< PreviousPIONEER TEAM DISCOVER AND CONQUER NEW MOUNTAINS AND TERRITORIES . THELAUNCH STAGE • PIONEER TEAM PIONEER TEAM SUMMARY The core mission of the PIONEER TEAM is to discover new ways for your existing company to overcome external industry disruption by embracing new technologies and tools, and new styles of thinking. SCHEDULE You have ELEVEN WEEKS to complete this phase. WEEK 1 DISCOVER STAGE REFLECT STAGE WEEK 2 WEEK 3 WEEK 4 WEEK 5 WEEK 6 WEEK 7 WEEK 8 WEEK 9 WEEK 10 WEEK 11 EXPERIENCE STAGE MINDSTORM STAGE TEST STAGE SELECT STAGE PITCH STAGE TEAR DOWN STAGE IMPROVE STAGE PROTOTYPE STAGE DEBRIEF STAGE PRESENTATION STAGE TRANSFER STAGET HE PIONEER Team’s core mission is to discover new ways to help your existing company overcome external industry disruption by embracing new technologies and tools and new styles of thinking that help you create a more adaptable, agile, and flexible company. While companies are always happy to talk up their existing in house innovation initiatives and tell investors they are constantly pushing the boundaries there is often a stark divide between what they say they’re doing and what they’re actually doing - let alone how they’re doing it. If your company is guilty of this type of behaviour then it’s time for reality to match the hype, and that’s what the PIONEER Team will address in this phase of the program. As we’ve seen all too regularly many companies only kick their innovation initiatives up a gear when their company’s already under financial threat from external competitors and market forces - the equivalent of closing the stable door after the horse has already bolted. Needless to say therefore that that’s too little too late so that behaviour needs to change. 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... Pioneering Mindsets To maximise the chances of success the PIONEER Team needs to get out of the building and away from the every day hum drum. This particular phase of the program requires you to have clear heads and for your mindset to be fresh and objective. Pioneering Outputs The PIONEER Team’s core mission is to help create a future fit company that is well positioned to lead one or more industries and markets that’s capable of generating generous profits and changing the world for the better. Pioneering Problem Hunters As you’ll discover and investigate in more depth during the DISCOVER STAGE there are plenty of customer frictions, disruptive events, and opportunities,just waiting for you to discover, or even re- 223311institute.com EXPLORE MORE BOOK AN EXPERT CALLdiscover, and solve, but in order to find them and then see them for the problems they are you need an explorers mindset. Pioneering Problem Solvers All of the customer frictions, disruptive events, and opportunities you discover will inevitably mean problems to overcome and solve, and by running this program you and your team have been given the green light by your senior leadership team to go ahead and develop solutions that will make a significant impact and contribution to the future prosperity of your company and all your stakeholders. Notes: 224311institute.comNotes: 225311institute.comDISCOVERE ARLIER ON, during the PREPARE PHASE, we laid the foundations of the program, explored and addressed the cultural challenges within your company, defined your company’s Exponential Purpose, and assembled your Core Team. And now you’re entering one of the program’s most exciting stages, the DISCOVER STAGE, where you and your teams get to discover and explore the myriad of new ideas and concepts that will help your company survive and prosper not just in the next decade, but if applied continuously, well into the next century as well. And if that sounds like a grand ambition, well, those are some of the same objectives shared by some of your fellow pathfinders and pioneers who you can either think of as peers to work with, or as competitors to out compete - choose whatever point of view motivates you most. This stage is one of the most critical stages of the entire program because not only is it arguably the true start of your journey but the things you discover during it will form the basis of all the activities and dialogue for the rest of the program. But, all that said though, don’t forget that discovery isn’t just a one time process, it’s a continuous one. The first challenge you will encounter during this stage will be figuring out where to spend your time, literally and figuratively, in order to maximise your returns, after all there are so many new ideas and concepts to discover that this stage itself could occupy you for several lifetimes. As a result you’ll encounter a lot of noise during this stage, so it’s absolutely imperative that you remember your Exponential Purpose and stay focused on your team’s core mission. There is also the very real danger during this stage that if you don’t dig deep enough or explore widely enough that you’ll fail to discover valuable insights that might make a huge difference to the success of your program later on, and another major challenge you will face during this stage will be trying to rid yourself of all your old ideas and preconceptions, as well as the other mental baggage you carry around in your head. After all, if you truly want to build an enduring, future fit Exponential Enterprise during this stage you’ll have to see things from new and fresh perspectives. ESSENTIAL THINKING When you have your head buried in the 227311institute.com EXPLORE MORE BOOK AN EXPERT CALLprogram 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... Alternative Industries The vast majority of organisations limit their research and exploration to what their competitors and peers in the space are doing, but as organisations become increasingly digital and global, and as the boundaries between many previously distinct and siloed industries continue to erode your next great idea, opportunity, or threat, is just as likely to come from another alternative industry as from your own. As a result you can likely find more ideas and inspiration by exploring these alternative industry’s R&D and Innovation Labs, and by more closely researching their investment strategies. Disruptive Startups And Upstarts Today starting a business is cheaper and easier than ever before and with net new company registrations soaring above 100 million in just the past few years there are more entrepreneurs than ever before looking for chinks in established industry value chains, and for new Exponential Problems to solve. As a consequence while there is a huge amount of noise in this space there are also many inspirational diamonds in the rough for you to discover, polish up, and make your own. Explore Far And Wide Many people often limit their search for new inspiration and new problems to solve to the confines of their own country, industry, or language, but by exploring wider and further than these artificial boundaries you and your team will be amazed at the sheer volume and variety of different problems and innovative solutions you’ll discover when you dare to look abroad, look at alternative industries, or search in alternative languages, for inspiration. Pioneering Investors The global investment community is often an area that most researchers overlook, but as we continue to see the abandonment of the Shareholder Primacy rule, where companies put short term profits and shareholders first and instead focus on the long term, there are an increasing number of Corporate Venture Capital funds, Global Asset Managers, and Private Equity companies Notes: 228311institute.comthat are on the hunt for the next big things and disruptive startups, all of which makes them and their portfolio companies good candidates to research. Pioneering Problem Hunters Given the opportunity many companies would design and develop their portfolio of products differently today than in the past and all too often they find that their legacies hold them back from capitalising on new market opportunities and adapting their business to new disruptive market forces. As Pioneers it is your mission to discover customer frictions and valuable customer problems to solve and then find ways to, as they say, transform the aircraft while it’s in mid flight. Exponential Technologies As we detail in our complimentary Exponential Technologies: The Next 50 Years Codex while exponential technologies are just blank slates waiting for explorers like you to discover Exponential Problems to solve before using them to create disruptive new products and services with your aim should be to explore as many of them as possible in order to understand how you can use them to achieve maximum impact, as well as for inspiration. Friction Finders Discover and explore as many customer frictions and gaps in industry value chains as you can that affect a great number of people who will pay money to solve them. Trend Hunters As we detail in our complimentary 311 Trends Codex there are always a great number and variety of different trends you can explore and research and you’ll quickly discover that many of them influence a lot of the things you’ve already discovered. Notes: 229311institute.comNext >