The innovation revolution we need now

Issue #19 explains why I wrote a book about how to deals with unknowns to help companies innovate and grow.

In my book, I explain why failure to uncover and address unknowns is so troubling, and why doing something about it contains so much upside. So what's the solution? The key is to focus on upstream work. That’s where unknowns are sourced, synthesized, and reasoned through to arrive at conclusions that drive decisions.?Effective upstream work enables us to turn unknowns into knowns, create greater clarity, move with better velocity, bring conviction to decisions, and achieve successful project outcomes.

This is all detailed in my book, DECISION SPRINT : The New Way to Innovate into the Unknown and Move from Strategy to Action (April 25, 2023; McGraw Hill).

The problem today is that very few companies and teams have a method to tackle upstream work. It's holding back promising ideas and innovations in many companies.

In this issue of Re:wire, I will provide an overview to this game changing method.

It's called Decision Sprint.

The Method

Let's start with some basics. Everyone loves moving from idea to action quickly. That's why we often move to project planning, prototypes and building things once a promising idea emerges. But moving to execution is not the best way to make progress. We need to first tackle the upstream journey (see below).

The process of starting with and systematically working through unknowns – is the innovation revolution we need now.?

Decision Sprint provides a way to do this. How so?

It provides three stages to progress this work. Explore and answer the right questions, develop the right conclusions, and commit to the necessary actions. Read about the 3 phases in more detail below. And scroll to the bottom to join my LinkedIn Live event next week with the ex-CEO of 沃尔沃汽车 .

Exploration

Exploration is a concerted effort to surface the relevant considerations, especially unknowns, and get to the bottom of them.

Exploration is often short changed in companies. That's why teams reach important decision meetings with blindspots and weak links in their recommendations. We can avoid these pitfalls by building and running explorations in the right way. And it isn't time consuming.

I’ve shared in the book how to source input for an exploration and practices to address these pitfalls effectively. Sourcing input is essential at the start of exploration. It’s progress in and of itself—like getting to first base before scoring a run.

Alignment

Alignment is about drawing conclusions based on an exploration a team has performed containing these puzzle pieces.

Imagine a scenario where everyone works from a shared understanding to draw conclusions. This scenario can radically streamline approvals, support, and buy-in. I’ve used high-quality exploration to turn high-stakes meetings into straightforward affairs.

Decision Making

Decision-making is committing to the necessary actions. There's a method to conducting a decision meeting, and making it one where the heads are nodding in agreement.

Getting Started

To implement Decision Sprint, teams won’t need to “clean sheet” today’s approach. They simply need to make some powerful modifications to begin to rewire existing ways of working. (I have included 13 ready-to-go workflows in the book to make this even easier).

What’s more, Decision Sprint can be embraced by a variety of contributors in an organization—from innovators to skeptics, from strategic thinkers to pragmatists, from those focused on today’s horizon to those charged with a horizon in the future.?

Each persona has a role to play in tackling unknowns. Decision Sprint activates the players in your organization in the right way instead of tolerating legacy behaviors or blank-check experimentation. Both extremes are costly, if not deadly.?

Decision Sprint helps you make easy yet powerful adjustments to your existing day-to-day interactions, which will then lead to an immediate boost in speed, quality, and outcomes.

Read the book’s full overview in the introduction on my website .

LinkedIn Live (April 18th, Tuesday)

Mark your calendars.

Join a live interview between me and Hakan Samuelsson (ex-CEO and President of 沃尔沃汽车 ). We will talk about Hakan’s transformative time as CEO of Volvo Cars and my book, Decision Sprint.

We'll talk about innovation, how to lead teams into new territory, bringing out the best in talent, and the kind of leadership companies need for this next era of business.

Here is the event link . Please sign up ! And share the event page in your feed so others can participate.