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The Field Discovery Window Rhythm

Run the Field Discovery Window Rhythm MicroSim Fullscreen

About This MicroSim

The Eight-Hour Entrepreneur has two kinds of time. Four live sessions of two hours each happen inside the cohort, on video. Three Field Discovery Windows of seven days each happen outside it, where participants test their canvas blocks against real people. This timeline draws both to scale:

  • Each live session is a thin, solid indigo block in the top row, "Inside the cohort."
  • Each Field Discovery Window (FDW) is a wide, dashed fox-orange segment in the bottom row, "Out in the field."

The difference in width is the lesson. The course has 8 hours of live instruction and 21 days of field work, so most of the real work happens between sessions, not during them.

Selecting an entry opens a detail panel with three concrete pieces:

  • What happens: the assignment for that session or window.
  • Jordan's version: what Jordan does with it for the mobile dog-grooming idea.
  • How it connects: what the entry takes in from the one before it and hands to the one after it. Each session turns the last window's evidence into canvas blocks, and each window tests the blocks the last session produced.

On wide screens a course clock at the bottom of the panel adds up the live hours and field days completed so far.

How to Use

  1. Start at Step 1: Session 1, which is selected when the page loads.
  2. Click Next to move one entry forward in course order, or Previous to go back. The left and right arrow keys work too.
  3. Click any block on the timeline to jump straight to it. Hover over a block for a one-line preview.
  4. For each entry, read How it connects and name what it received from the previous entry and what it passes on.

On a phone, the timeline keeps a readable width and scrolls sideways. Each step scrolls its entry into view.

Iframe Embed Code

You can add this MicroSim to any web page by adding this to your HTML:

<iframe src="https://dmccreary.github.io/eight-hour-entrepreneur/sims/field-discovery-window-rhythm/main.html"
        height="562px"
        width="100%"
        scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Audience

Adult early-stage entrepreneurs and aspiring founders in a live virtual cohort.

Learning Objective

Participants will explain what happens during each live session and each Field Discovery Window across the four-week course, and describe the relationship between the two: live sessions turn evidence into canvas blocks, and Field Discovery Windows test those blocks with real customers.

Bloom Level: Understand (L2). Bloom Verb: explain.

Duration

10 minutes

Prerequisites

  • Chapter 2 reading on the virtual learning lab, cohort-based learning, and the Field Discovery Window
  • Chapter 1's Jordan example (the mobile dog-grooming idea)

Activities

  1. Step through the course (4 min): Each participant clicks Next through all seven entries and reads the three parts of each detail panel.
  2. Compare the widths (2 min): As a group, compare the width of one indigo session block with one orange window. Ask: where does most of the course's work actually happen, and why is it placed there instead of in the live sessions?
  3. Trace one handoff (4 min): In pairs, pick one window. One partner explains what it tested from the session before it; the other explains what the session after it builds from its results. Then each partner writes the FDW 1 task for their own idea in one sentence.

Assessment

  • Can the participant state the assignment for any session or window without looking?
  • Can the participant explain why Session 2 cannot happen before FDW 1 finishes?
  • Can the participant describe the difference between a live session and a Field Discovery Window using the words "cohort" and "real customers"?

References

  1. Customer development - Wikipedia - Steve Blank's method of leaving the building to test assumptions with customers, the idea behind every Field Discovery Window.
  2. Lean startup - Wikipedia - The build-measure-learn loop that the session-then-window rhythm repeats three times.
  3. Experiential learning - Wikipedia - Kolb's cycle of doing, reflecting, and applying, which the alternation of field work and live debrief follows.
  4. Spacing effect - Wikipedia - Why learning spread across weeks, with gaps between sessions, tends to last longer than the same hours packed into one block.
  5. The Mom Test - Rob Fitzpatrick - How to run the customer conversations that FDW 1 asks for without collecting polite, useless compliments.