Lean startups find their moment

The question in my mind against most of these efficiency driven programs is simple. If you're always looking to eliminate waste and become super efficient, you're not spending any time being creative or chasing radical ideas that may or may not be worth the effort spent on executing them.<p>Innovation sometimes requires a lot of wasteful experimentation and it looks like that is completely anti-thetical to the whole efficiency argument.

When I proposed this kind of approach on a UK/US corporation I was waved away due to alleged unnecessary optimizations and lack of focus. Every little project tended to get over six figures a year just in support and licensing, any decision agreed in the countless meetings was carved in stone.<p>Many big US corporations can't survive this crisis because they have a systemic culture problem. Corporate behavior is very hard to change at that size. Truly lean approach requires maturity. These corporations only seem understand as a lean approach to simply reduce the workforce.

Neat observations. I wonder how one can become more effective at understanding which features customers won't want. I guess focus groups are one answer, but the danger with these is that your product's desirability may be limited to a local maximum. Further, it seems that the most desirable, iconic products rarely come from focus groups.

see also Eric's blog who begun a series about lean startups.<p>if remember well, he started here <a href="http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/09/lean-startup.html" rel="nofollow">http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/09/lean-start...</a>