Page 30 - INNO4CHANGE_WP3_T3_VET Tutorials_EN

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Project-oriented activity 6

Prototyping and testing: Validate Your Idea through the Javelin Board

No maximum number of A total of 90 minutes to complete
participants. Individual all steps
work

The aim of this activity is to demonstrate that the learners’ innovative social product or service is a viable
business idea, to prove its potential and be successful.

In this activity the learners will have to create their Javelin Experiment Board. This is a visual
board that helps turn ideas into experiments. To do that, trainers and/or facilitators must cover
the following steps:

Step 1
Defining hypothesis: Customer, Problem and Solution. In this first phase the main questions the
trainer and/or facilitator must ask participants are: “What are you trying to achieve? Why is this
experiment important?”. This can be done in a large group, gathering all learners, to facilitate the
exchange of ideas, prior to individual work.

Implementation Participants are then requested to individually identify the riskiest assumptions of their business
Step 2

idea to test: the ones critical to the viability of the business and/or with least amount of data
available. Learners can do this by listing the critical assumptions in a A4 sheet or a flipchart.

Step 3
The trainer and/or facilitator should provide an overview of the different experimentation
methods, i.e., interview, pre-sell, concierge. Learners are gathered in a large group again and are

assumptions.
encouraged to implement the most suited method with the others to gather data for their critical
Step 4
Participants are then requested to focus on key learnings from the data gathering experiment
and fill in Tool 3 – Lean Startup Approach – Javelin Experiment Board.

Step 5
Learners are requested to present their Javelin Experiment Board in 2-3 minutes to the other
participants and receive further feedback. This exercise should help them decide if they should
continue to test and experiment or move forward with their validated business idea.

INNO4CHANGE: Empowering innovation and entrepreneurship skills on social entrepreneurs