How to Organize an ExO Sprint

An ExO Sprint is a series of workshops and meetings that condense three years of learning into a ten-week sprint. It creates the frameworks for organisations to strategise, innovate and disrupt fast-growing companies. With the ExO Sprint, we aim to generate a 10X performance increase in the next four to five years.

When trying to implement change, the typical reaction of organisations is to resist disruption. Therefore transforming the organisational culture is an essential step in the change process. Management has to understand the importance of moving from a linear to an exponential mindset. Also, to fight the auto-immune response, companies create incremental change at the core and exponential increase at the edge. The edge initiatives have the potential to drive massive results and become the primary source of development for the parent company.

The creators of the Exo Sprint identified eleven attributes of exponential organisations. These are the Massive Transformative Purpose (MTP), five internal and five external attributes under the acronyms IDEAS (interfaces, dashboards, experimentation, autonomy, social technologies) and SCALE (staff on demand, community and crowd, algorithms, leveraged assets, and engagement). According to Ismail Salim, the co-founder and chairman of ExO Works, if a company leverages at least four of the eleven characteristics is on the right path to achieving exponential growth.

Together with our client, we went through the eight stages of the ExO Sprint:

Asses

Thirty days before the workshop, our team of ExO trainers made sure our client will get the most out of the ExO Sprint. We planned everything in detail. First of all, we helped the company to build a diverse and performing Sprint team. Then we presented the project timeline and set up the meeting with the executive team. At this stage, the client had all the necessary information to be part of the successful completion of the ExO Sprint.

Awake

The awake phase was half a day session with the management of the company where we talked about the most disruptive technologies of the moment. Then we divided the group into two teams. The start-up team was in charge of researching the emerging technologies the company can benefit from and wants to invest in. The second team was in charge of discovering how to update the mothership.

Align

The Sprint teams worked with the ExO Sprint coaches to understand the company’s status quo and brainstorm as many ExO initiatives as possible.

Define

Teams met virtually to research new emerging methodologies, business models and ten promising start-ups. Each team had to come up with at least ten innovative ideas. Then the team chose the best four initiatives.

Disrupt

The disruption session was an opportunity to present the most promising ExO initiatives to a group of external ExO Disruptors. Based on the feedback provided by the ExO Disruptors, the organisation changed some of the ExO Initiatives. However, asking for feedback early is essential for the company to have time to test and try again.

Refine

For the ideas with the most potential, teams built MVPs (minimum viable products) and sold them to Early Adopters. During this phase, teams used the ExO ecosystem to learn more about technologies and business models.

Launch

A one-day session where teams presented their ideas to the leadership team for approval.

Execute

During the final stage of the ExO Sprint, we could see how prepared the company was to implement new ideas. We introduced the team to the Opinno network to help them test the pilot and scale to create business value when possible.

In conclusion, the company received funding for the selected ideas; They are now on the right track to becoming an exponential organisation.