THINKING – Sprint 14
All you need to know about creating value
The reason for this sprint
Leading a startup can generate the same feelings as you might have in a nightmare where you found yourself having to take the controls of a jumbo jet running out of fuel.
You have only the vaguest ideas of what a few of the controls do, how the plane reacts and what it takes to find a place to land, let alone land it.
In this sprint we describe the essential basics of how a startup creates value and how to stabilize it, despite the turbulence of competition and the real world. Not understanding these basics results in poor performance and failure.
This is the first of 2 sprints that help you fly your startup and here we focus on the three controls on how you create value: projects, processes and company culture.
Sprint exercises
Please read or listen to the article “How you create value”. It describes how value is created with projects and processes and how to choose the right method for the value you want to create.
The article goes on to describe the importance of creating a compatible culture that amplifies, rather than destroys, the productivity of your team.
You will begin to understand the importance of this knowledge by answering the following questions:
Think of examples of projects and processes you have been involved with. How were the teams different? How were they led differently?
Which do you like being part of better, working on a project or working on a process? Note that if you are not a process person then you will have a tendency to be okay with sloppy processes. You will need to work with a “process person” to mitigate this!
Think of the different cultures of any institution or team you have been involved with. What characteristics made them different or produce better performance?