DIVE-IN: Problem first team formation in entrepreneurship education

Many startups teams are formed around ideas. This is most evident at the outset of entrepreneurship education programmes, at startup weekends, hackathons and founder formation events where people enthusiastically pitch ideas for others to gather around. Texts such as Business Model Generation, Crossing the Chasm amongst others often inform the completion of a Business Model Canvas ahead of pitching for investment. Recent developments have aimed to provide a step-by-step process that can test the commercial potential of an innovation, including the formidable Discipled Entrepreneurship. However, all of these texts and processes have a starting point of technology first or very well formed idea first. In contrast, this study explores the experience of 33 participants aiming to return to work after a period of unemployment that do not have a technology or a well-formed idea as they engage in a one year postgraduate diploma in technology innovation for entrepreneurship development. Inspired by social constructivist thinking, this study aims to establish the effectiveness of a designed problem pitching and collaborative validation process on team formation for sustainable innovation driven entrepreneurship. DIVE-IN (Define, Investigate, Verify, Empathise - Ideate & Narrate) asked programme participants to collaboratively negotiate their interpretation of a validated problem within a highly scaffolded learning environment. Qualitative data gathered suggests that while participants initially struggled to gather around a problem statement without a clear vision of a solution, the process of structured collaborative negotiation solidified their formation as a team and ensured that any solution to their identified problem had, at a high level a commercial viability. Participants viewed this process as a key informant of whether or not to proceed to solution ideation and as a critically important learning outcome for the development of a sustainable career as a serial entrepreneur. This paper will outline the conceptual framework supporting this process, detail the method of execution and present an analysis of the impact of the process on the participants. A model is presented for others to adopt and/or adapt in cognate settings.