Running Lean, 3rd Edition

Chapter 7. Kick Off Your First 90-Day Cycle

As you learned in the last chapter, the first 2 weeks of a 90-day cycle are set aside for modeling and prioritizing. You kick off the cycle by first getting your models in order, and then calling a 90-Day Cycle Kickoff Meeting where you align your team on goals, assumptions, and constraints (Figure 7-1).

Figure 7-1. 90-day cycle kickoff

Steve Calls a 90-Day Cycle Kickoff Meeting

As Steve has already been working on his models, it doesn’t take him very long to get them updated. He calls a 90-Day Cycle Kickoff Meeting, where he spends a few minutes quickly walking Josh, Lisa, and Mary through his updated Lean Canvases and traction roadmaps for his top two customer segments: Software Developers and Architects.

“We’ve mostly discussed the Software Developers model before and nothing’s changed there, but I noticed that you seem much more excited now about the Architects model. Can you elaborate?” Mary asks.

“Well,” says Steve, “I kept the Software Developers model mostly because I understand that space the best and have some companies in mind that we can approach. But once I started applying the Innovator’s Gift to set fair pricing for the Architects model, it dawned on me that we could anchor against the cost of current 3D rendering solutions and potentially charge a lot more.”

Lisa asks, “Is that because you’re price anchoring against ...