While it may take time, the principles of Lean Start Up will become the norm for non profit/social enterprises. There will always be stubbornness and skewed incentives (funding) dragging their feet, but this is a revolution sitting like an eager puppy waiting to be let loose. Iterative learning with minimal cost and maximum impact for the beneficiary. We should be jumping for joy. The intellectual exercise of strategic planning and large complex projects will always be tempting but when it comes to taking action, which means positively impacting the people and communities we care about, Lean will prove to be the best thing since the internet.
Thank you Peter & Steve for this article as well as all the others doing great work!
We are certainly seeing a spike in Lean adoption by nonprofit, Hunter. It takes both organizational leaders and funders embracing rapid experimentation and iterative learning. But more and more, we see innovative leaders in the sector making Lean core to their organization’s operations.
This is excellent reading on what I have called ‘4th sector thinking’ in my blog - http://gabazira.com. Charities have to change their ways - orthodox linear models can’t work anymore. Trouble is - the traditional charity worker thinks ‘linearly’ and is not the answer to driving much needed change towards non-linear thinking and organisation.
I’d like to submit a correction to this article that we were mentioned in. It states “GuideStar, an organization that gathers and shares information about nonprofits, recently created a user advisory panel that includes about eight hundred and fifty members.” That number is incorrect. Could you please change the number of our current User Advisory Panelists to 250? Please let me know if you have further questions or concerns. I appreciate your time! ~Courtney Cherico, Communications Coordinator, GuideStar
Well, first of all, thank you so much for the great information. Hope this book share is really useful and first time i am spending time for read a full article in a web.because this really interesting to read from here.Hope i can find more useful article from here. This type book review are always helpful to know more about the book.
My impression of this compelling approach is that it is more suited to service delivery or similar projects than to non-profits working for example on political processes around complex issues like climate change. One of the accompanying resources says that “Many problems can’t be solved by rapid experimentation (too long-term; complex metrics).” It would be interesting, however, to see how far these problems can be broken down into component parts that can be subject to lean experimentation: although the long-term political impact of a campaign may be very difficult to measure, there is a lot of room for innovation in the techniques used to effect change - the trick is not to either be stuck when trying either to measure big-picture impact (almost unknowable) vs. small-picture metrics (number of people showing up to a rally - not very interesting if there’s no relation to the big-picture impact).
I think developing qualitative measures to either 1. observing behavior after the process or 2. measure attitude changes can help in knowing the long(er) term social impact. Obviously, attitudes change over time, but regardless of how quickly a program/experiment is put in place, having an exit survey helps with the ‘control’ aspect of lean processing and can give you a lot of information for the next opportunity. Substituting the cold hard numbers for qualitative surveys generates great information for a non-profit!
I like the article and how it was articulated. I also like it that it referred this model as being tried and tested in the corporate sector. To be frank, this was tried and tested in the spiritual sector as well, long before.
On the issue of not needing a consultant, I think that is another story to tell…..
We are certainly seeing a spike in Lean adoption by nonprofit, Hunter. It takes both organizational leaders and funders embracing rapid experimentation and iterative learning. But more and more, we see innovative leaders in the sector making Lean core to their organization’s operations. source : http://toyotadimalang.com
COMMENTS
BY Cynder Sinclair
ON June 6, 2015 05:42 AM
Thx for the great article! Reminds me of Jim Collins’ technique of “shooting bullets then calibrated cannonballs.”
BY Hunter Tanous, Youth Uprising
ON June 9, 2015 01:20 AM
While it may take time, the principles of Lean Start Up will become the norm for non profit/social enterprises. There will always be stubbornness and skewed incentives (funding) dragging their feet, but this is a revolution sitting like an eager puppy waiting to be let loose. Iterative learning with minimal cost and maximum impact for the beneficiary. We should be jumping for joy. The intellectual exercise of strategic planning and large complex projects will always be tempting but when it comes to taking action, which means positively impacting the people and communities we care about, Lean will prove to be the best thing since the internet.
Thank you Peter & Steve for this article as well as all the others doing great work!
BY Peter Murray, Accelerate Change
ON June 15, 2015 12:21 PM
We are certainly seeing a spike in Lean adoption by nonprofit, Hunter. It takes both organizational leaders and funders embracing rapid experimentation and iterative learning. But more and more, we see innovative leaders in the sector making Lean core to their organization’s operations.
BY Apollo Gabazira
ON June 17, 2015 09:27 PM
This is excellent reading on what I have called ‘4th sector thinking’ in my blog - http://gabazira.com. Charities have to change their ways - orthodox linear models can’t work anymore. Trouble is - the traditional charity worker thinks ‘linearly’ and is not the answer to driving much needed change towards non-linear thinking and organisation.
BY Courtney Cherico
ON July 6, 2015 11:04 AM
I’d like to submit a correction to this article that we were mentioned in. It states “GuideStar, an organization that gathers and shares information about nonprofits, recently created a user advisory panel that includes about eight hundred and fifty members.” That number is incorrect. Could you please change the number of our current User Advisory Panelists to 250? Please let me know if you have further questions or concerns. I appreciate your time! ~Courtney Cherico, Communications Coordinator, GuideStar
BY thomasjohnson
ON July 14, 2015 10:05 PM
Well, first of all, thank you so much for the great information. Hope this book share is really useful and first time i am spending time for read a full article in a web.because this really interesting to read from here.Hope i can find more useful article from here. This type book review are always helpful to know more about the book.
BY Steve Ma, Accelerate Change
ON July 23, 2015 08:58 PM
Sorry about the mistake Courtney. We’ve got it fixed in the article. Hope all is well at GuideStar and that the innovations are working out!
BY Courtney Cherico
ON July 24, 2015 05:35 AM
Thank you Steve, we appreciate it! Come join our Impact Call on 8/10 at 2pm to learn more about GuideStar’s latest innovations: npo.gs/Impactcall7
BY Jason Anderson
ON September 10, 2015 11:02 AM
My impression of this compelling approach is that it is more suited to service delivery or similar projects than to non-profits working for example on political processes around complex issues like climate change. One of the accompanying resources says that “Many problems can’t be solved by rapid experimentation (too long-term; complex metrics).” It would be interesting, however, to see how far these problems can be broken down into component parts that can be subject to lean experimentation: although the long-term political impact of a campaign may be very difficult to measure, there is a lot of room for innovation in the techniques used to effect change - the trick is not to either be stuck when trying either to measure big-picture impact (almost unknowable) vs. small-picture metrics (number of people showing up to a rally - not very interesting if there’s no relation to the big-picture impact).
BY BrainBoxltd, BrainBox ltd
ON November 5, 2015 03:23 PM
I think developing qualitative measures to either 1. observing behavior after the process or 2. measure attitude changes can help in knowing the long(er) term social impact. Obviously, attitudes change over time, but regardless of how quickly a program/experiment is put in place, having an exit survey helps with the ‘control’ aspect of lean processing and can give you a lot of information for the next opportunity. Substituting the cold hard numbers for qualitative surveys generates great information for a non-profit!
BY Sudeep Mohandas
ON December 1, 2015 05:57 PM
I like the article and how it was articulated. I also like it that it referred this model as being tried and tested in the corporate sector. To be frank, this was tried and tested in the spiritual sector as well, long before.
On the issue of not needing a consultant, I think that is another story to tell…..
BY toyota malang
ON November 7, 2017 11:18 PM
We are certainly seeing a spike in Lean adoption by nonprofit, Hunter. It takes both organizational leaders and funders embracing rapid experimentation and iterative learning. But more and more, we see innovative leaders in the sector making Lean core to their organization’s operations. source : http://toyotadimalang.com