12 WEEKS MAX

None of our concepts should be in the Lab longer than this. If we can't get an idea up and running within that time - it's probably not workable right now.

PROBLEM DEFINITION

The most important part of the cycle. What's the problem we are trying to fix? If we can't agree one - bin it!

COACHING

It's no good the Lab coming up with the ideas - we need people to own the problem and the solution. This is about getting colleagues or customers ready to think differently.

THINK 10X BIGGER

Not just differently - but bigger. Thinking bigger can actually be easier than thinking incrementally. As Astro Teller said

When you aim for a 10x gain, you lean on bravery and creativity — the kind that, literally and metaphorically, can put a man on the moon

PROTOTYPE

Prototyping is our design stage. Creative thinking around the problem leads to a number of possible solutions - only the best of these are taken forward and mocked up into rough, early versions that we can begin to test.

TEST

Here we test out our prototypes against our hypothesis or even a theory of change. These are time-bound, typically low resource and low risk exercises. We can fail many tests in order to refine a new process/product/offer.

EVALUATE

A quick review of our test - determining whether it successfully achieved its objectives or not. We can keep (roll out), shelve or kill an idea at this stage, or suggest refinements and re-testing

FAIL?

Sorry - you didn't make it. It's off to the Innovation Graveyard. Or we can shelve it for a rainy day when its' time might have come.

PREPARE FOR EXIT

Get ready for launch - we think this one's a goer! But first it needs a proper resource plan or it might fail to survive post Lab. Many great ideas fail to sustain and scale in their first few months. We want to limit that.

RESOURCE FOR SCALE

These are releases of our service/product offer, benefiting from a raft of testing and well documented aims and activities. Typically they will be 'live' pilots - so will impact customers or the business in some way and have larger resource costs, therefore are evaluated thoroughly and can still be terminated if not successful.

We don't always hit our 84 day challenge. A good example is our latest Fuel Poverty Concept - which completed in 12 weeks but we are still agreeing resource plans. But we think more ideas and concepts would benefit from this fast fail approach.