Build To Sell training camp

Do you recognize yourself in one of these scenarios?

• You are an entrepreneur with a great business concept but haven’t quite found a market fit
• You have a product that generates traction but you don’t know how to scale up
• Your product has found its market but your organization has grown to a point where updating it has become slow and painful

If so, this training program will provide you with some good insights and practices to address the issues and doubts you may be having about your product (or service) and how to scale it.

In this course, we learn how to design and build a product that really connects with customers and generates the desire to buy on its own merits. We talk about maintaining this connection even as your company scales up and your product evolves. We also see how to develop teamwork in this process and increase product profitability to scale more durably. The course is based on the model of the lean theory of product development. We have been studying, using and teaching that model for years, and have adapted it to the high tech industry with success.

What can lean bring to your project?

Conceiving and building a fantastic product or service that people want to buy, and that keeps generating excitement year after year is no easy feat. While luck is an undeniable part of the success equation, several key elements must be considered to increase the odds. A great product should:

• resolve a real problem better than anyone else out there,
• make it super easy for users to get and use your product over the long haul,
• bring the right emotions to generate adoption,
• remain exciting and relevant as tastes change and competition grows
• be conceived on the basis of key customer quality characteristics,
• seen as a number of technical trade-offs to be resolved
• generate enough profit to justify its existence
• reflect the knowledge, ingenuity and collaboration of its creators

It takes more than pushing a cool idea onto a market and hoping that those curious early adopters can create enough excitement to attract a bigger crowd. It also takes more than continuously adding new features to the product hoping that this “test and learn” technique will help you find customers’ sweet spot or convince them to change their behaviors.

The aim of lean is to build organizations that learn how to make products that fully please customers and that offer competitive value for the money. In practice, such products must reflect customer preferences, be as easy as possible to make, and go to market fast to meet the many external challenges that put companies under constant pressure to stand out. In lean, the saying goes that you must make people before you make products. Lean product conception and development is about creating conditions where everyone can devote themselves to their own learning process to make the best products that people will want to buy, year after year, even as tastes change.

Applying a lean approach to product design and development means learning to understand your customers better, make the best technical choices, and work more effectively with all contributors.

That is what we’re going to practice in this training program.

Get immersed for several weeks

This training camp consists of 2 stand-alone but complementary courses:

• 1st course: Making the case for your product concept.
  
  Understand customer value to come up with a great concept, and confirm customers’ preferences by regularly releasing new products to the market.
  Topics covered include Chief Engineer, product “takt”, client “gemba”, concept “trade-off”, key customer preferences, critical performance criteria and “wow effect”, target cost, go-to-market plan, distinguishing between legacy and heritage technologies, set-based design, the concept paper, and prototyping.
  Duration: 6 weeks.
  
  
• 2nd course: Turning your concept into a great product.
  
  Intensify collaboration by visualizing and solving problems with teams throughout the product flow. Improve the product’s critical performances to let it stand out without sacrificing quality. Develop team flexibility and agility by standardizing and building skills.
  Topics covered include obeya, Kanban and pull scheduling, House of Quality (QFD), conception / engineering standards, knowledge books and skill development, and problem solving using PDCA.
  Duration: 6 weeks.

Be in good company

The purpose of the program is to get off to a good start in lean product conception and development, within a group that is also focusing on lean at the same time you are. Each person will practice in their own field. They’ll see how others are using the concepts in their environment, and share feedback from their own experiments with the group every week.

The quality of the group is a key element to favor exchange and progress fast. We take care to assemble people who will bring energy to the group so that everyone can learn faster together.

At the end of the course, you will join our lean product conception alumni community so you can continue exchanging and learning together, in the field and offline.

Who does this program concern?

Anyone in charge of conceiving, building or marketing products. It can be people who already have some lean experience, but this is not mandatory. These could include: startup founders, product managers or owners, CPOs, project managers, product designers, CEOs, R&D managers, tech leads, or CTOs.

How does the program work?

This training is designed like a training program. Every week, we’ll meet up by video (or face to face whenever possible) in small groups for 1h45 to discuss what each participant has done and learned. We use a “flipped classroom” concept where each week follows a pattern:

• We’ll share theoretical points with you in the form of videos, articles, and other resources, so everyone can study at their own pace during the week.
• Each person will apply the principles in their own environment and ask questions in a private mailbox dedicated to the group.
• Participants communicate their progress on the day before the session by filling out a few shared slides.
• On the day of the session, we’ll discuss the points that participants have shared, to make them immediately concrete and learn from one another.
• We will hold weekly office hours so you and we can discuss your project one-on-one

This approach avoids the usual result of theoretical training where everyone gets stuck once the training is over and they want to put it into practice.

Details about the next session

First course: understand customer value to come up with a great concept, and confirm customers’ preferences by regularly bringing out new products.

Group sessions usually take place on Mondays at 10 am GMT or Fridays at 2:00 pm GMT. Timing can be adjusted based on the location of participants.

• Each promotion can welcome up to 9 participants.
• Fee: 1900 euros per participant per cycle, or 3400 for both cycles.
• Group fee possible.

This fee includes:

• 6 group sessions spread over 6 weeks,
• access to the course videos, reading material, and exercises,
• weekly one-on-one discussions with me about your project,
• access to the group chat to exchange with other participants, and
• membership in the Alumni community and invitation to events.

New sessions happen once every month. Don't miss out!