Lean Startup

Steven Hodas | When Lean Startup Arrives in a Trojan Horse--Innovation in Extreme Bureaucracy | The Lean Startup Conference 2013

Steven runs an procurement-innovation program in one of the world’s most notorious bureaucracies: the New York City Department of Education. In a fear-driven atmosphere, with lots of incentive to not be embarrassed, he’ll talk about the challenges he’s faced and progress he’s made testing new ideas.

It’s often tempting to test technical risk before you test market risk. After all, what if your product doesn’t actually work? Then again, what if you build it and nobody wants to buy it? Daina will talk about the stages she took her product through and how she learned a great deal about her market before writing a line of code.

Anuj Adhiya, Tool Talk: Trello by Lean Startup

Risk, Information, Time and Money

Dan Milstein @danmil HUT 8 LABS

Working in a startup environment, you’re constantly facing subtle, tricky choices: of all the things you could work on, which ones are worth your time? Which ones will actually move the business forward? How should you spend your next hour? Your next day? You and your team will make a thousand such decisions–the ultimate success or failure of your venture is largely determined by the sum total of those choices. Starting from these questions, Dan will explore the principles underlying the Lean Startup, helping you determine the best way to spend your time.

Making Remote Workers Feel like They’re in the Same Room

Paul Hepworth USERTESTING

When you have a central office, remote workers can wind up feeling uninformed, disempowered and disconnected. But they absolutely don’t have to have those experiences. Paul Hepworth, VP of Engineering at UserTesting, an 87-person company with more than a dozen remote workers, will talk about the very practical things you can do to ensure that remote team members can “see” into the office and are as connected and informed as co-located workers. In addition to interpersonal processes, he’ll also talk about cheap hardware setups that make a big difference.

The Three Modes of Collaboration–and What They Mean for Distributed Teams

Teryn Rikert STEELCASE

People on distributed teams often say, “Working remotely is great for heads-down tasks, but collaborating remotely–especially on creative work–is really hard.” You’ve probably said that yourself. So how can we improve distributed collaboration in virtual meetings? Teryn Rikert, a workplace strategist with Steelcase, will break down the different modes of collaboration, helping us understand the key behaviors, interactions and tools we can use to support them over distance.

A Conversation with Bob Sutton and Eric Ries

Bob Sutton @work_matters STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Eric Ries @ericries THE LEAN STARTUP

Bob Sutton’s new book, Scaling Up Excellence, explores the challenge of building a growing organization. In this conversation with Eric Ries, we’ll look at the particular issues of scaling up on distributed teams and a range of principles that leaders can adapt for successful growth.

Build Culture, Establish Trust

Cheryl Contee FISSION STRATEGY

Cheryl Contee runs an established consulting firm and a new startup, both of which are fully distributed. She’ll touch on what’s different between the two and dive into processes her teams have refined over time to build culture and establish trust.

Risk, Information, Time and Money

Dan Milstein @danmil HUT 8 LABS

Working in a startup environment, you’re constantly facing subtle, tricky choices: of all the things you could work on, which ones are worth your time? Which ones will actually move the business forward? How should you spend your next hour? Your next day? You and your team will make a thousand such decisions–the ultimate success or failure of your venture is largely determined by the sum total of those choices. Starting from these questions, Dan will explore the principles underlying the Lean Startup, helping you determine the best way to spend your time.

Making Remote Workers Feel like They’re in the Same Room

Paul Hepworth USERTESTING

When you have a central office, remote workers can wind up feeling uninformed, disempowered and disconnected. But they absolutely don’t have to have those experiences. Paul Hepworth, VP of Engineering at UserTesting, an 87-person company with more than a dozen remote workers, will talk about the very practical things you can do to ensure that remote team members can “see” into the office and are as connected and informed as co-located workers. In addition to interpersonal processes, he’ll also talk about cheap hardware setups that make a big difference.