The Best Of Lean Impact – 10 Articles Worth Checking Out NOW!
With our new and improved website launched, we wanted to properly introduce you to all things Lean Impact. As such, we wanted to share with you some of our best pieces of Lean Startup goodness from this past year. If you are new to our site, these are great articles to get your lean juices flowing!
Without further adieu…
Here Are 10 AWESOME Posts On Lean Impact
1. Why The Lean Startup Changes Everything (Yes Even For Social Good Organizations) – Want to learn more about The Lean Startup? Then this article is for you! This post provides an introduction to The Lean Startup (as it relates to social good enterprises) and includes Steve Blanks’ HBR free downloadable paper on The Lean Startup.
2. Stop What You’re Doing and Watch Dan Pallotta’s TED Talk Right Now – The best 18 minutes you’ll spend all day… GUARANTEED. In this phenomenal TED Talk, activist and fundraiser, Dan Pallotta, calls out the double standard that drives our broken relationship to charities. Too many nonprofits, he says, are rewarded for how little they spend – not for what they get done. Instead of equating frugality with morality, he asks us to start rewarding charities for their big goals and big accomplishments (even if that comes with big expenses). In this bold talk, he says: Let’s change the way we think about changing the world.
3. When Lean Meets Green – The Sustainable Product Development Manifesto (a two part epic tale) – A fascinating story from Julian Rockwood of how the team at Mightybytes used Lean Startup principles to launch Ecograder – a free tool that grades websites on sustainability.
4. What Would The Lean Startup Look Like For Nonprofits? – This post originally appeared on Sasha Dichter’s blog. Sasha Dichter is Chief Innovation Officer at Acumen Fund and a blogger on philanthropy, generosity and social change. In this article, Sasha explores what the Lean Startup “validated learning” cycle of BUILD – MEASURE – LEARN would look like if it were created with nonprofits in mind.
5. “We Call it ‘Getting S*%# Done” – an Interview with Recovers.org Founder Caitria O’Neil –Recovers.org provides community-powered software for disaster preparedness and recovery. We were able to interview the Founder, Caitria on how she accidentally came across Lean Startup methods in her organization. In this interview, she sheds light on the power of Lean Startup methods, especially the Minimum Viable Product, and how “startup” lingo may be holding the social good sector back from embracing the ideas behind the principles.
6. Four Super Simple Ways For Your Nonprofit Organization To Go Lean TODAY – A simple how-to guide from Lloyd Nimetz of Qrew on four ways to implement lean in your nonprofit organization for agile performance management.
7. Lean Impact Conquers SOCAP13 [PHOTOS + VIDEO] – This year’s Lean Impact SOCAP panel (What Does The Lean Startup Look Like For The Nonprofit Sector?) was a huge success! In this article, we share a full hour-long video of our panel with guest panelists (Nell Derick Debevoise of Inspiring Capital, Chase Adam of Watsi.org, Christie George of New Media Ventures, Megan Kashman of Benevolent, and Tabreez Verjee of Impact at Scale) as they share how their organizations use Lean principles.
8. You Have To Start Somewhere: 4 Steps to Eliminating Decision Paralysis – In this article, Tony Khuon of Agile Lifestyle shares with us the theory of decision paralysis (the crippling state of being overwhelmed that leads to costly delay and inaction) and his four steps to eliminate it in your social good enterprise in order to stay agile and lean.
9. Quick And Dirty: The Minimum Viable Campaign – A guestpost from Senior Curator and Campaign Strategist at Upwell, Rachel Dearborn, of how her organization leveraged the Lean Startup’s Minimum Viable Product model to create “Minimum Viable Campaigns” for Team Ocean.
10. In a Lean Nonprofit, Data is King – Kosar Jahani (Data & Evaluation Lead of SamaUSA of Samasource) , spoke in front of a packed crowd at the Lean Impact Launch party in San Francisco on May 15, 2013. In this article, she shares how The Lean Startup has impacted her organization and 1) how Lean can can help determine which data to collect, 2) how Lean can help you confirm data points, and 3) how Lean can allow you to present data in a way people understand.
Want to learn more? Visit us here.