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Discovery-Driven Growth: A Breakthrough Process to Reduce Risk and Seize Opportunity

Summary

<aside> 💡 The core business of today is unlikely to drive growth tomorrow.

• Traditional methodologies are not effective for achieving exceptional growth.
• Discovery-Driven Growth (DDG) is an alternative approach that starts with the acknowledgement that outcomes in bold, uncertain scenarios are unpredictable.
• DDG involves small initial investments to gather necessary information before making more confident, larger investments.
• DDG requires defining success upfront, both at a corporate level and strategic-projects level.
• DDG compensates for cognitive and emotional biases that can distort decision making in high-uncertainty situations.
• A discovery-driven plan aims at reducing the assumption-to-knowledge ratio. High uncertainty requires fast learning at the lowest possible cost.
• DDG is a systematic investment of time and effort into creating breakthrough growth in a pragmatic, low-risk way.
• DDG involves specifying a future that is both attractive and realistic, and then working backward into what needs to be done today, the next day, the next week, and the next month to realize that future.
• The discovery-driven approach works best when supported by other organizational processes.
• Maintaining a high tolerance for experimentation and disappointments is key in DDG.
• DDG requires the development of appropriate measurement and reward systems.
• Growth initiatives should be prioritized and your best and brightest employees should be eager to work on them.
• The success for a strategy must be specified first, and then, a framework that simplifies complexity is created to give everyone a clear perception of the challenges.
• An opportunity portfolio is a visual map of the major initiatives in your organization. It allows the senior team to see whether the frames it has established are effectively aligned and effectively resourced.
• An opportunity portfolio contains different types of growth opportunities, such as Core-Enhancement Launches, Platform Launches and Adjacencies, and Options for Tomorrow.
• The idea behind the opportunity portfolio is to contain risk by limiting your downside, while maximizing the value you can capture on the upside. </aside>

Notes

CHAPTER ONE Driving Corporate Growth with the Right Disciplines (Location 35)

Today’s core business is highly unlikely to be an engine of growth for tomorrow. (Location 49)

companies that use conventional methodologies to pursue exceptional growth are doomed to be disappointed. (Location 56)

Essentially, the techniques that IBM was using to manage its bottom line and drive efficiency—techniques that were working well for the core business—were smothering the new growth ventures. (Location 74)

you can’t manage growth programs using conventional approaches. (Location 80)

What Is Discovery-Driven Growth, and Why Does It Work? (Location 106)

Unlike conventional management practices, the discovery-driven approach begins with the recognition that bold but uncertain outcomes are not predictable—you have to discover new ideas and deliberately redirect the resulting initiatives as reality unfolds. (Location 106)