Few books have enjoyed the popularity within the startup community that Lean Startup has. It’s provided a framework to solving business problems that emphasizes customer feedback, small teams, quick decision cycles and democratization of ideas. It’s still widely used today and there are thousands of startups that continue to employ it’s methodology.
It’s a leadership book, but it’s also a very practical operating manual. Lean Startup is divided into 3 sections:
- Vision: Dedicated to the process of decision making around a specific idea - vision setting, defining, learning and experimenting.
- Steer: Focused on what needs to happen when a product is in market - testing, measuring, pivoting or persevering.
- Accelerate: Focused on what happens after product market fit is achieved - growing, adapting and innovating in a competitive market. There is also a chapter in this section dedicated to working in ‘small batches’ - the idea of conducting short experiments and iterating quickly.
The Lean Startup is almost entirely focused on the realm of application - specifically around the areas of product development and the early stages of a product and company lifecycle. There is some advice that can be applied in the organization domain, specifically around team size and the processes to stay agile.
The Lean Startup is less of a book about leadership than it is about a specific approach to product development. However, the leadership lattice still serves as a good framework for fitting lessons from the book. As such, Lean Startup is another good example that supports the Lattice as a learning framework.