Rapid Learning Cycles Institute
We help innovators get their best ideas to market — faster!
Get Your Best Ideas to
Market Faster
with the Rapid Learning
Cycles Framework
for Innovation
A Breakthrough Framework
for Innovation and Product Development
The Rapid Learning Cycles User Community tells us:
They have launched products months or even years faster than they were able to release them in the past.
They have lowered costs throughout a product’s lifecycle from development to obsolescence.
They are able to make better decisions about concepts in early product development, failing fast on some to accelerate others.
They have built libraries of reusable knowledge into sustainable competitive advantage — and they know how to use them to build innovative solutions for their customers’ most important needs.
They have gained all of this without a major culture change program, millions of dollars of consulting/training or massive investments in IT tools and infrastructure, by working with the way that engineers and scientists naturally think.
What’s different about the Rapid Learning Cycles Framework that makes it effective?
Agile for Hardware that delivers results
The Rapid Learning Cycles framework is a synthesis of Agile software practices tailored for physical products that must be produced at volume.
We’ve been developing, testing and improving the Rapid Learning Cycles framework since 2010, in teams in diverse industries around the world.
Developed and tested by real-world teams
To empower Innovators to succeed.
Today, it’s a complete framework that is proven to accelerate innovation, prevent launch delays and ensure that great ideas are well-executed.
How Do Rapid Learning Cycles Work?
Most product development programs are one long, slow learning cycle.
Often, Product Development / Innovation management systems force marketing, engineering and other developers to make decisions early in product development, before they have the knowledge they need to make those decisions with confidence.
Then the team is forced to revisit those decisions later, when change is expensive and disruptive, after they gain the knowledge they needed to make a decision that would stick.
Teams define what they need to learn first in the Rapid Learning Cycles framework’s Kick Off Event.
Teams take just a little time to understand the high-impact, high-unknown decisions they need to make — and what they need to learn to make those decisions with confidence at the right time.
Then learn those things in a series of Rapid Learning Cycles.
Then they leverage Agile project management methods to stay focused on the most important things they need to learn while moving fast and adapting to change as new information comes in.
So that they make the right decisions at the right time with high confidence.
When your product developers can do that most of the time, you’ll eliminate many of the root causes of project delays, cost overruns, disappointing product sales and high warranty costs. Instead, you’ll focus your time and resources on delivering more innovative solutions to your customers' problems.
You can get your best ideas to market faster.
What Others Say About the
Rapid Learning Cycles Framework
Jason Anderson, Trimble Corporation
RLCI has shown how to pull together a combination of agile software management techniques within a phase gate development, with a process to follow, and made it easier to ask my organization to implement it. We have had two Kickoff events and the response has been very positive. The one thing I would change is having more people from my company attend.
Wouter van Essen, Sonion
I had some doubts about sending all our Project Managers and whether they would learn how to use Rapid Learning Cycles better for their own projects. But I am sticking with the decision to send them all as it is another positive experience with Rapid Learning Cycles when they are applying it together with RLC enthusiasts from other companies and more attention to the thinking behind the framework. The best part of the class was the three baskets that help determine which elements of Rapid Learning Cycles drive success and therefore must be applied rigorously, and which ones can be left for the team to decide.
The class prepared us very well for explaining Rapid Learning Cycles to teams that will work with it and convincing stakeholders of the logic behind it. The workshop will give you the tools and insights that you need to judge and positively influence the quality of the plans of the teams that you guide. With that the learning on how to successfully apply Rapid Learning Cycles in your company will be accelerated.
Vaas Conradie, Gallagher
I was concerned that the R & D executives would not buy into this. But the simplicity and logic of the approach made this an easier sell. Almost everybody we sent to the training is involved in an RLC project or is about to be. I especially appreciated the ongoing support that has been available to my team after the workshop.
Other Ways to Learn More About the
Rapid Learning Cycles Framework
Rapid Learning Cycles Community Resources
Katherine frequently posts articles on her blog, High Velocity Innovation and on LinkedIn. She emails these articles to members of the Rapid Learning Cycles Community. To join, download the first chapters, which will prompt you to give us the information to create your account.
My Latest Work:
High Velocity Innovation
My latest book includes stories from ten companies that used the Rapid Learning Cycles framework as a starting point for a complete transformation of their innovation process. Learn how to create pull for innovation and get a roadmap to accelerate innovation for your company.
The Rapid Learning Cycles Certification Workshop
Our flagship two-day workshop will help your program leaders succeed with the Rapid Learning Cycles framework beginning with their first program. For a small to medium company, this could be enough to transform product development into an innovation engine. For a larger company, this workshop will help you establish a pilot program to learn before going bigger.
The Rapid Learning Cycles Framework for the Enterprise
We support companies with more than 250 product developers or an R & D budget greater than $125m via our Enterprise RLC program. We offer private online and in-person training, train-the-trainer experiences, global license agreements and consulting support for integrating Rapid Learning Cycles into the Product Development Process.
About Katherine Radeka
Katherine Radeka is the founder and executive director of the Rapid Learning Cycles Institute, and supports a growing global community of Rapid Learning Cycles Certified® Professionals who are actively using the framework to get their best ideas to market faster.
She has worked with companies on every continent except Antarctica, and in industries from aerospace to medical devices and pharmaceuticals to consumer electronics and alternative energy.
In 2015, Katherine published the first edition of The Shortest Distance Between You and Your New Product. Her first book, The Mastery of Innovation, was published in 2012 and won the Shingo Research Award. Her most recent book, High Velocity Innovation was published in Fall 2019 by Career Press.
Katherine has climbed seven of the tallest peaks in the Cascade Mountains and spent ten days alone on the Pacific Crest Trail until an encounter with a bear convinced her that she needed a change in strategic direction.