How Rapid Learning Cycles Deliver Faster Innovation with Less Frustration

You are all about science-driven innovation and product development — that gets out into the world faster so that your customers reap the rewards sooner.

Whether you are a team member, project leader or senior leader, we have a proven framework to accelerate innovation that works with your existing processes — to the extent that you need processes. From startups to Fortune 100 companies, many have adopted Rapid Learning Cycles to deliver the innovation they need most at the right times.

Our sweet spot is science-driven innovation that rests upon a foundation of research & development into customer insights, ground-breaking technologies and novel business models. We know how to transform your discoveries into physical products as rapidly as possible, with fewer delays, cost overruns and disappointments.

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Elements of Rapid Learning Cycles

Experiment with the concepts of Rapid Learning Cycles on your current existing programs to explore how the framework can help you, without the risk of comitting to a new method.

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Global Project Leader Certification

Prepare to lead your first full program using the Rapid Learning Cycles framework, incorporating the principles that have gotten companies like yours to market faster.

Rapid Learning Cycles Accelerate Innovation

You see your teams getting mired in obstacles from unexpected problems and unable to hit their dates.

You are being told you need to be more "Agile” but have questions about what that means in a technology-driven environment for physical products with long lead times and complex dependency chains.

You don't have time to release a disappointing product into the market, and then iterate until it works. Your customers expect your products to deliver immediate value — and business leaders expect on-time delivery and predictable success.

Rapid Learning Cycles works by eliminating the root causes of product delays, cost overruns and disappointing results. Teams identify and focus on the major decisions that will drive a product's success to build the knowledge they need to make better decisions that stick. That sets them up for a smooth glide path through execution to launch with fewer rework loops, unanticipated obstacles and much less churn.

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You Don't Have to Change Everything — and You Shouldn't

If you are going to make a change to how you deliver innovation, it needs to pay off. It needs to build on what you already do, with minimum disruption. The Rapid Learning Cycles framework enhances the processes you use to get products out faster, more predictable and more innovative.

Instead of changing the overall structure of development, Rapid Learning Cycles changes how developers and leaders think about the decisions they need to make, and the knowledge they need to make those decisions with confidence. Some things may move earlier, and others may move later but we understand that a physical product has a defined path from idea to launch.

We don't force-fit ideas from other disciplines that don't fit. We don't ask you to rip up your organizations or your processes and start over, as if you could. We understand that you have to get better at innovation while you deliver on your commitments.

What is the Rapid Learning Cycles Institute?

Why the Rapid Learning Cycles Institute?

To build a trusted support system.

To broaden the audience, user base, ecosystem and benefits of working this way. Consulting, while very effective, is limited in reach compared to in-person or online courses.

In 2010-2012, Katherine Radeka, while doing four consulting projects contemporaneously with companies in 4 different industries, two each in the US and western Europe, all attempting to solve "How do we do development effectively in the Fuzzy Front End?" combining her experience in Agile for Hardware, e-services and Lean Product Development (Systematic Problem Solving and Knowledge Sharing) to drive effective project team decision-making in highly innovative, high-risk, high-reward spaces.

As her subsequent consulting clients continued to find success using this methodology, it was refined into the Rapid Learning Cycles framework. The Rapid Learning Cycles Program Manager Workshops (precursor to Global Project Leaders Workshop Courses) were created in 2015 to distribute this way or working to a wider audience, and to bring the benefits to more teams in organizations throughout the world.

The Affiliate program was designed to offer support to companies that wanted to go deeper with the methodology while engaging local support or leveraging existing relationships with trusted advisors.

The Instructor program started in 2021 to broaden the Infrastructure to support widespread adoption and faster enterprise-wide adoption in concert with established in-company programs or in concert with Affiliates and Global Project Leader Certifications.

Do Rapid Learning Cycles work in my industry?

We have active users of Rapid Learning Cycles in many industries.

Consumer-focused industries find that Rapid Learning Cycles help them quickly turn consumer insights into products that fulfill unmet customer needs.

Regulated industries, such as pharma, medical devices and defense, find that Rapid Learning Cycles help them avoid costly loopbacks and late failures.

Large-scale industries, like renewable energy and aerospace, benefit by helping teams make the right decisions at the right time, with the right people. This prevents the decision churn that can make projects like this take much too long and cost too much.

We almost certainly already have connections in our community that are working on products similar to yours.

If you would like to talk to someone in your industry, contact us and we will connect you with someone who is working in a similar space.

Could we use Rapid Learning Cycles in our startup?

We have had startup teams use Rapid Learning Cycles from the beginning. In summer of 2021, we will launch a "Rapid Learning Cycles for Startups" experience to help founder teams at three critical points in their early development:

When a team has received their first investment, grant or has been accepted into an accelerator program, to make the most of their time, energy and money at this critical phase.
When a team is preparing to exit an accelerator program, and wants to provide their growing team with a bit more structure to guide their path towards their next technical milestone, without overburdening the team with too much process.
When a team is moving from lab scale to industrial scale, and wants to ensure that their first customers receive a product that leads to more sales and faster growth.

Where else are Rapid Learning Cycles used?

Most organizations use Rapid Learning Cycles primarily in earlier phases of product development. Some companies continue Rapid Learning Cycles through launch and beyond, to address new information as it comes in.

Other companies use Rapid Learning Cycles upstream of product development, within their Innovation Teams and Advanced Research Labs to coordinate the portfolio of ideas under exploration.

We also have companies using Rapid Learning Cycles to:

Deploy strategic initiatives, such as Digital Transformations, with less confusion and better results.
Coordinate IoT initiatives to build smart factories that generate useful insights to improve efficiency and lower costs.
Optimize marketing strategies, rebranding initiatives and sales processes by ensuring that teams make more data-driven decisions.

How do we get started?

Choose a level, enroll in the class, schedule a planning session.

For team members we recommend starting with the Elements of Rapid Learning Cycles. For Project Leaders who want to use this on their current or next projects, we recommend that you take the Global Project Leaders course along with either a trusted Team Lead or Manager or with another 2-3 peers. This approach has been most effective for those who seek to effectively introduce this into their organizations.

If you are a trusted advisor internally to Senior Leadership, or Senior Leadership and already see the promise of working this way clearly, some package of multiple Global Project Leader Certifications, and work with Affiliates in a consulting relationship including internal training at a team member level has been proven to work well.

Other options include advanced training in Closing Knowledge Gaps, and Better Decision Making.

Division-wide and Organization-wide Global Licenses are available in conjunction with an appropriate amount of Global Project Leader Certifications or focused work with a Certified Affiliate. We want you to succeed and want to offer appropriate support that has been proven to work in many settings.