitor leading indicators that produce foresight for your growth strategy. The other to produce opportunities to grow your solutions to new actors and expand into new markets.
Outcomes
Minimum Viable Solution (MVS) prototypes
Market-specific insights and validation
MVS growth strategy and plan
Next advocacy
Leading indicators
New business model
Solution localization
New operating princples
Frameworks & Tools
Next Cycle
Next Stack
Next Portfolio & Option Value
Next Board
Next Advocates
GOD
Assumptions Canvas
Customer Canvas
MLB (Most Likely Buyer)
Brandscape Drill
Reverse Impact Statement Drill
PAK Lab Drill
New Rules Drill
The route map to Next.
The Next Cycle is not a series of one-way trips. It is a continuous innovation journey. Sprinting through this journey is the best way to learn a rigorous, disciplined system for innovation productivity.
