Rapid Response Teams

Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) are interdisciplinary advanced learning groups exploring opportunities to unlock outsized value in unbound problem spaces. In just 160 hours our teams go from Post-its to POC (Proof of Concept), supported by both a commercial value proposition and prioritized development path for organizations to unlock new value opportunities. RRTs function to de-risk big bets, specifically those that have systemic implications, by taking an action bias to generate applied learnings and inform the creation of a better brief.

Said another way, RRTs aim to write a rough draft of a desirable future to provide our partners with a concrete idea around which to rally and a foundation from which to revise. We take four weeks to turn unbound problems into bound opportunities. We rely on existing expertise, clearly established assumptions and deriving insight from the objective learnings garnered in the process of building.

Teams are supported by our Rapid Response Lab responsible for developing tools, intelligence and infrastructure to enable deep learning fast and a nimble approach to execution.

These sprints are not about refining known solutions for well-understood problems, but exploring a multitude of unknown paths toward desired outcomes (very often growth).

Innovation has been a hot enough topic that most organizations have determined the requisite level of investment to sustain a competitive presence within their market. The challenge comes from the fact that business growth opportunities are fewer and further in-between, and come from tackling unbound questions. By definition these are high-risk high reward activities that are nearly impossible to staff against overtime. Done well, a Rapid Response Team establishes a new sense of reality for a business owner, inspiring a more confident investment in the path forward.

Moving at velocity is how we partner collectively to work toward a solutions and capability building.

• In the first week, we partner with teams to define the desired impact.
• In the second week, we clarify the discrete opportunity to unlock differentiated value.
• In the third and fourth weeks, we build many potential solutions that are ready for market testing.

In the old adage, a journey of thousand miles begins with a single step. An RRT is that first step. Our purpose is to demonstrate a team’s ability to influence change at pace.

“We’re entirely transparent with everything we do. We openly share all of our insights,” explained Graham Tuttle, vice president of the Rapid Response Lab. “The more inputs, stimulus and information exchange we can get, the more insights we can share and the farther the organization will be able to move as a result of that time.”

RRTs are focused on advanced learning – not advanced concepts. They are focused on results – not theory. Typically, the market opportunity to justify these explorations is upwards of $20 million, because those are also the ones that require the justification of a significant investment to achieve.

“Our whole mission is to go out and learn useful insights to carry down into the organization to help the rest of the organization point their resources in effective ways at meaningful problems,” he said.