The meeting, which was a first, was kindly hosted by MasterCard at their headquarters in Purchase, New York. We organized it to help peers from large organizations that all use the Business Model Canvas and Lean Startup methodologies to learn from each other. We applied so-called Chatham House Rules to create a safe space that would allow participants to freely share their experiences. Under these rules participants are free to use the information received, but may not reveal the identity nor the affiliation of the source.

To facilitate the sharing and maximize the learning we applied a knowledge management tool that I originally learned about from my friend Geoff Parcell in his book Learning to Fly. We got every participant to complete a self-assessment regarding their organization's experience with the Business Model Canvas and Lean Startup methodologies. They assessed their performance with nine questions in three categories. Then we split the 40 participants into smaller groups to share challenges and best practices for each question.

We aggregated all of the the self-assessments of the 40 participants in one diagram. This allowed us to capture the big picture of the knowledge and experience in the room as to the application of the Business Model Canvas and Lean Startup. In the diagram below you can see the lowest/highest score participants gave themselves for each question, as well as the median.

Leadership

Surprisingly, leadership support of the top management of their organizations was one of the smallest concerns of participants. The main challenge seemed to be to get the buy-in of busy middle managers who already have a lot on their plate. 

Culture & processes

In this category participants scored themselves regarding the spread of Business Model Canvas usage, the practice of design thinking skills, and the application of Lean Startup/testing principles. In all three categories participants admitted a large potential for improvement.  Not surprisingly most participating organizations (except for one) are still relatively inexperienced in scaling Lean Startup and the testing of business ideas.

Organizational design

Surprisingly, no participant gave his/her organization more than a score of three for the question on skills development, though the median was relatively high. Unsurprisingly, participants gave their organizations very low scores regarding intrapreneurship structures. It's just very hard to create strong institutionalized structures, processes and a dedicated incentive system for business model innovation projects.  

The knowledge sharing was incredibly captivating and valuable. It turns out that every organizations had something to share and to learn. While some scored high on one question, they scored low on others. Overall, even the most advanced in this field took away learnings that they could implement in their own organizations.

How do you perform on the Business Model Innovation and Lean Startup Self-Assessment Framework?