The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

by Eric Ries

It is these questions that require the use of theory to answer. Those who look to adopt the Lean Startup as a defined set of steps or tactics will not succeed. I had to learn this the hard way. In a startup situation, things constantly go wrong. When that happens, we face the age-old dilemma summarized by Deming: How do we know that the problem is due to a special cause versus a systemic cause? If we’re in the middle of adopting a new way of working, the temptation will always be to blame the new system for the problems that arise. Sometimes that tendency is correct, sometimes not. Learning to tell the difference requires theory. You have to be able to predict the outcome of the changes you make to tell if the problems that result are really problems.

Those who look to adopt the Lean Startup as a defined set of steps or tactics will not succeed