ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the concept of agile innovation and how it has become a dominant approach to managing the innovation process. Agile innovation is a term used to describe a series of methods which originated in the field of software development. It has been increasingly applied to other development projects for new products, services and even process re-engineering. The basic framework in an agile approach involves setting up a core self-managed team, drawing on different functions and with a clear and stretching target. Lean start-up is an approach for entrepreneurs developed by Eric Ries and popularized by him and Steve Blank in various books and articles. The origin of the ‘lean’ idea comes from the low-waste approach pioneered in manufacturing and widely used across all sectors. It has been applied to product development to reduce time and resources spent and in software in particular, has been allied to a second principle of ‘agile’ development.