To accelerate innovation, we have to push decisions later.

This is the most challenging idea within the Rapid Learning Cycles framework — the one that generates the most raised eyebrows — and the most essential concept to embrace if you want to accelerate innovation.

It seems to go against everything we think we know about how to get things done fast…

My controller, Shivaun is on a quest this month to find a new accounting system for us. We need to change systems because our current provider experienced a major product failure. They needed to replace some obsolete technology in their software to make them compatible with the latest Mac operating system — and they worked on that project for years. But ultimately, they were forced to admit that they simply could not get the new version out the door.

Sometimes people come to Rapid Learning Cycles because they have either experienced such a catastrophic failure or they see that they are at risk of one. Yet some innovation thought leaders think we should embrace failure to achieve speed. Why can Rapid Learning Cycles promise faster innovation — and fewer failures?

I’ll never forget the week of March 9, 2020. For us, that was the week that everything changed. In that week, we cancelled all of our face-to-face workshops for 2020. I also agreed to facilitate my own first virtual Kickoff Event.

The workshops are central to our ability to build enough working knowledge about Rapid Learning Cycles that a team can be successful with them immediately. Moving them online was not going to be easy since we needed to ensure that we could achieve the same results with a virtual experience.

We immediately used the Virtual Kickoff Events as experiments to figure out whether or not that would be possible, and how.

In early March of 2020, I had to send out final notices postponing all the Rapid Learning Cycles Program Manager workshops we had on the calendar for spring — a scary thing, since this is our primary source of revenue.

This was definitely a Key Decision for us — high impact and high unknown, with many Knowledge Gaps, some of which could never be closed because they are unknowable.

Yet we were at the Last Responsible Moment to make this decision, as it was time to start producing materials, booking travel and making commitments to venues.

Many people within my community were being forced to make decisions like this in their professional and personal lives to deal with the many disruptions caused by the pandemic. Fortunately, many of them have had practice with managing uncertainty through the Rapid Learning Cycles framework (RLCs).

Product development is inherently risky, and the most heavily-prized new product development – the product that will open up a new market or create a new category – is the most risky of all. In fact, only in the most mature markets can product developers operate with near-certainty that their products will succeed on the market. The chance of failure is a part of life as a product developer, and new product development requires people who have high tolerance for the unknown.