Moneyball has been credited within the Lean Startup community as a classic example of some of their principles.
I thought for those who haven’t had an opportunity to watch it that I would note some of the more powerful statements made in the movie. Some are slightly modified to apply outside of baseball so that you can potentially better relate it to your own environment:
- The first guy through the wall always gets bloody.
- This is threatening not just their business, this is threatening their livelihood. It’s threatening their jobs, it’s threatening the way that they do things.
And every time that happens, whether it is a government, or the way they do their business, or whatever it is, the people that are holding the reigns – their hands on the switch, they go bat shit crazy.- Anyone that’s not changing – they’re dinosaurs.
- There is an epidemic failure in the system to understand what is really happening. This leads people who run their teams to mis-manage their teams.
- They are asking all the wrong questions. If I say it to someone I am ostracized. I’m a leper.
Agile Forest 