Intrapreneurship: 10 Lessons from the Trenches

Telefonica's Lean Elephants program is an intrapreneurship initiative which allows employees to submit their ideas and if selected, work on them with full-time support. The program based on the Lean Startup methodologies defines the processes and way of working, 5 different stages and the metrics to measure progress. Telefonica has found success with their 10 Fridays initiative that provides people with an ideation program where they submit ideas and get ten Fridays to work on them. Telefonica has also found that it is crucial to have both an end-to-end innovation and idea incubation process in place and the required resources allocated for nurturing and investing in the resulting internal ventures. It's important to encourage intrapreneurs to change their mindset and way of working as well as supporting their over-arching objectives of experimenting with products and services that can form new profitable business units. The program has evolved over time, and Telefonica's Head of Innovation Portfolio provides valuable lessons regarding innovation management.