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Innovation Resources

Kromatic offers more than 300 innovation resources, including frameworks, templates, articles, videos, and workshops to accelerate your project. You can find the most relevant resources by filtering for innovation stage or type. To access them all please enter your details below.

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Real Innovation ROI - Webinar

In this free 90-minute webinar Tristan Kromer shares a realistic view of how you can calculate and talk about ROI on early stage projects in a coherent way with a variety of stakeholders.

The Real Startup Book

The Real Startup Book is a large, crowdsourced compilation of research and experiment inquiry methods from lean practitioners worldwide. Every method has a short description, a how-to guide, and links to additional information. This book is bes...

Plinkromatic Innovation Management Game

This simple innovation game explains how funding decisions can impact ROI.

Ants! - Portfolio Management Game

This game shows you how adapt to rapid changes in your industry by putting you in charge of your own ant colony.

Learn S.I.M.P.L.E. Template

This template guides you through the four basic steps of a designing an experiment so you can generate the most useful information to make valuable decisions. Start by asking the right question, then determine your metrics, execute a plan, and ...

Basic Financial Modeling Template (Google Sheet)

This spreadsheet template helps you create a practical financial model with a small number of key hypotheses. This template represents your business model as inputs and outputs so you can predict if your business is sustainable.

Product/Market Fit Storyboard

A template for designing early-stage user experience to achieve Product / Market fit. Based on the Business Model Canvas by Alexander Osterwalder, this product storyboard will help you develop a real MVP for your concept, along with quantitativ...

Customer Personas

Demographics used to be a marketer’s only tool, but it's insufficient for early-stage customer discovery, and almost useless for designing user experience. Now we use customer personas to generate an intense focus on early adopters and empathy ...

Mission Model Thinking Template

A mini version of the Mission Model Canvas to get you thinking about the impact of your project based on Desirability, Feasibility, and Viability.

Pivot or Persevere Template

This template is a framework for making pivot or persevere decisions on an innovation project. It's a space to set clear criteria to keep running experiments (persevere), for success (scaling up), or for failure (kill or pivot.)

Innovation Accounting Training Details

We’ve opened enrollment for a new, six-week Innovation Accounting program. This program is for project leads or executives who want to make fast and confident pivot, persevere, or kill decisions. This flyer will answer your questions about the ...

Levels of Innovation Metrics (poster)

When starting an innovation program, be clear about what you’re trying to measure. If you measure the wrong thing, it will only obscure the truth of whether you’re making progress. Successful innovation accounting requires applying the right me...

Customer Discovery Note Taking Template (Google Doc)

A simple template for taking notes for a customer discovery call in a collaborative Google Doc. Best used for phone or video calls. For in-person customer discovery sessions, use the PDF version.

Business Model Canvas for UX

This is a modified template based on the Business Model Canvas by Alexander Osterwalder. This will help you break down the user experience by detailing the combination of elements that connect the customer with your product.

Sprint Review Template

Sprint reviews take place at the end of the sprint. Between a sprint planning meeting and daily standups, you should be able to get through most of the week as long as you have a healthy backlog to draw from. This template will help you share i...

Customer Discovery Note Taking Template

A note taking template for live customer discovery interviews. Best printed out and used with a pen for in person interviews.

Financial Modeling Monte Carlo Analysis Example (Google Sheet)

This template is an extension of the basic financial modeling template which incorporates a Monte Carlo analysis to improve predictions. This analysis uses basic statistics principles to predict returns more accurately than basic business cases...

Value Proposition Comprehension Test

When conversion rates on your landing page or sales page are low, sometimes it just means the page isn't well written. To improve conversion rates, try value proposition testing. A comprehension test is a simple way to see how well your marketi...

Customer Persona Framework

A persona template to break your real and potential customer base into smaller, more useful groups. These groups are defined by various behavioral characteristics, which will help you determine which customer personas your business should focus...

Kromatic Innovation Ecosystem Booklet

The pace of innovation is constantly accelerating, threatening to disrupt every industry that doesn’t disrupt itself first. Maintaining a healthy innovation ecosystem is critical for any organization that wants to stay flexible, relevant, and c...

Running Better Experiments Training Details

We have ongoing open enrollment for our five-week Running Better Experiments program. This program is for project leads or executives who want to learn quickly, make data-driven decisions, and get to Product / Market Fit. This flyer will answer...

Get to Know Your Customers Training Details

We’ve opened enrollment for a new, three-week Get to Know Your Customers program. This program shows you how to get maximum value from interviews, cultivate mutually beneficial relationships with your customers, and create value propositions th...

The Real Startup Book (Amazon Kindle)

A large, crowdsourced compilation of inquiry methods (i.e. experiment and research techniques) from lean practitioners worldwide. Every method has a short description, how to guide, and links to additional information. This is a Kindle version ...

The Innovator's Handbook 2022

From implementing incremental improvements for existing products and services, to launching new business models and building disruptive ventures, as corporate innovators we are responsible for creating new value, resulting in top and/or bottom ...

Customer Conversation Insights Template (Google Sheet)

This template will help you organize your customer discovery interview notes into actionable insights.

Daily Standup Template

Daily standups are short meetings that offer team members a chance to give updates on their sprint goals. They serve as a valuable tool for keeping the team connected and focused on the goals from the sprint planning meeting. This template help...

Sprint Planning Template

A sprint is a time-boxed iteration within which a team does its work. A sprint can last one week, two weeks, or even just a few days. This template helps teams establish a sprint goal, and then use that goal as the basis to determine which expe...

The Innovator's Handbook 2021

We’ve always been big fans of the Innov8rs conference and giant fans of unconferences. It’s the best way to get past the buzzwords and have real discussions about real problems. In other words, to get actionable advice.

Sales Guide Template (Google Doc)

A comprehensive sales guide including email templates, checklists and exercises to prepare you and your team for a successful repeatable sales process. This is the Google Doc version. We also have a .docx version available.

Value Proposition Comprehension Testing - How To Guide

When conversion rates on a landing page or sales page are low, sometimes it just means the page isn't well written. To improve conversion rates, run a comprehension test. A comprehension test is a simple way to see if your marketing language is...

Reverse Press Release Template

Use this template to describe a north star for the team so they’ll always know which direction to go. Write a press release that you want to be written about your product or service in five or ten years.

Sales Guide Template (.docx)

A comprehensive sales guide including email templates, checklists and exercises to prepare you and your team for a successful repeatable sales process. This is the .docx version. We also have a Google Doc version available.

2x2 Risk Mapping Template

This is a simple template that will help your team notestorm questions and prioritize which of those questions to experiment on first.

Startup Poker Rules

Try our game of Startup Poker, where you can practice matching your business model to your market.

Basic Innovation Funnel Template - Google Sheets

A simple template that you can use to design and model innovation funnels.

Attract Your Innovators Planning Sheet

A planning tool to help you attract talent to your innovation team.

Sales CRM Template (Google Sheet)

This sales funnel template is a simple customer relationship management (CRM) spreadsheet that can (and should) be customized by early stage startups who are just establishing a sales process with prospects and beginning to build a customer bas...

Backlog Grooming Template

The Backlog Grooming Template is all about making sure we have a healthy “bucket” of work to pull from when we are planning our sprints. The backlog should connect us to any kind of roadmap we might have, or any kind of longer term goals.

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Financial Modeling Monte Carlo Analysis Example (xlsx)

This template is an extension of the basic financial modeling template which incorporates a Monte Carlo analysis to improve predictions. This analysis uses basic statistics principles to predict returns more accurately than basic business cases...

Innovation Ecosystem Map

A template on how to map out your ecosystem and identify obstacles to innovation that are holding your ecosystem back.

Skill-Mapping Guide

This guide instructs you how to identify and map your and your team's existing skills to better understand the resources (and skill gaps) at hand.

Innovation Project Evaluation Worksheet

Use this template to consistently apply decision criteria when allocating budget to an innovation project.

Kromatic Client Case Study – CBUSA

After our coaching program, the CBUSA team grew from ad hoc membership to a fully cross-functional team of 7, and their innovation planning went from 2-3 times per year to a weekly event.

Jobs to Be Done Template

Use the Jobs to Be Done framework to empathize with your target customers. This is a simple template to help define a job to be done by your target customer.

Mindset Map Template

This template provides the space and structure to outline the mindset your team currently possesses so that you can identify what is desirable in your next new hire.

Value Proposition Statement Mad Lib Template - Google Slides

A simple template that you can use to explain your value proposition.

Basic Portfolio Allocation Template - Google Sheets

A basic template to help you plan and allocate budget for your innovation portfolio.

Innovation Process Checklist

Use and modify this checklist as a benchmark against which to measure innovation investment and management decisions.

Complex Sales Buyer Type Matrix Template (Google Sheets)

Use the Complex Sales Buyer Type Matrix to deconstruct the roles and needs of each player in a complex sales process with your target customer. This is a simple template to help define and identify each individual you will communicate with thro...

Practical Statistics - Rules of Thumb

Apply these practical rules of thumb when running experiments to avoid common biases in the data you use to make business decisions.

S.I.M.P.L.E. Experiment Design

Getting started with rapid experimentation can be daunting, but a few simple tricks will help even advanced innovators focus on their critical risks. The simpler the experiments are, the faster they are to run and gather valuable data.

Learn S.M.A.R.T. Template

A detailed experiment template to help you design and document S.M.A.R.T. experiments and research. (S.M.A.R.T. = Smart, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timely.)

Opportunity Insight Tool

Quick and dirty reference chart to prioritize your sales leads.

Sprint Retrospective Template

Here’s a simple template that you can use to run sprint retrospectives. This template asks an individual or a team to reflect on three things: What went well? What didn’t go well? What do you want to change for next time?

Basic Financial Modeling Template (Excel)

This spreadsheet template helps you create a practical financial model with a small number of key hypotheses. This template represents your business model as inputs and outputs so you can predict if your business is sustainable.

B2B Blocker Checklist: Detecting & Preventing Blockers

Sean K Murphy's checklist for understanding what might be blocking your B2B sales efforts.

Sales Call Note Taking Template

A detailed note taking template best used for video or voice sales calls.

IDEA Template

A basic template for creating simple pitches for those new to innovation and ideation. Only contains three elements to focus the concept on a customer centric problem without dealing with the business model as a whole.

Innovation Obstacle Map

A template on how to identify and map out obstacles to innovation that are holding your ecosystem back.

Learning Journey Mad Lib Template

Coaches use this template when helping someone unlearn something, which is often the first step to teaching them something.

Measuring Mission Impact Template

Mission model projects must balance measurable benefits against measurable costs. This template guides you through the thought process of identifying metrics of mission progress and success plus capturing three categories of your project's cost...

Innovation Board Judging Template

A very basic template for judging Intrapreneur startup pitches. It is meant for early stage projects and judges without extensive innovation experience. It splits the evaluation of the team from the evaluation of the project. Teams can be succe...

Innovation Tactics & Events

This is a short list of innovation enabling methods designed to counteract innovation blockers in your ecosystem.

Risk Evaluation Template

A template to analyze risks (including moral hazard) to experiments and brainstorm ways to mitigate them.

Experiment Calculator

Use the Innovation Experiment Calculator to set up and analyze your experiments. As you are designing the experiment, you can calculate the proper sample size based on the confidence interval you wish to achieve. After you run the experiment, a...

Monster Project Cards

A fun deck of cards to help explain why some projects seem easy and some seem outright impossible. Useful for running group discussions.

Experiment Types: The Real Startup Book

After identifying a clear business question, we need to identify the right method to gather the data that will answer that question. This lean experimentation workshop helps navigate the dozens of experiment and research methods to find the qui...

Leadership Habits Note Taking Template

This is a note taking template for collecting coaching or leadership style feedback.

Value Proposition Statement Mad Lib Template

A simple template that you can use to explain your value proposition.

Kromatic Training Client Case Study- United Kingdom Civil Service

The United Kingdom Civil Service wanted to transform the mindset of their organization to be more agile and responsive to the increasing pace of the global network in which they operated.

Storyboarding & Metrics

Our storyboarding module helps you take your project from a list of features to an experience that customers are willing to pay for. We walk you through the steps to creating a compelling Minimum Viable Product and give you the tools to measure...

Financial (and Mission Impact) Modeling

Every entrepreneur needs to understand how to create a basic financial model of their business. This workshop teaches you the most important elements to model for the most common business types, and to project how your business will grow based ...

Practical Statistics for Quantitative Experiments

Support your customer discovery, landing page, and comprehension test processes with a basic grasp of applicable statistics. You will learn how to recognize false signals in your experiments, determine sample sizes for experiments, calculate ma...

Measuring Product / Market Fit

Statistics can be intimidating, but using basic tools and templates can help you identify your odds of startup success. This workshop gives you the statistics training you need to measure Product / Market fit, create a financial model, and test...

Customer Discovery & Debriefing

There is nothing more impactful to your early-stage business model than truly understanding the person you are building for and selling to. This interactive online workshop teaches all you need to know to get out of the building and start talki...

Setting Personal & Team Goals

Goal setting is an important step before any major journey. Defining effective goals allows you and your team to make progress and then measure it. This goal setting workshop shows you how to set goals for yourself and your team, and how to cre...

Customer Segmentation for Complex Sales (B2B)

Larger organizations require more stakeholders to close a sale. Understanding the differences between Economic Buyers, Technical Buyers, Evangelists, and Users can turn a longshot into a win. Learn the basics of Value Proposition design and how...

Complex (B2B) Sales Mapping

Complex sales with multiple stakeholders is far more complicated than simple sales for a consumer application. Long sales cycles and complex bidding practices make applying rapid prototyping and lean startup a challenge. This workshop examines ...

Complex Sales Calls

The customer discovery skills you’ve learned so far won’t close a sale. At some point, active listening and discovery of a customer’s problems must result in a well-crafted sales call. Participants in this sales call training learn how to trans...

Business Model Risk Prioritization

All innovation projects come with risks, and successful businesses know how to navigate them. This workshop covers how to brainstorm and prioritize risks with your teams, and clarifies why certain risks are the right thing to focus on at certai...

S.M.A.R.T. Experiment Design

Innovators who have mastered Learn S.I.M.P.L.E. experiment design can take their experiments to the next level by designing S.M.A.R.T. experiments. The Learn S.M.A.R.T. template introduces additional checks on experiments to avoid cognitive bia...

Experiment Types Matrix Poster

Download, print, and display this handy one-page poster in a place you look for inspiration. Use this poster for browsing experiment types organized on a matrix of problem/solution and generative/evaluative. This is a great reference tool for s...

Innovation Ecosystem Triage

Innovation Ecosystems are complex, and they challenge some of the traditional models of R&D and innovation. A holistic view of how culture, people, and processes interact is vital to allow a system to disrupt and reinvent itself. This workshop ...

Innovation Ecosystem Design & Metrics

All ecosystems are different, and blindly copying another company’s model can lead to disaster. Each company must take its strengths and weaknesses into account and design an innovation program to complement their vision and resources. This wor...

Innovation and Portfolio Management

You can't just drag your company into the future by throwing money at R&D. This innovation management workshop helps you understand the ROI of innovation, explain it to stakeholders, and make a case for a dedicated innovation budget using meter...

Value Proposition & Comprehension Testing

Creating a compelling product or service starts with your value proposition design. If a customer can't understand what's being sold, they won't buy it. This workshop lays out the different tasks involved in value proposition design, and how to...

Project Management & Roadmapping

A project roadmap is only so effective when you don’t know what the next month holds for you. This innovation project management workshop teaches skills aimed at maximizing the time we spend discovering what works and what doesn’t, and how succ...

Effective Survey Design

Surveys are one of the best tools for an innovator -- and one of the worst. A good survey can collect valuable quantitative data very quickly. A bad survey can produce deceptive data that promotes a poor idea, or disqualifies a great one. This ...

Coaching Mindset & Facilitation Techniques

Discover facilitation techniques, understand different team makeups, and learn how to get the most out of your teams. Using tools like our Business Model Canvas, this facilitation technique workshop helps you figure out where your team is right...

Innovation Culture & Group Behavior

Maintaining an innovative culture is a competitive advantage. But how do you maintain startup culture while growing the company? How can existing companies bring startup culture to their teams? This innovation culture workshop helps participant...

Building Teams

When assembling an innovation team to work on a new idea, you need the right team members. If your team can't get around the build-measure-learn loop, they won't be able to make much progress. This innovation team building workshop teaches you ...

Team Accountability

How do you build team accountability? Knowing the work that needs to be done on an innovation project is one thing. Knowing how to actually get it done is another. This workshop walks you through how a team holds itself accountable by agreeing ...

Creating Effective Exercises

Innovation coaches are often part of a facilitation team teaching new skills to innovators in their company. This workshop focuses on designing effective facilitation techniques to teach the right lesson for the right circumstances, and getting...

Leadership Habits

Identify your negative leadership habits and design better habits that work for you and your team. By creating a plan to collect feedback on your behaviors, breaking down good and bad leadership habits in a matrix exercise, and establishing OKR...

Stakeholder Management

Improve your project's chance of success by successfully navigating power dynamics in your organization. This workshop teaches you the stakeholder engagement skills you need to maintain relationships with relevant parties by aligning your goals...

Customer Relationships

Early adopter customers are hard to find, but crucial to the success of an entrepreneur's product. A simple follow-up can build relationships and community among early adopters and even create evangelists for you. This workshop teaches effectiv...

Marketing Channel Development

Once you've validated your customer segment, you'll need to build a business model that targets those customers. This workshop helps you scale your business by designing experiments around marketing channels to communicate your value propositio...

Lean, Agile, & UX Principles

Lean Startup was born from a need for companies to innovate in high-risk environments in constantly changing markets. Like agile methodology, this lean startup course aims at applying a scientific approach to innovation, identifying business as...

Business Model Design

This module shows you how startups use business models to drive innovation, including how uses of a business model differ between startups seeking product/market fit and larger corporations that have already found it. Learn how to fill out a bu...

Innovation Strategy

Without a viable strategy, innovation projects will not be aligned with company goals, and great ideas may be abandoned for upsetting the status quo. This workshop shows you how to design your strategy before investing in innovation, and how to...

Pitching Innovation Projects

Whether you're pitching a VC or an internal investment board at a big company, you've got to explain your vision, show your evidence, and communicate clearly. This workshop teaches you how to execute an effective pitch plan and not get sidetrac...

Usability Testing

Even if your product has all the right features, customers can't love what they can't use. You may have the curse of knowledge -- what is obvious to you isn't obvious to your users. By running simple tests in as little as 30 minutes, you can ge...

Stage Gate Criteria Template

This template is a framework for making pivot or persevere decisions on an innovation project. It's a space to set clear criteria to keep running experiments (persevere), for success (scaling up), or for failure (kill or pivot.)

Example Data Distributions

Use this Workbook as a sandbox to familiarize yourself with different distributions and their shapes to better understand the possibilities and probabilities that your experiment data (for example, your financial model) may take.

The Real Startup Book Online

The Real Startup Book is a large, crowdsourced compilation of research and experiment inquiry methods from lean practitioners worldwide. Every method has a short description, a how-to guide, and links to additional information. This book is bes...

The Innovator's Handbook 2024

Looking forward, how can we as innovators contribute to our organization’s top and bottom line in sustainable and scalable ways?

You’ll find the answer to this fundamental question in this handbook, outlining the “what” and “how” for inn...

Kickstarting Daily Standups

Unleash the full potential of your team with effective Daily Standups. Learn to streamline standup meetings, enhance team collaboration, and boost productivity through focused daily communications. Perfect for leaders and teams in dynamic envir...

Facilitate Daily Standups

Facilitating Daily Standups effectively is crucial for maximizing the benefits of this agile practice. If your team is already conducting standups but not seeing the anticipated improvements in productivity and engagement, learning to facilitat...

Crafting Clear Problem Statements to Spur Action

Build motivation and support to innovate and solve problems effectively by mastering the art of crafting clear problem statements. Gather and convey the critical elements of the problem space in a concise, cohere...

The Retrospective Ritual for Elevating Team Performance

Unlock the full potential of your project teams with candid retrospectives. Learn how to lead your team to reflect, learn, and improve continuously, enhancing both team cohesion and project outcomes.

Rapid Prioritization

Unlock the power of effective task management with our rapid prioritization training. Learn to quickly identify key tasks, focus on impactful actions, and enhance your productivity in any professional or personal setting. Perfect for profession...

Root Cause Analysis for Complex Issues

Master Root Cause Analysis for Complex Issues to tackle deep-rooted business challenges effectively. Gain strategic insights and practical frameworks to identify the real root causes, prevent recurring problems, and ensure sustainable improveme...

Root Cause Analysis: A Five Whys Approach

Discover how the Five Whys method can transform your problem-solving approach. Learn this simple yet effective method to identify and address the root causes of issues. Expect to gain efficiency and prevent future recurring problems as a result...

Strategic Project Planning with Pre-Mortems

Prepare for the best outcomes by planning for the worst. Foresee project challenges, preempt unwanted happenings, and boost your success rates in complex projects with the strategic advantages provided by pre-mortems. Use this exercise to trans...

Scenario Planning

Master Scenario Planning to turn uncertainty into a competitive advantage. Follow our step by step framework to plan for likely disruptive events. Flex your adaptability skills to enhance decision-making and drive innovation.

Understanding Needs with Discovery Interviews

Unlock the full potential of your business with the power of discovery interviews. Learn to generate actionable insights from customer conversations, driving innovation and enhancing satisfaction. Perfect for product managers, marketers, and en...

Debriefing Discovery Interviews

Unlock the full potential of customer interviews with our Debriefing Discovery Interviews training. Learn to transform raw feedback into actionable strategies that drive innovation and enhance product development, all tailored to meet the real ...

Pivot or Persevere Decisions

Unlock the critical business skill of deciding when to pivot or persevere with our expert-led training. Discover frameworks and strategies that help you make confident, informed decisions to steer your projects towards success. Let us guide you...

The Innovator's Handbook 2025

As the dust settles from the innovation-lab closures and AI hype, the role of the innovation function is becoming clearer than ever: delivering tangible value quickly and effectively. In response to a renewed sense of focus and urgency, The Inn...