Teague Hopkins

Mindful Product Management

Culture

Lean Startup Panel Discussion

Last night I had the privilege of moderating a panel discussion with four other lean startup practitioners at the Ballston BID Launchpad in Arlington, VA. The event was organized by Lean Startup Machine, and the five of us will all be mentoring at the upcoming Lean Startup Machine DC on September 20-22.

Moderator

Teague Hopkins – Founder of THG, Lean Startup Coach. THG helps teams at corporations, nonprofits, universities, and government agencies innovate more efficiently and effectively.

Panelists

Frank DiMeo – VP, Technical Staff at In-Q-Tel. In-Q-Tel is a not-for-profit venture capital firm that invests in high-tech companies to help the CIA and other intelligence firms equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability.

Frank Taylor – CEO of Restin, Head of Partnerships at Fosterly. Restin provides robotic massage chairs for rent and lease to the engagement marketing industry and for various applications in the corporate wellness & hospitality space. Fosterly is a platform to organize and share entrepreneurial knowledge.

Bruce Mancinelli – Executive Director, Incspire. Incspire is a business incubator education program that supports emerging businesses and startups through the pairing of mentor teams to each incubated company in the program.

Laura Kennedy – Head of Corporate Development, Living Social. Living social  is a deal-of-the-day company that features discounted gift certificates usable at local or national companies. Based in Washington, D.C.

Panel Recording

Topics

  • What was your first introduction to Lean Startup?
  • An introduction to the components of Lean Startup Methodology.
  • How have you implemented the lean startup methodology at your company?
  • What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned from running an experiment?
  • We’ve all heard about skunkworks. The goal is to insulate innovation teams from the culture and oversight of the larger organization. To be successful, do companies need to separate those doing innovation from those running operations?
  • What will we learn at Lean Startup Machine?
  • What are some tips for getting the most out of Lean Startup Machine?

Culture Camp DC Recap

Culture Camp DC was this weekend. We had an amazing group of attendees, fantastic sessions, brilliant ideas, and some great discussions.

CultureCamp-407x64

Photos

Photos from the event are available on Google+.

Blog Posts

In keeping with the spirit of an unconference, we’ll leave it to the attendees to tell you what they thought of Culture Camp DC. Here are two blog posts about the event written by our attendees.

Creating a vision or aspirational model for what you want your organization to be like as a persona by Paul Boos

Culture Camp DC: Innovation, Tinker Toys, and the Downside of Early Success by Brenna Cammeron

Twitter

You can also find discussions and live tweets from participants under hashtag #culturedc or by following @CultureCampDC on twitter.

Thanks to Motley Fool for hosting; Chad, Elliot, Paul, and Leah for helping put the event together; and to all our attendees for making the day great.

6 Smart Ways to Innovate Inside Your Corporate Culture (Guest Post at TLC Labs)

I’ve written a guest post for TLC Labs titled 6 Smart Ways to Innovate Inside Your Corporate Culture (originally at http://tlclabs.co/?p=734). I invite you to check it out, along with the rest of their fantastic blog about adopting lean startup methodologies and fostering a culture of innovation inside a 40-year old corporation.

 

Attracting and Hiring Talent

You’re trying to hire highly talented individuals to bring your dreams to reality. You’re trying to set up some kind of process so that you won’t spend a de-motivational amount of time sifting through resumes full of typos, doing preliminary technical interviews with folks who can’t FizzBuzz their way out of a paper bag, and pulling your hair out.

While you’re setting up your forms and tests and screens, it’s worth considering what kind of hiring company you want to be. Once potential employees get to the interview stage, you can be as selective as you want, but what I’m talking about here is the process leading up to that final interview. You have 2 options.

Photo by sebastien.barre

Option One: Make your process hard so that only people who want to be there will make it through the process. The only ones you’ll actually have to deal with are the ones who are thrilled to be there and willing to go through the gauntlet to get to you.

Option Two: Make your process straightforward and easy so you don’t turn off those really talented people who won’t bother to apply if the process looks arduous (e.g. passive job seekers). You’ll end up with a lot more folks at the interview stage, and some of them might be extraordinary talent.

There’s not a right answer, of course. The point is that you’re better off making an intentional choice than haphazardly falling into one bucket or the other. Think about it.

Job Descriptions That Don’t Suck

Most job descriptions are terrible – so are most resumes – but they don’t have to be. Startups, or people hiring for a new job, often have to write job descriptions before they have complete clarity about the position, and perhaps even before they have a lot of experience hiring. If you’re writing your own job description, here are some things you can do to make it better.

Include the best AND worst parts of your job.
You’re looking for a good fit. Leaving out the parts of the job that are turnoffs will just get you more applications from people who are going to leave once they realize that the job wasn’t what they expected.

Photo by Stéfan

Describe what a day might be like.
Telling potential job seekers what they might do over the course of a day or a week in this job is a great way to help them envision what it would be like to work for you, and for them to imagine whether it’s a good fit.

Show a personality, not just a list of attribute checkboxes (requirements).
Anyone can play “match the attribute checkboxes.” If you want applicants who are a good cultural fit, you have to give some clues about your culture. Telling people what you value is only marginally valuable; showing them by example is a much more effective way to attract like-minded people. Humor and tone are useful tools here.

Consider hiring someone part-time or on contract.
For some situations, doing projects with applicants before hiring them full-time can help you see if they have the skills you need, and if they work well with your team, much better than an interview or resume. Just be aware that there is a limit to how much of a commitment you can ask applicants to make before you’ve made a commitment to them.

If you liked this article, you might like CultureCamp, the unconference on creating company culture.

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