Innovation Metrics Podcast

Title 

Why Innovation Teams have to be Measured Differently and How to do it - with Tristan Kromer

About the Episode

Tristan Kromer is talking to us about why innovation teams need to be measured differently from other product teams and how to do it. In other words, we are talking about how you can take practical steps to implement innovation accounting on a team level. 

Please let us know what measures you would add and why in the comments!

Innovation Team Metrics Covered in this Episode

• Experimentation Velocity / % of teams that run experiments 
• Insight Velocity / % of experiments that generate insights
• % of falsified hypothesis (validated/invalidated experiments ratio) 
• Retrospectives / % of weeks teams have run retrospectives in the last month 
• Qualitative data - team sprint demo (weekly, biweekly) 

Topics and Insights

• (01:40) The problem - why do we need to measure innovation teams differently
• (05:00) All teams should be measured against something they can control 
• (06:00) For innovation teams, even product related lead indicators often can not be applied as the lead indicator might not yet be known
• (10:00) If Zombies were chasing Tristan, he might be able to run 5 blocks
• (11:00) Nobody knows what product teams will win, but we do know that teams which experiment and learn faster, have a much better chance to achieve Product Market Fit. Tom Eisenmann from Harvard University just released data to back up that claim
• (14:30) The solution - how to fairly and effectively measure innovation team 
• (15:00) Separating the measurement of the product from the measurement of the team
• (15:40) Experimentation Velocity and Insight Velocity 
• (19:00) Accounting for experiment and research cost 
• (22:20) Elijah is having problems formulating a proper sentence and Yoga with Adriene comes up 
• (23:30) The difference between an evaluative experiment and generative research
• (29:00) Should the evaluative experiment and generative research ratio be measured?
• (31:00) Product teams should never stop running interviews
• (31:30) Teams are likely to be more successful when they use a greater variety of experiments and call for more academic research into this topic!
• (33:15) We need better tools to record experiments and insights from innovation teams. 
• (36:50) Tools for recording experiments 
• (41:30) Going deeper into measuring Experimentation and Insight Velocity. 
• (46:20) The amount of falsified hypotheses are another team performance indicator
• (52:00) Measure but don’t count
• (52:50) Teams also need to be measured against lead product/project indicators but each team needs to find out their own indicators or levers for success 
• (55:00) Retrospectives, another important team measure
• (56:00) The importance of qualitative data like sprint demos 

Questions for our Listeners

• What team metrics do you recommend?
• How do you record experiments in your organisation? What can you recommend? 

Please comment below

About the Cohost 

Tristan Kromer helps product teams go fast.

As a Silicon Valley-based lean startup coach and founder of Kromatic, Tristan works with innovation teams to run at least one experiment/research per week to improve their product and business model.

For larger companies and governments, Tristan and his team work with corporate teams and leaders to build innovation ecosystems.

Tristan designed lean startup programs such as the Build or Die Bootcamp for TechBA (Mexico) and the Innovation Partnership Program (Vietnam-Finland) in addition to being part of Luxr, whose Core Curriculum has been used by 13 accelerators internationally, including Singularity University, 500 Startups, & The United States Innovation Fellows.

He has worked with companies ranging from early stage startups with zero revenue to established businesses with >$10M USD revenue (Kiva, Cancer Research U.K., TES) to enterprise companies with >$1B USD revenue (Unilever, Swisscom, Salesforce, Fujitsu, LinkedIn).

Tristan regularly speaks, appears on panels, and gives workshops internationally with organizations such as the Stanford Center for Entrepreneurial Studies & D-school, Dubai Chamber of Commerce, General Electric (GE), and more.

Originally from New York City, he has lived in Germany, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Vietnam, and currently resides in San Francisco, USA. With his remaining hours, Tristan volunteers his time with early stage startups.

Connect with Tristan 

Website / LinkedIn / Twitter 

From Quarterly to Weekly Learning Cycles or “The Man in the Mirror” – with Oliver DurrerHosts/Guests

Oliver Durrer, Elijah Eilert

 

About the Episode

Oliver shares his hands-on experience on corporate entrepreneurship, innovation, leadership and learning from his time at Nestle and Migros, building corporate startups and developing an innovation lab. He explains how they went from quarterly learning cycles to weekly and what it takes to get there.

Finally, Oliver is going to tell us his biggest secret/takeaway for innovators, especially within large organisations.

We hope that you enjoy listening to – “The Man in the Mirror”.

 

Topics and Insights 

• 04:00 Overcoming challenges in communicating with leadership in the pre-revenue phase when learning is the primary focus.
• 11:30 Setting expectations about the (learning) roadmap with leadership.
• 14:50 The journey to shorter experiment and insight cycles - “Go fast go alone, go far go together”. 
• 18:00 The importance of managing the scale-up challenge from the beginning of the process - from innovation accounting to standard financial accounting.
• 20:15 On the need for a learning organisation.
• 20:50 Measuring teams, reporting on learning and insights.
• 25:00 Recording insights & knowledge management 
• 32:30 Collaborating and creating a shared vision within large organisations.
• 37:00 Oliver's biggest secret for how to change the way large organisations innovate.

 

About the Co-host

Our guest and co-host Oliver Durrer is a Swiss global citizen with a love for life and learning. Passionate about people, tech, lean innovation and social impact, Oliver is on a mission to empower purpose-driven pioneers to unleash their full potential for impact. He has 15+ years of experience in fostering corporate entrepreneurship, innovation and learning, with large enterprises, SMBs and tech startups across Europe, Southeast Asia and Silicon Valley.

Oliver is the founder of SwissLEAP which was set up to help leaders, teams and organizations navigate uncertainty, lead change and innovate with impact to sustainably create shared value.

SwissLEAP’s signature Lasting Enterprise Action Practices (“LEAP”) combines the business excellence and stability of successful enterprises with the speed, learning and innovation capabilities of lean startups.

Oliver holds an lic. oec. in Business Management from Lausanne University. He is a certified lean innovation coach, trained market opportunity navigator and lecturer of innovation and intrapreneurship at HWZ Business School Zurich’s Executive MBA in Digital Leadership.

A fan of foreign cultures and languages, Oliver enjoys connecting with people in (Swiss-)German, English, French, Italian & Spanish.

Connect with Oliver        

Website / LinkedIn / Twitter / Email