The index below includes terms that are frequently used in BRI's resource materials, the Growth Forge software, in the course of performing our services. They may often be used by, and in many cases, coined by other experts and academics working in the new business growth and innovation strategy domain. We started maintaining a collection of them here for the convenience of our clients.
Innovation Methodology is a formal and systematic approach to funding, managing, and pursuing new business innovation and exploratory businesses. At its core in BRI Associates' practice is an inner loop repeated until a strategy hypothesis is ready for a gate decision: develop the hypothesis, evaluate it holistically through the Desirability–Feasibility–Viability (DFV) lens, gather evidence against its riskiest assumptions, and decide. The discipline is that confidence comes from evidence, not enthusiasm — each cycle reduces the uncertainty that matters most before more is committed.
A Job to Be Done (JTBD) is what a potential customer is ultimately trying to accomplish, framed independently of any solution they are currently using. In BRI Associates' methodology, JTBDs are the anchor for understanding why customers act, which outcomes they actually value, and what would make a new product or business compelling enough to switch to. A well-formed JTBD is solution-agnostic — 'get groceries home,' not 'use a delivery app' — and stable over time: the job 'keep my home comfortable' outlived fireplaces, furnaces, and smart thermostats. BRI states every working JTBD in a three-part syntax — verb + object of the action + clarifying context — for example, 'reduce time-to-decision when evaluating a new strategy hypothesis.'
Market sizing is the process of quantifying the potential revenue or volume available in a target market, commonly expressed as Total Addressable Market (TAM), Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM), and Share of Market (SOM) — the realistic share the organization can actually capture. It bounds the opportunity — how big the prize could be and how much of it is genuinely reachable — and disciplines a strategy against wishful 'if we capture 1% of a huge market' reasoning.
In corporate innovation, incubation and scaling call for opposite operating models. Incubation is exploratory and discovery-driven — its job is to reduce the uncertainty in a new strategy hypothesis before much is committed. Scaling is execution-driven — its job is to optimize, build operating capability, and grow a now-validated business efficiently. The Mezzanine is BRI Associates' name for the transition between the two: the scaling stage of governance, where venture-specific operating practices are hybridized with controlled re-integration into the parent organization's core resources and processes. The difficulty is that the incubation governance model is wrong for a business that now needs execution discipline, while the mature-core governance model is wrong for a business that still has unresolved uncertainties — so imposing core-business synergies all at once is one of the most common ways mature companies destroy ventures they spent years building.
A method of evaluating the probability distribution of a key output of the model based on randomized inputs across the range for uncertainty assumptions in the model.
An implementation approach that develops the whole solution using predominantly the organization's own native resources, rather than relying on external partners, acquisitions, or licensed intellectual property.
