Lean Impact: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good by Eric Ries

Lean Impact: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good Reviews

• 
  HBalikov

  I want to help do good. I’m sure that you want to see your contributions do the most good possible.
  
  "At the end of 2016, over 65 million people were displaced from their homes due to conflict or persecution, the most since the Second World War. The number and intensity of climate‐related natural disasters has risen. And in 2015, the Ebola epidemic reminded us of how rapidly a dangerous virus can spread around the world."
  
  Truth be told: I am a management system geek and a sustainability nerd. I have found that the methods of W. Edwards Deming can be very useful.
  
  "Whether you are a funder, service provider, entrepreneur, policy maker, academic, or champion of social good, you are here because you care about long‐term sustainable impact . At the same time, we all face enormous pressure to help people who are suffering today, to generate immediate results and positive stories, or to simply keep the lights on."
  
  This is the foundation for how Chang feels and she has been working on her approach to this challenge:
  "In some ways the social sector is incredibly audacious. In others, it is not nearly audacious enough. We dive in fearlessly to tackle the long‐standing, entrenched, and intractable ills of our society with passion and commitment. At the same time, the real pressures of funding and operations often limit the size and scope of our ambitions, so that they fall far short of the real need."
  
  "The birth of innovation begins with a clear, aspirational goal. This is the top‐down vision of the change you seek to create, rather than the bottom‐up calculation of what appears achievable with foreseeable improvements on your current trajectory. Ask yourself, What does success look like?"
  
  "Results matter. We have a responsibility to deliver the most we possibly can, both for those who need our assistance and for those who entrust us with their time or money. True impact comes from engaging with both our hearts and our heads. Lean Impact takes an uncompromising attitude towards maximizing social good, drawing inspiration from The Lean Startup and other modern innovation practices. At its core are the basic tenets of the scientific method – hypothesis‐driven experiments that reduce risk and increase the pace of learning. By applying these techniques to validate perceived customer value, an engine for growth, and the ensuing societal benefit of our interventions, we can achieve greater impact at greater scale."
  
  A systems approach seeks to capture and evaluate a wide universe of activities. “Transform,” tackles the broader ecosystem that must be engaged for social good. Many intractable problems require a systems approach to address market and policy failures….No meaningful social change happens in isolation. We work in complex systems that extend far beyond any one organization. In order for impact to stick, we must deploy interventions, raise funds, engage communities, reshape markets, change policies, and more."
  
  I found myself agreeing with the observation that many organizations, particularly in this field that needs social innovation, approach it with “one-size will fit all” plan.
  
  "Thus, rather than crafting an intricate plan in advance, a more adaptive and learning‐oriented approach can achieve better results . By recognizing when the best path forward remains unclear, we can avoid deploying solutions that aren’t wanted, don’t work, or can’t scale." And by doing so curb the waste of both time and resources.
  
  "They are starting small, listening to their customers, rapidly iterating on solutions, and designing business models that can scale sustainably."
  
  One of her most fundamental observations is that there are a lot of pressures to produce short-term gains but success will be elusive unless you challenge yourself/your organization with the big goals. Here is one of her examples:
  
  "…one day Ben stepped back and realized that EARN was barely making a dent in the 50– 70 million Americans in need of greater financial security. So, he pivoted. At an awards dinner in 2012, Ben surprised the audience by announcing an ambitious goal to help a million people save a total of a billion dollars by 2022.
  
  “ To do so required an entirely different approach. EARN would never reach that degree of scale with its existing model, which included in‐person visits and a dollar‐for‐dollar financial match. Instead, EARN pivoted its strategy and built a technology platform to support a lighter weight, self‐service model. In the first year of its new SaverLife program it reached 85,000 new users, more than 10 times as many as the total number reached over its prior 15 years.
  
  “Ben’s realization is one that doesn’t happen often enough. When we focus on short‐term deliverables, we can lose sight of the big picture. The nature of grant proposals and tight budgets in the social sector encourage a model of planning within constraints – by determining the best use of available resources – rather than strategizing relative to needs – by finding a viable solution, then seeking out the resources that will be required.
  
  “It’s important to take a step back and ask the question, Are we trying to empty the ocean with a spoon? In other words , if the size of our problem is in the tens or hundreds of millions, do we have a plausible path to reach a substantial proportion of that audience given our cost structure, funding sources, and degree of complexity? If not, shouldn’t we direct at least some of our investment towards finding a solution that could go farther?"
  
  Chang’s strengths are naming names and presenting many examples. As a believer in Plan-Do-Check-Act, I didn’t find it difficult to get on her train. Will you?
• 
  Melisa

  Rather unexpectedly, I loved this book. I'm not in the social / non-profit world, therefore, knew little about it. However, knowing who Ann Mei Chang is and the stand she's taken in her life, I wanted to read it. Much to my surprise and delight, the Lean in 'Lean Impact' was Lean, the philosophy of waste removal from processes. I should have known better, she is an engineer after all.
  
  The book opens with a forward from Eric Ries, author of Lean Start up and The Startup Way.
  I was hooked from there on. The author brings a methodological engineering approach to the the problem of social change. She leverages her experience as an engineering manager focused on innovation in Silicon Valley to show us what can be possible with systemic social issues. There is probably little argument that our current approach to social problems needs transformation. Ann Mei Chang brings a fresh, Lean approach to these global concerns.
  
  The book is essentially divided into three primary sections: Inspire, Validate and Transform.
  
  1. Inspire: The author keeps the focus on practical action. She tells us to 'Think big. Start small. Relentlessly seek impact.' and highlights the nonlinear nature of all problem solving. As with all Lean applications, its important to know your customer and understand them.
  2. Validate: The author states "The messy reality of the real world rarely matches the theory in the lab." Experimentation is central to learning. Iterate. Think like a scientist!
  3. Transform: We are currently relying on outdated models to solve modern problems. Ann Mei makes a call for social entrepreneurs.
  
  Final thought: "Transformation is a journey that can only succeed if we come together." Lean is already having an impact for large corporations with social responsibility, let's use these tools to update our approach to societal concerns.
• 
  Elisa

  As a corporate funder, I think a lot about how to be a better funder. This sums up the book for me:
  
  “To test out promising innovations, collect and analyze the data, and let businesses and governments scale up and sustain what works. We’re like an incubator in that way. We aim to improve the quality of the ideas that go into public policies and to steer funding towards those ideas that have the most impact. If we don’t try some ideas that fail, we’re not doing our jobs”
  ~ Bill and Melinda Gates : 2018 annual letter re their philanthropy
  
  Even the largest foundation in the world recognizes that it is tiny relative to the spending of businesses and government. Foundations, philanthropists, and foreign aid will never be sufficient in themselves to address the world’s needs. But, they have an outsized role to play in fueling transformative innovations when returns may be too low for markets and risk may be too high for governments.
  
  To do so will require a new mindset and new tools:
  First, we need to recognize that our current interventions are insufficient to reach our goals and aspire to devise far better solutions that will bend the curve of progress.
  Second, innovation can only thrive if funders empower teams with light touch incentives. This requires a radical rearchitecture of funding, in order to shift from supporting a linear model of plan-execute to a continuous cycle of test-iterate.
  Finally, foundations, philanthropy, and foreign aid can play an increasingly catalytic role by intentionally leveraging the larger pools of funding that are necessary to reach the size of the need.
  
  As donors, we hold the keys to unleashing radical social change.
  
• 
  Alja

  Slightly repetitive and US-focused, but still a useful framework for social innovation entrepreneurs and funders that seek to maximize real-world impact.
  
  Throughout the book, the author demonstrates how prevalent funding mechanisms stifle innovation, risk-taking, and consequently the impact of mission-driven organizations. Instead of the forced waterfall approach imposed by grants, we need a mindset shift, along with hybrid funding mechanisms and legal entities that will allow organizations to "think big, start small, and relentlessly seek impact" through fast, iterative cycles of learning – the core of the
  Lean Startup methodology.
  
  The book provides plenty of real-world examples on how a mission-driven organization can test its value, growth, and impact hypothesis by engaging more directly with the community it's trying to help. Hopefully, the human-centered approach described in the book can help different types of mission-driven organizations become more innovative and embrace an experimental approach in their quest for impact – and help funders support social good efforts based on results, not vanity metrics like total reach.
• 
  Samantha Ryder

  Admittedly, I'm late to the game reading this book. Anne Mei has been my company's president for more than a year now. Once I finally started, it only took me about a day and a half to finish it. It's clear, direct, and draws upon an impressive career in multiple industries that uses/d innovation as the guiding principle. One of the things that I found most interesting was the concept of celebrating failures. Americans are trained to use every antithetical verb to celebrate when it comes to failure. Reframing the experience and using it as an opportunity to learn from is refreshing. It also further gives you permission to try bold new initiatives. I'm looking forward to implementing the lessons she illustrated in my day-to-day.
• 
  Anish Malpani

  A lot of this I had read / studied before but Ann does a great job bringing it all together, especially with her examples. I have a signed copy and this might actually become my Bible. Before reading it, I thought as much.
  
  Ann Mei does an extremely efficient job in combining the incredible principles of Eric Reiss' Lean Startup with the struggles of the social impact space - lack of resources, dependence on donors, ancient methods of up-front project planning. She is a proper champion of using entrepreneurship to solve social problems. The examples in the book were the best bit. I am already super-familiar with the lean methodology so that wasn't something new, but it served as a nice revision.
  
  At times, I felt there wasn't enough depth. I am very familiar and up-to-date with the social entrepreneurship space, so a lot of what she was saving was not revolutionary. If you are new to this world, this is a great starter package. Maximizing and scaling impact is a lot more complicated than maximizing and scaling profit.
  
  My biggest takeaway from this book was a solid validation of what I believe in. It is so important to be in love with solving the problem versus the solution. As a social enterprise, you need to exist to eventually not exist, because that would be a success - solving the problem. The importance of cost-effective iteration and experimentation, with a side-eye on the scalability of your impact is essential. I thought and believed all this before I read the book, and then to see it published through somebody elses lenses was as I said, validating. This makes sense. This is something I need to make happen.
  
  I will not give this book away. It will be my guide as I figure out how to start my own SocEnt.
• 
  Shannon Clark

  Even if you are not working at or investing/donating to impact driven organizations (whether non-profit or for-profit or government run or another form of organization) this is among the best business books I have read in recent years - and one that I will be recommending to clients, partners and friends (and strangers). If Lean Startup and follow up books are the Lean 101 courses, this is the 400+ level course - on how to apply Lean Startup principles and practices to organizations facing the challenges inherent in being mission driven yet often constrained by long standing practices and the tensions of demands from your funding sources (whether investors or donors or government organizations).
  
  Highly recommended - not a quick read, so rewards taking some time to read this (not too difficult but just not a lightweight book which far too many business books tend to be). There is a lot of depth and experience embeded in every section of this book.
• 
  Stuart Macalpine

  Read as a small reading group - just a very ‘of the moment’ book that makes key arguments for adaptive or agile practice in social impact work and philanthropy. It is absolutely solid and full of pragmatic advice. There are places where the author clearly lacks mental models which would be really helpful to her - for example, there is a noticeable lack around systems thinking tools, and complexity tools - which are very superficially engaged with at best, and then she claims her methods is based on the ‘scientific method’... which would severely ‘clang’ for most people who are aware of how important context and complexity are in social work rather than a universal empiricism. Hence the lack of complexity strategies or system mapping, or understanding of leverage points, rather than simple causality. These are surprising omissions. But the rest of the book is great and very helpful in modelling how to have social impact.
• 
  Vrinda

  This book was alright. There were definitely some useful ideas, though it was a bit repetitive. I sort of find that to be common among books in this genre though, which also often seem to have grandiose promises about offering brand new ideas. Main ideas in this book were to think big and to iterate and fail early in testing ideas, which are solid ideas (but also well-known ideas). The writing was decent. It’s not my favorite genre in general (I read it for a book club), so my review should probably be taken with a grain of salt.
• 
  Vinay Mehta

  Few business/industry books will make you read through the chapters and hold down to take notes on key messages, all the while continuing to add more content and reasoning behind your learnings. Even though am not purely among the intended readers' list for the book, the concepts and the ask is crisp, succint and doesn't oversell the obvious. I learnt a lot of things to apply for better business and lean thinking in my work as well.
• 
  Janet Cobb

  Dug into the weeds a bit more than I anticipated - I picked it up with enthusiasm and set it aside for quite some time. I appreciate the point and would love to see funding for nonprofits mirror the for-profit sector a bit more as far as allowing and encouraging innovation, but it feels like too much of a wish. Hopefully, I'm wrong. I do recommend for anyone with the energy to think big about how to really solve the world's social issues.
• 
  Tumi

  This book is a must for anyone who is interested in or already working in the social impact space. Ann Mei Chang explains innovation principles in social impact contexts by using case studies from Organisations all over the world to show examples of how to go about implementing her suggestions. She also writes in a practical, accessible way.
• 
  Nuno Gomes

  Great book that sat on my bookshelve for too long. Great use of the Lean Startup concepts, with very interesting hints for funders, social entrepreneurs, business communities and the society at large. Although quite uS centric, it goves several examples from across the world.
  Great inspiration for those, who like me, start being increasingly involved with social impact and foundations.
• 
  Nancy Brown

  Good, very good. I respect Anne Mei Chang, her experiences and perspective. I am frustrated by the pokey, out of date processes and bureaucracy too...but I wonder if we shouldn't respect global health accomplishments, research and evidence-based approaches more - and launch change from there.
• 
  Kathy Heare Watts

  I won a copy of this book during a Goodreads giveaway. I am under no obligation to leave a review or rating and do so voluntarily. So that others may also enjoy this book, I am paying it forward by donating it to my local library.
• 
  Philippe Bailleur

  Lean Start-Up for Forces’for Good
  
  What is possible when the best of non-profit and profit companies is coming together? In this way Forces for Good emerge and that is what we need today on a global scale.
• 
  Sylvia Alejandra

  If you're a nonprofit professional, social innovator, social change generator or any related, this is a must read.
  The book could be half length, however it includes many (too much) examples. If you're new into the matter, this may be useful.
• 
  Josh Dormont

  Helpful addition to the Lean series although much of the content exists in other books.
• 
  Katherine

  Incredible read for anyone in the nonprofit space. Significantly changed how i think about making an impact and how i want to work.
• 
  Raymond Xu

  This book is far too similar to lean startup. It is advertised as a read for someone who has read lean startup, and yet it rehashes almost all of the same points.
• 
  John

  Design thinking for social change - think big, start small, relentlessly seek impact. Rapid iteration cycles are more important than planning it out.
• 
  Julia

  Excellent and thought-provoking
• 
  Hellen Lopez

  Un básico si deseas realizar un emprendimiento social
• 
  Keri

  Did not finish. Good road map, though.