< PreviousLAUNCH STAGE • PATHFINDER TEAM • TEST STAGE TASK SUMMARY Your task during the TEST STAGE is to test as many of the concepts you generated during the MINDSTORM STAGE as possible and eliminate the ones that wouldn’t stand up to first contact with customers. SCHEDULE You have THREE DAYS to complete this stage. MONTUE WEDTHUFRISATSUN Discuss your objectives, clearly communicate expectations. KICK OFF WORKSHOP TEST WORKSHOP Start testing your ideas, see if they would survive customer contact. Review your progress and park any ideas that didn’t pass your tests. WRAP UP WORKSHOPLAUNCH STAGE • PATHFINDER TEAM • TEST STAGE GUIDANCE ACTIVITY LIST1. Conduct a Kick Off Workshop. 2. Conduct a Test Workshop. 3. Conduct a Wrap Up Workshop. TIPS1. Always keep the programs objectives at the forefront of your mind. 2. Be open minded. 3. Be quantitative when testing your concepts. 4. Don’t be afraid to be critical. 5. Pay special attention to how you unveil your concepts to your customer groups. 6. Take the customers point of view. 7. Remember customers think linearly not exponentially and that this will need to be addressed. 8. Retain an exponential mindset. CRUCIAL MOMENTS1. Identifying the concepts with the most potential. 2. Revealing your concepts to customers. 3. The customers opinion is the moment of truth. RISKS1. Customers in the testing process don’t like anything. 2. Customers linear thinking drags you back towards business as usual. 3. Participants aren’t objective in their testing. 4. Participants don’t ask enough open questions. 5. Participants don’t get enough feedback. 6. Participants don’t turn up. 7. Participants run out of time. 8. Participants test concepts with the wrong user groups and the wrong mix of people. 9. You don’t have the necessary protections in place to ensure the confidentiality of your program when engaging third parties. DELIVERABLES1. A summary of your findings categorised by priority and impact. 2. A list of your top five concepts. OUTCOMEBy the end of this stage you will have sufficiently tested your concepts and theories with customer groups, evaluated their potential, and started the selection process.ASSUMPTION MAPPER 311 INSTITUTE : HOW TO BUILD EXPONENTIAL ENTERPRISES: TEST STAGE Every concept is full of assumptions and that’s very normal. With this tool we try to identify those assumptions and map them to create an actionable overview of which assumptions to test first. Some assumptions are so big that the concept could collapse if not validated by your customers. Start preparing you’ll need to test this as soon as possibleGet out of the building and test this now Easy but non-essentialDon’t waste your time on this -TESTING DIFFICULTY+ - IMPORTANCE + Click or scan to download this resource and other innovation resources. TEAM NAME AND NOTES:INNOVATION BATTLEFIELD 311 INSTITUTE : HOW TO BUILD EXPONENTIAL ENTERPRISES: TEST STAGE This sheet helps you map the features of your concept to see how they will be percieved by your customers. It helps you be more critical about which assumptions really differentiate from others and which convince your customers into buying your products. Exponentially betterUnexpected awesomeness I don’t careExpected essentials -INDISPENSIBILITY LEVEL+ - PLEASURE LEVEL + Click or scan to download this resource and other innovation resources. TEAM NAME AND NOTES:TEST CARD 311 INSTITUTE : HOW TO BUILD EXPONENTIAL ENTERPRISES: TEST STAGE The Experiment Card helps you to set up the experiments that will allow you to validate those assumptions you previously mapped. Instead of running a full prototype define the elements of your concept you’re not completely certain about and set up experiments to validate them individually. Click or scan to download this resource and other innovation resources. TEAM NAME AND NOTES: FOR Describe the target audience of this experiment. TYPE OF EXPERIMENT A/B Testing, explainer video, pre-sell ... DESCRIPTION What needs to be tested and how will you do it? TO DO Sum up the practicalities needed to run the experiment and structure them on the timeline below. SUCCESS Describe when the result of the experiment is successful. 1 35 24 6 5 1234FEEDBACK GRID 311 INSTITUTE : HOW TO BUILD EXPONENTIAL ENTERPRISES: TEST STAGE The Feedback Grid helps you organise the information you gathered from users testing out your ideas and concepts. You should record your findings and the results honestly, and there is no point covering up negative feedback. Use the information gleaned to develop your understanding of the problem. Click or scan to download this resource and other innovation resources. TEAM NAME AND NOTES: What confused them? Why? What new ideas did they add? Why? What didn’t work? Why? What worked? Why?DISRUPTIVENESS TEST 311 INSTITUTE : HOW TO BUILD EXPONENTIAL ENTERPRISES: TEST STAGE Use this tool to objectively evaluate if your new concept has the potential to re-shape your existing industry in entirely new ways. Click or scan to download this resource and other innovation resources. TEAM NAME AND NOTES: POTENTIAL FOR LOW END DISRUPTION 1. Are there potential customers at the low end of the market who would be happy to purchase your new concept with lesser performance at a lower price? 2. Can we potentially create a business model that enables us to earn attractive profits at discounted prices in order to win the business of these lower end customers? NEW MARKET DISRUPTION POTENTIAL 1. Is there a large population of people who historically have not had the money, equipment or skill to do this new thing by themselves? 2. Would they pay someone with more expertise to do it for them? 3. To use the new concept do customers need to go to an inconvenient central location? RESULTS If you answered yes to all of these questions then congratulations your new concept has the potential to disrupt your industry. If you answered no to any of these questions then try re-visiting your idea to create a more disruptive or radical version of it. IMPACT ON EXISTING INCUMBENTS 1. Is the new concept disruptive to ALL of the incumbent firms within this particular industry? 1 2 3 4SELECTI N THE MINDSTORM STAGE and TEST STAGE you spent your time developing and testing new ideas and concepts that hopefully excited and scared you. And, bearing in mind the objectives of the program, if for whatever reason they didn’t then I’d suggest you haven’t explored thoroughly enough and I’d strongly encourage you to consider repeating those two stages before starting this one because this is the stage where you have to select the concepts you want to progress through to the next stages. Continuing on, and provided you are confident you have fully met those objectives it’s now time for you to weed out the weaker concepts and select the top five that you think have the best alignment with the programs objectives and your teams Core Mission, and the ones with the greatest potential to be wildly successful in the market. The five product concepts you choose to progress during this stage will then be the ones you focus on to the exclusion of everything else for the remainder of the program so it is imperative you choose carefully. ESSENTIAL THINKING When you have your head buried in the program sometimes it’s easy to overlook things, so here are some essential things to bear in mind to help you get the most from your journey... Fear Factor If you have done your research thoroughly and followed the program correctly then the thought of a competitor developing and pushing these concepts into the market should scare you. If it doesn’t then go back to the drawing board and start again. File Don’t Bin During this stage you will be dismissing alot of your concepts but it’s important that these aren’t binned or shoved mindlessly into the shredder. Categorise and file them away either to be used by the other teams in the program who could find them useful or as collateral for another program. Hearts And Minds When selecting the concepts to take forwards make sure that your reasons are unbiased and based on quantifiable 159311institute.com EXPLORE MORE BOOK AN EXPERT CALLNext >