Lean Start-Up and Digital Skills: Are They Enough?

By: Suzan Briganti

If you’re like a lot of people, your company is trying to drive innovation internally, with a workforce that wasn’t really hired for that. It’s a tough nut to crack, and the very reason we started Swarm Vision.

In a recent conversation with one of our clients, a $75 billion company, we asked how they used to approached this problem, prior to using Swarm Vision. They answered:

1. Training, mainly on Lean Start-Up, to change mindsets and process
2. Hiring for digital skills, not just in marketing but across the business

THESE ARE BOTH REASONABLE APPROACHES, BUT NOT ENOUGH. WHY?

The Limits of Lean

Lean Start-Up is great for teaching certain innovation skills, such as Resourcefulness and Adaptability. In the Swarm model, these are part of Deliver. But Deliver is just one of the 8 innovation skills that drive real-world business results. The 8 Swarm skills are:

IT TAKES ALL 8 INNOVATION SKILLS TO ACHIEVE BUSINESS RESULTS

The Limits of Digital

A Fortune 50 tech company just used Swarm Vision to profile their global software group. Their digital skills are world-class, but their average Swarm score was only 69. And no wonder this business unit has been in maintenance mode. In short, even strong digital skills can be a placebo, unless these coding wizards also have the 8 innovation skills.

DIGITAL SKILLS ARE NOT THE SAME AS INNOVATION SKILLS

So by all means, instill Lean, and up your digital technology game. But these strategies alone won’t be enough to drive systemic innovation.

To learn more about identifying and nurturing innovation talent, download the infographic here.